October 19, 2026

ESA Picks Planet Subsidiary Sinergise to Build Slovenia Space Resilience Node (Source: Sky Nightly)
The European Space Agency (ESA) has selected Sinergise Solutions, a subsidiary of Planet Labs, to build the Slovenia Space Resilience Node (SRN), a prototype that turns automated satellite alerts into high-resolution imaging requests for emergency responders. The 12-month pilot runs under Element 2 of ESA's European Resilience from Space  Earth Observation program. The system is being built for Slovenia's Administration for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief. Its aim is to automate the step between spotting change across a wide area and pointing a high-resolution satellite at it, a workflow known as "tip-and-cue."

The SRN will analyze open Copernicus data and imagery from Planet's PlanetScope satellites without human input. When it detects an anomaly or a pre-set threshold is crossed, it will raise an alert and send a high-resolution tasking request, including to Planet's Pelican satellites. The processed images will then appear in the emergency responders' own map view within hours, giving them a picture of an unfolding crisis. (10/14)

Satellite Services Lift Planet to a Record Quarter, With a Softer One Forecast Next (Source: Sky Nightly)
Planet Labs has posted record quarterly revenue on the back of a new kind of sale. Instead of only licensing pictures of the  Earth, the San Francisco company is increasingly building satellites for governments, operating them, and handing them over. Revenue for the three months to July 31, 2026 reached a record $116.1 million, up 58% from $73.4 million a year earlier. Chief executive Will Marshall cited the handover of its first Pelican satellite to the Swedish Armed Forces. (10/19)

ispace-EUROPE and ALTEC Sign MoU to Explore Lunar Rover Testing in Turin (Source: Sky Nightly)
ispace-EUROPE, the Luxembourg-based European arm of Japanese lunar company ispace, inc., will look at using facilities run by ALTEC in Turin, Italy, to test its lunar rovers and train the team that operates them, under a Memorandum of Understanding the two companies announced on October 12, 2026. (10/18)

PlanetiQ Weather Sounding Satellite GNOMES-10 Reaches Orbit, With GNOMES-11 Planned This Month (Source: Beyond LEO)
PlanetiQ has put another weather sounding satellite into orbit. GNOMES-10 launched on October 1. The satellite is not yet delivering data. According to PlanetiQ, its partner ground stations made first contact with GNOMES-10 soon after launch, and spacecraft commissioning began immediately. Until commissioning is complete, the launch adds capacity on paper rather than observations in hand. The company describes GNOMES-10 as another major step in expanding its global GNSS radio occultation (GNSS-RO) constellation. (10/18)

Embedl and Space Cargo Unlimited Show Onboard AI To Monitor Crystal Growth Experiments (Source: Beyond LEO)
Embedl and Space Cargo Unlimited have built a prototype AI system that they say could let an uncrewed payload judge its own protein crystal experiments without waiting for scientists on the ground. The companies announced the prototype on October 15, 2026, in Luxembourg. According to them, it runs on a single NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX 16GB module, analyzes experiment imagery, flags anomalies and recommends actions without needing continuous ground connectivity. (10/17)

Hermeus Buys Former Virgin Galactic at Mojave (Source: Douglas Messier)
Hypersonic aircraft developer Hermeus has purchased a Virgin Galactic hangar originally built to produce suborbital SpaceShipTwo rocket planes. Hermeus has acquired Virgin Galactic’s Final Assembly, Integration and Test Hangar (FAITH) at the Mojave Air and Space Port (MASP) at Rutan Field in California. Virgin Galactic sold FAITH to Hermeus after MASP’s Board of Directors voted unanimously last month to not exercise its right of first refusal to purchase the hangar, according to meeting minutes.

On Oct. 6, the spaceport’s board approved the assignment of the ground lease to Hermeus at its meeting. Virgin Galactic signed a 55-year lease in October 2010. Virgin Galactic’s spent $8 million constructing FAITH. The 68,000-square-foot facility was designed to produce suborbital SpaceShipTwo vehicles and the WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft that air launch them. The company rolled out the VSS Unity rocket plane in February 2016.

Virgin Galactic subsequently moved SpaceShipTwo production to Mesa, Arizona. The company operates commercial flights out of Spaceport America in New Mexico. Virgin Galactic’s corporate headquarters is located in Tustin, California. (10/18)

Four Ways to Accommodate Massive Growth in Space Launches (Source: ASRC Federal)
Congested launch dates are testing the government’s resources in terms of the limited facilities, personnel and funding available to support these missions. While Congress and the White House explore policy and program changes, agencies like NASA and the Space Force have made progress in developing new approaches to addressing those challenges. However, there are specific opportunities to sustain successful space operations while ramping up the country’s ability to accommodate the growing demand for space launches.

1) Expand the number of launch sites. 2) Determine U.S. space launch prioritization guidelines. The government could consider creating a U.S. launch priority framework. 3) Build up existing infrastructure at Canaveral, with help from the private sector. 4) Use the Federal Aviation Administration’s National Airspace System program as a model. Spaceports could operate under similar cost sharing models as airports, where airlines lease space and are billed for commodities such as oil, fuel and water. (10/15)

NASA Is About to Investigate What Lies Beneath a Giant Hole on the Moon (Source: SciTech Daily)
NASA is backing a search for a hidden lunar cave that could reveal how ancient volcanic activity shaped the Moon. Scientists have gathered compelling evidence from lunar orbit for caves and lava tubes beneath the Moon’s surface, places that could one day shelter astronauts from radiation and extreme temperature swings. NASA has selected a Planetary Science Institute (PSI)-led project to investigate whether a potentially large cave extends beyond the opening of the Marius Hill Pit (MHP).

A lander and rover will carry the instruments for the Geophysical Instruments for Marius Lunar pit Investigation, or GIMLI. Ground-penetrating radar will probe buried structures with radio waves, while seismic sensors will record how deliberately generated vibrations travel through the ground. The team will combine those readings with gravity measurements from a gravimeter and camera images of the surface and pit walls to investigate the surrounding material and estimate the size of any void it finds. (10/17)

Rigorous Analysis Confirms NASA’s Artemis II Heat Shield Performance (Source: NASA)
NASA’s Artemis II mission sent four astronauts around the Moon and brought them safely back to Earth, laying a foundation for crewed flights to the Moon’s surface. Additional engineering data analysis of the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield confirmed initial data showing the heat shield performed as expected. In particular, NASA measured whether the thermal protection system effectively safeguarded the crew and Orion systems as the spacecraft reentered Earth’s atmosphere. This test flight was the first time astronauts flew aboard Orion. (10/15)

SpaceX is Coming to Louisiana. Here’s How it Turned Texas’s Poorest Town Into a ‘Space City (Source: NOLA.com)
Elon Musk hadn’t yet flown a single person to space when he approached local leaders here with a plan 15 years ago: He wanted to save humanity by colonizing Mars, and to get there he proposed building a giant rocket facility in this impoverished town. Gilberto Salinas, a local economic development official, said he laughed it off initially: “This is just crazy, right?”

Salinas flew to Hawthorne, California, to see SpaceX’s early rocket factory and to “kick the tires” on the company, as he put it, because it was then still essentially a startup. “They were, in fact, building rockets,” Salinas said. “But they were a bunch of kids that were in their late 20s, early 30s. To me they looked like skateboarders.” Click here. (10/18)

Veteran NASA Engineer Named Marshall Space Flight Center Director (Source: AL.com)
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has named Stephen Cash director of the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. Cash, a veteran NASA engineer and aerospace executive, returns to lead the center where he began his career more than four decades ago. (10/16)