Key Facts Full Report SpaceX Soars: Starship’s Triumph and More Starship’s First Orbital Success: SpaceX’s Starship finally broke its streak of test failures in spectacular fashion. On Aug. 26, the 403-foot reusable rocket system completed its tenth test flight and achieved several firsts. After launching from Starbase, Texas, the Starship upper stage reached space and…
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Commercial Space Sector: Launches, Satellites & Space Tourism Government Space Agencies: Programs, Missions & Collaboration Military & Defense Space: Secret Launches and Surveillance Science & Exploration: New Discoveries and ISS Experiments Sources: Space.com space.com space.com; KEYT News keyt.com keyt.com; NASA (news releases & blogs) nasa.gov nasa.gov ts2.tech; India Today indiatoday.in indiatoday.in; TS² Space News ts2.tech…
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On Aug. 17, China launched the Long March-4C from Xichang at 4:55 p.m. local time with the Shiyan-28B 02 satellite for space environment exploration and technology tests. Hours later on Aug. 17, China launched a Long March-6 from Taiyuan at 10:15 p.m., deploying the ninth batch of low-Earth orbit satellites to form a new internet…
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Crew-10, comprising NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA’s Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos’ Kirill Peskov, is targeting undocking on Aug 8, 2025, with splashdown off the California coast on Aug 9, 2025, marking the first crewed California splashdown under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program after a five-month science mission. China completed the first full-scale test…
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On July 25 at 1:54 a.m. ET, a Soyuz-2.1b from Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome lofted 21 satellites into orbit, including two Ionosfera-M space weather satellites, Iran’s Nahid-2, and 18 rideshares. The four Ionosfera-M satellites will provide three-dimensional near-Earth space coverage to study solar wind effects on radio communications and satellites, with the first two launched in…
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Japan’s H-2A completed its 50th and final launch on June 28, 2025, carrying the GOSAT-GW climate-monitoring satellite, after a 49-for-50 success rate (98%). Over its service, H-2A lofted payloads including SELENE (Kaguya), Akatsuki, Hayabusa 2, and the Emirates Mars Mission. H3, Japan’s next-generation launcher, is designed to be more cost-effective and flexible, standing about 57–63…
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ESA’s Biomass satellite, the first with a P-band SAR, released its initial high-resolution images and enables 3D mapping of forest structure for carbon accounting. Rocket Lab’s 67th Electron launch deployed four satellites—three HawkEye 360 Cluster 12 microsatellites and the experimental Kestrel-0A—marking the ninth Electron mission in 2024. Amazon’s Project Kuiper added 27 satellites to reach…
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CO3D comprises four identical S250-based satellites, each weighing about 250–300 kg with 100% electric propulsion, delivering ~50 cm spatial-resolution optical imagery. It aims to produce a global Digital Surface Model with ~1 m vertical accuracy and to map ~40 million km² of Earth’s land per year in 3D. The system targets roughly 90% of the…
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By 2040, analysts expect the global GEO replacement rate to be 10–15 new satellites per year, totaling about 200 GEO satellites from 2024 to 2040 and replacing most of today’s roughly 350-satellite fleet. A typical GEO satellite is designed for about 15 years, but all-electric propulsion and on-orbit servicing can push operational life to 20–30…
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