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Satellites News 20 June 2025 - 21 June 2025

Space Force’s Secret 480-Satellite MILNET: Inside SpaceX’s New Military “Starlink” Revolution

Space Force’s Secret 480-Satellite MILNET: Inside SpaceX’s New Military “Starlink” Revolution

MILNET is a secret Space Force project that will be a government-owned, contractor-operated LEO satcom constellation of about 480 satellites, announced in June 2025. On June 18, 2025, Breaking Defense revealed that Space Force is funding MILNET in partnership with SpaceX, with SpaceX building and flying the satellites while Space Force Delta 8 oversees operations and the NRO manages the program. MILNET will use SpaceX’s Starshield platform, delivering enhanced encryption and security, with Starshield ground terminals derived from Starlink hardware able to interoperate with Starlink via laser cross-links. The network is designed as a hybrid mesh that will fuse DoD
21 June 2025
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Zombie Satellite! Defunct NASA Orbiter Emits Blazing Radio Burst After 60 Years

Zombie Satellite Awakens: Defunct 1960s NASA Orbiter Blasts Earth with Mysterious Radio Pulse

Relay 2 was a NASA experimental communications satellite built by RCA, launched January 21, 1964, atop a Delta B rocket from Cape Canaveral, designed to relay television signals and study Earth’s radiation belts. Ground support for Relay 2 ended by September 1965, and its transmitters began failing, with the first transponder dying on November 20, 1966. The second transponder failed on June 9, 1967, leaving Relay 2 officially defunct and transmitting for less than three years. Relay 2 weighed about 78 kg (172 lb) at launch and orbited in an elliptical medium Earth orbit roughly 1,870 km by 7,600 km.
21 June 2025
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France Tightens Grip on Space: Inside the €1.35 Billion Eutelsat Power Play

France Tightens Grip on Space: Inside the €1.35 Billion Eutelsat Power Play

In June 2025 the French government announced a €1.35 billion capital injection into Eutelsat, via the Agence des participations de l’État, with €717 million to be injected and Bpifrance’s 13.6% stake absorbed, lifting France’s holding to 29.99%. France becomes Eutelsat’s largest shareholder as a result of the stake transfer, solidifying the 29.99% holding. The move is designed to create a European satellite champion to counter Starlink and to secure sovereign access to space infrastructure amid geopolitical tensions. Eutelsat was founded in 1977, pioneered Europe’s direct-to-home TV in the 1990s, merged with OneWeb in July 2022, and the deal closed on
21 June 2025
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Zombie Satellite! Defunct NASA Orbiter Emits Blazing Radio Burst After 60 Years

Zombie Satellite! Defunct NASA Orbiter Emits Blazing Radio Burst After 60 Years

Relay-2 launched January 21, 1964 from Cape Canaveral as part of NASA’s Relay program to relay television and telemetry signals and study the Van Allen belts. Relay-2 operated 1964–1967, with the first transponder failing on November 20, 1966 and the second on June 9, 1967, after which it was retired. After deactivation, Relay-2 drifted in a medium Earth orbit of roughly 1,870 by 7,600 km. On June 13, 2024, ASKAP detected a radio burst lasting less than 30 nanoseconds, peaking at roughly 300,000–350,000 Jy, spanning 695–1,032 MHz. The event was traced to Relay-2 in near-Earth space using ASKAP’s near-field timing,
21 June 2025
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Pentagon’s Space Internet Nightmare: Why the Unified Satellite Network Keeps Stalling

Pentagon’s Space Internet Nightmare: Why the Unified Satellite Network Keeps Stalling

The Pentagon aims to field a software-defined, multi-layer Enterprise SATCOM network that seamlessly routes data across DoD, allied, and commercial satellites in LEO, MEO, and GEO to support Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2). In 2020 the Space Force and DoD CIO committed to the shift, with the SDA launching the National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA), later renamed the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), to field hundreds of small satellites as a mesh-layer backbone. Interoperable Hybrid Terminals would allow a single device to talk to any authorized satellite by software, with the Air Force aiming to field its first multi-network
21 June 2025
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Eyes in the Sky: How Earth Observation Is Revolutionizing Disaster Management

Eyes in the Sky: How Earth Observation Is Revolutionizing Disaster Management

Sentinel-1 radar imaged the aftermath of Cyclone Idai in Mozambique in 2019 and revealed approximately 2,165 km² of flooding around the coastal city of Beira. Idai’s satellite flood maps pinpointed about 400,000 people stranded and helped allocate rescue resources. NOAA’s GOES weather satellites monitored Hurricane Dorian in 2019 as it approached the Bahamas, providing real-time imagery for track and intensity forecasts. The 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption led to satellites tracking its ash plume across Europe, prompting unprecedented airspace closures. In July 2019, NASA’s FIRMS distributed over 780,000 near real-time fire alerts worldwide. The NASA–ISRO NISAR mission, launching in 2024, will scan
21 June 2025
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Solar Tempests & Orbital Guardians: The Secret Life of Space-Weather Satellites

Solar Tempests & Orbital Guardians: The Secret Life of Space-Weather Satellites

1859: British astronomer Richard Carrington observed a powerful solar flare, and within a day telegraph systems worldwide went haywire while auroras appeared near the equator—the Carrington Event, the largest geomagnetic storm on record. During the 1957–58 International Geophysical Year, Explorer-1 became the first U.S. satellite to discover the Van Allen radiation belts encircling Earth. SOHO, launched in 1995, sits at the Sun–Earth L1 point and uses the LASCO coronagraph to image CMEs, providing continuous data for 1–3 day storm forecasts and imaging the Sun for over 25 years. ACE (launched 1997) and DSCOVR (launched 2015) operate upstream solar-wind monitors at
20 June 2025
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Inside Israel’s Space Power: Satellites, Services, and the Secret Strength of the Israel Space Agency

Inside Israel’s Space Power: Satellites, Services, and the Secret Strength of the Israel Space Agency

On September 19, 1988, Ofek-1 became Israel’s first indigenous satellite, making Israel the eighth nation to orbit its own spacecraft. The Israel Space Agency (ISA) was established in 1983 under physicist Yuval Ne’eman to oversee Israel’s civilian space activities. The Shavit launch vehicle is a 20-meter-tall, three-stage solid-fuel rocket that can loft about 380 kg to a low Earth orbit when launching westward from Palmachim. The VENμS environmental satellite, launched in 2017 and operated through 2023, is a ~265 kg microsatellite built by Israel Aerospace Industries with France’s CNES to monitor vegetation and environmental parameters. AMOS-1, Israel’s first commercial telecom
20 June 2025
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Inside China’s Space Empire: Satellites, Services, and the Secret Power of CNSA

Inside China’s Space Empire: Satellites, Services, and the Secret Power of CNSA

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) was established in 1993 as China’s civil space authority. By the end of 2024, China operated more than 1,060 active satellites in orbit, a count that has grown more than six-fold since 2015. Chang’e-4 achieved the first landing on the Moon’s far side in 2019. Micius (Mozi), launched in 2016, became the world’s first quantum communications satellite enabling space-based quantum key distribution. BeiDou reached full global coverage with the final BDS-3 satellite launched in June 2020. The Guowang LEO megaconstellation targets about 13,000 satellites, with three batches launched by April 2025 and an initial
20 June 2025
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Iranian Satellites and Space Agency: Capabilities, Missions, and Strategic Vision

Iranian Satellites and Space Agency: Capabilities, Missions, and Strategic Vision

February 2009: Iran becomes the ninth country to launch an indigenous satellite with its own rocket, sending Omid into orbit on the Safir launcher. Khayyam (2022) is a 600 kg Earth-observation satellite with 1-meter resolution, built with Russian collaboration and launched by a Russian Soyuz to a ~500 km orbit. Noor-1, Iran’s first military satellite, was launched in April 2020 on the Qased rocket into a ~425 km orbit and weighed about 25 kg. Noor-2 (2022) followed Noor-1, about 27 kg, placed in a ~500 km LEO using the Qased launcher and remains in orbit. Noor-3 (2023) is the third
20 June 2025
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Space Showdown: How Military Satellites Are Shaping the Ukraine‑Russia War

Space Showdown: How Military Satellites Are Shaping the Ukraine‑Russia War

SpaceX deployed 5,000 Starlink terminals to Ukraine within days of the 2022 invasion, rising to about 15,000 active terminals by June 2022, with Ukraine at one point accounting for roughly 58% of global Starlink traffic. Russia attempted to jam Starlink signals on the battlefield, SpaceX rolled a software update to bypass the jamming, and by 2023–2024 reports noted illicit Starlink terminals in Russian hands that had to be disabled. On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a cyberattack against Viasat’s KA-SAT network that crippled thousands of Ukrainian modems and disrupted satellite links across Europe. In August 2022, Ukraine crowdfunded $20 million
20 June 2025
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Top 100 Most Important Operational Satellites in 2025

Top 100 Most Important Operational Satellites in 2025

Starlink Constellation (2019–present) by SpaceX comprises about 4,500 microsatellites in ~550 km LEO with Ku/Ka-band user links and laser crosslinks, enabling global internet including disaster response. James Webb Space Telescope (2021) features a 6.5 m segmented mirror and instruments NIRCam, NIRSpec, and MIRI, delivering the deepest infrared images of the universe including SMACS 0723 and exoplanet atmospheres. Gaia (2013) operates at the Sun–Earth L2 point to map ~2 billion stars with micro-arcsecond precision, with DR3 released in 2022 transforming stellar and galactic astronomy. Parker Solar Probe (2018) became the closest spacecraft to the Sun and the fastest human-made object, with
20 June 2025
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