In June 2024, Australian astronomers traced a 30-nanosecond radio burst to NASA’s defunct Relay-2 satellite, offline since 1967, likely caused by a micrometeoroid hit or decades of charge buildup. The LES-1 Lincoln Experimental Satellite, silent since 1967, transmitted again in 2012 after 45 years of dormancy. The Pentagon plans a 500-satellite orbital defense net by…
Read more
The four new Connecta satellites named Connecta IoT-9, IoT-10, IoT-11, and IoT-12 were launched in June 2025 aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 on the Transporter-14 rideshare. The launch brings Plan-S’s Connecta constellation to 17 satellites in orbit, with 12 commercially active satellites and the remainder as test/demo units. The new satellites enable gigabit-level data access across…
Read more
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…
Read more
Artemis I launched on November 16, 2022, marking NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) first flight and sending an uncrewed Orion around the Moon. The global space economy reached about $570 billion in 2023, with roughly 80% of that value produced by commercial activities. As of 2025, there are over 11,000 active satellites serving Earth, out…
Read more
France 2030, launched in 2021 as a €30 billion investment plan, prioritizes converging 5G with space through end-to-end NTN pilots. The European Commission’s IRIS² programme, approved in 2022, will deploy hundreds of satellites (about 270 LEO and 18 MEO) and be fully operational by 2030, with Eutelsat as a prime contractor. In early 2025, Eutelsat…
Read more
Delphi is Lux Aeterna’s flagship fully reusable satellite bus designed to launch, operate in orbit, return to Earth, be refurbished, and relaunched. The Delphi demonstrator weighs about 200 kg and will carry a customer payload to low Earth orbit before re-entering and landing for recovery. Lux Aeterna has raised $4 million in pre-seed funding, led…
Read more
EarthDaily Analytics launched its first Earth observation satellite, initiating a next-generation ten-satellite constellation to deliver daily AI-ready global imagery and analytics, with the full constellation expected to be operational next year. SpaceX launched 27 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral on a Falcon 9 booster (B1080) in its 20th flight, with the first stage successfully recovered,…
Read more
SpaceX’s Transporter-14 rideshare lofted 70 payloads, including memorial capsules, ICEYE and Capella radar sats, and York Space Systems’ Dragoon Tranche-1 12-satellite demo. The first Dragoon craft launched Monday on Transporter-14 is now on orbit, with SDA citing a four-month schedule cut to accelerate capabilities. Shijian-21 rendezvoused with Shijian-25 at about 22,236 miles, rehearsing refueling and…
Read more
NATO Allied Command Operations signed a multiyear agreement to receive 24/7 SAR imagery from ICEYE and feed it into the APSS Aquila constellation, announced on 24 June 2025. ICEYE’s 54-satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar fleet can be tasked within eight hours, and in some cases within one hour, for sea- and land-tracking. ICEYE satellites deliver 25…
Read more
The Space Symposium will host its 40th edition on April 7–10, 2025 in Colorado Springs, with the 41st edition scheduled for April 13–16, 2026. SATELLITE Conference & GovSatCom will be held in Washington, DC in 2025 March 11–13 and in 2026 March 23–26. The IAC 2025 will take place in Sydney from September 29 to…
Read more