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…
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On 23 June 2025, Iran’s Ministry of Communications warned that owning or installing a Starlink terminal is a punishable offense and asked the ITU to compel SpaceX to deactivate unauthorized devices inside Iran. Following Israel’s Operation Rising Lion on 13 June, Iran’s internet blackout peaked with connectivity falling by 97 percent. In 2021 Iran filed…
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On 23 June 2025, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V launched 27 Kuiper satellites from Cape Canaveral into a 450 km parking orbit, bringing Amazon’s on‑orbit Kuiper fleet to 54 operational satellites plus two de‑orbiting prototypes. The Atlas V mission is the second of eight Kuiper flights on that rocket, with ULA set to fly…
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ICESat-2 (NASA) launched September 15, 2018 on a Delta II rocket and carries the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS), a photon-counting laser that operates from a ~481 km near-polar orbit (92°) with ground tracks repeating every 91 days to map ice sheets, sea-ice freeboard, glacier height, and forest canopy. CryoSat-2 (ESA) launched April 8,…
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In June 2025, Texas approved a provision granting Starbase authority to close State Highway 4 and Boca Chica Beach during launches, transferring that power from county authorities to SpaceX-aligned Starbase officials. The FAA raised SpaceX’s Starbase launch-permit cap from 5 to 25 launches per year. On June 16, 2025, a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg (VSFB)…
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In June 2025, Wu Jian of Peking University of Posts & Telecom and Liu Chao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences directed a 2-watt laser from 36,000 km in geostationary orbit to a ground station, achieving 1 Gbps. The test claimed the 1 Gbps downlink is five times faster than Starlink downlinks, per the South…
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On 22 June at 02:14 a.m. local time, B-2 bombers released at least a dozen 30,000-lb GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs targeting Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. By noon on 22 June, Planet Labs Skysat imagery showed a pale-grey haze over Fordow and two dark impact scars at the vehicle and personnel tunnel portals. Fordow lies…
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The global space economy was valued at around $630 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2035. SpaceX revolutionized orbital launch with reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets and operates the Starlink broadband satellite constellation. OneWeb has deployed a Low Earth Orbit broadband constellation of about 648 small satellites for…
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SpaceX (USA, founded 2002 by Elon Musk) achieved the first private orbital rocket launch in 2008, performed the first booster landing in 2015, and launched the Starlink mega-constellation. Blue Origin (USA, founded 2000 by Jeff Bezos) completed the first vertical landing of a New Shepard booster in 2015, flew the first crewed suborbital flight in…
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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,…
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