Starfish Space's first Otter has died, just a month after it reached the final frontier.

The Seattle startup announced on Tuesday (Nov. 3) that its Otter 24C satellite suffered a glitch in low Earth orbit (LEO) and is not recoverable.

The anomaly killed an ambitious mission in the cradle, as Otter 24C was still in the commissioning phase.

Otter 24C launched Oct. 1 on SpaceX's Transporter-18 mission, a rideshare flight that carried a total of 130 payloads to LEO (including a prototype satellite for Project Suncatcher, Google's planned AI constellation).

The Starfish satellite was flying a mission for NASA called Small Spacecraft Propulsion and Inspection Capability, or SSPICY for short. The goal was to "demonstrate technologies necessary for future debris-removal missions as well as for future applications in the servicing and inspection of active spacecraft," according to NASA's SSPICY site.

"This advances NASA's in-space manufacturing and assembly (ISAM) goals to ensure a sustainable space operating environment and builds towards a future where objects can be assembled, repaired and maintained in space, significantly expanding possibilities for science and human exploration," the agency added.

Starfish Space was a natural partner. The Seattle company plans to become a big player in the nascent field of satellite servicing, using its line of Otter craft to repair, refuel or deorbit other satellites for a variety of customers.

SSPICY marked Otter's spaceflight debut. The mission plan called for the 739-pound (335-kilogram) Otter 24C spacecraft to approach and inspect "up to four inoperable space objects of U.S. origin" over the course of a two-year mission, performing detailed visual inspections.

But Otter 24C never got the chance to perform any of these orbital rendezvous.

"While working through commissioning steps, Starfish eventually stopped receiving data from Otter 24C," the company said in a Nov. 3 X post.

"An investigation into the loss of communications has determined that fault protection on the satellite bus provided by [California company] Astro Digital had an error that turned off the radio and prevented re-establishing communications," Starfish added. "Starfish, NASA, and Astro Digital have concluded that Otter 24C is not recoverable."

The company further said that it's implementing fixes to reduce the chances that the problem will crop up in the future. And it stressed that Otter 24C's death will not be in vain.

"The work completed through Otter 24C will directly contribute to the success of future Otter missions, as Starfish continues developing the technologies and operations required to make satellite servicing a routine capability in orbit," Starfish said.

The Seattle company has other work to do in LEO at the moment as well: Its Otter Pup 2 prototype craft is currently gearing up to conduct a historic docking of its own in LEO.

Otter Pup 2, which launched in June 2025, has been getting closer and closer to another private spacecraft, Gilmour Space's ElaraSat. Last week, the company announced that Otter Pup 2 got within a mere 82 feet (25 meters) of its target.

"With this progress, Otter Pup 2 has officially completed Characterize, the penultimate phase of its mission. That leaves just one phase left: attempting docking, and a chance to make history," Starfish Space said in an Oct. 27 X post.

Two private satellites have docked before, but only much higher above Earth, in geostationary orbit. Such a meetup has not yet happened in LEO.

A satellite went knee-deep in the dead, after a voice command from the ground activated the Doom video game in space.

Playing a first-person shooter from 1993 was obviously not in the design plan for the PRETTY cubesat, which is run by a consortium including the European Space Agency (ESA). But the pioneering voice command opens up new worlds for satellite work, the team says.

"Someone in distress at sea or in a remote area could transmit 'mayday' or "help" on a radio," stated Estonia's Tanagra Space, which supplied the software for the feat. The hope is one day, a satellite could use transcription and AI to alert rescue services for assisting folks in remote zones.

The call to play Doom, thankfully, had no other urgency than curiosity — and teamwork, fueled by pizza. OPS-SAT Space Lab managed the experiment on behalf of ESA. Radio amateurs then made six unsuccessful attempts during passes over Poland and Norway, between April and July. The seventh finally reached success under the Oslo Group of the Norwegian Radio Relay League.

"We are radio amateurs, with the emphasis on amateurs. Satellite work was not something our club did, and we had no budget for it," representative Eskil Hadland, call sign LB6AJ, said in the Tangara statement. "So we borrowed a line wrongly credited to Pippi Longstocking: 'I have never tried that before, so I should definitely be able to do that.'"

The Norwegians spent 59 days and about 7200 NOK or $775 (pizza included) to reach PRETTY, helping make changes to the satellite software to pick up a voice. For example, a raw recording of an attempt on July 3, retransmitted to Earth, showed the spoken words to space were unrecognizable. Further work revealed the satellite's receiver channel was too wide to pick up the voice signal, leading to a fix to narrow the channel.

The historic voice command on July 27— in part, "PRETTY play Doom Doom Doom"— came from a rooftop in Oslo, and was spoken at night by Jon Bergli Heier (LB9BJ). PRETTY picked up the transmission, transcribed the command using on-board voice recognition, and then — just like a typical evening gamer—opened up Doom for a play session.

This was no multiplayer gaming situation, but the satellite did create a report of its demon-slaying skills — and its ability to interpret the command. For example, PRETTY generated a "postcard" including a frame of the gameplay, a transcription, and signal diagnostics. The satellite also transmitted its recording of Hadland's command.

As anybody who uses voice-recognition software knows, there are challenges in transcriptions: nobody speaks in exactly the same way, and aspects such as accent or background noise can lead to misinterpretations. The satellite also had to contend with Doppler shift, and with an antenna not designed to relay voices to space.

But the transmission clearly worked, powered by open-source tools including GNU Radio (which handled the signal processing) and Sherpa-ONNX (speech recognition).

The hope is that future spacecraft could one day adapt this approach to radio frequencies for other ideas outside of spoken words. For example, perhaps deep-space radio signals could be detected via satellite, with an AI on board sending the most relevant data to operators after analyzing the work.

For now, however, the Norwegian radio operators are basking in the success: "Our tiny ground station shouted at an ESA spacecraft, and was heard," Hadland said.

In May 2026, four Russian military satellites came close to ICEYE-X36, a private synthetic aperture radar satellite widely believed to be providing battlefield intelligence for Ukraine, in an apparently aggressive and risky "grey zone" maneuver that spooked many in the space industry.

Close enough to jam or interfere with the satellite's signal, blind it with a laser, fire a metal dart at it or, simply, force it to maneuver and burn fuel, the satellites' seemingly intimidatory behavior has increased the West's desire to develop defensive technology for satellites. In October 2026, it was reported that one of those same four Russian satellites passed within 500 meters (1,650 feet) of the same ICEYE satellite.

Now, U.K. startup Shield Space is racing to apply the lessons of drone warfare in Ukraine to develop swarms of up to 100 very small, low-cost, attritable drone-like autonomous spacecraft called cubesats. Released by a car-sized carrier in Earth orbit, these microwave-sized spacecraft will act as interceptors to protect Western satellites, and their deployment will mark a next step in the evolution of orbital warfare. Shield Space says that these space drones will use "effectors" like lasers or microwaves to defend Western satellites even if controllers lose contact with them.

"We're talking about deploying 100 cubesats on a protect-and-defend mission for less than £100 million [$134 million US], which is how [much] you would pay for one satellite previously," said Graeme Ritchie, co-founder and CEO of Shield Space.

Launched in 2023, NASA's civilian project Starling demonstrated that a swarm of four small satellites can cooperate and operate autonomously in space on a civilian science mission without relying heavily on real-time commands from ground control. But that seems like a far cry from the adversarial or defensive missions Shield Space and its competitors imagine. It is telling that the leading space powers appear not to have demonstrated swarm combat in space — although they tend to be reluctant to reveal their space warfare capabilities.

In the fourth quarter of 2027, Shield Space plans to take this next step in space warfare's evolution by demonstrating rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) with two very small spacecraft. This effort, named Project Broadsword, will launch on SpaceX's Transporter-21 rideshare mission. It will send up an 8U cubesat and a smaller 3U target craft, which Shield Space plans to maneuver from 100 kilometers (62 miles) apart to within 100 meters (330 feet) of each other and, through four stages of autonomy, from human-in-the-loop to "approximately" fully autonomous. (A cubesat unit, or U, is a cube that measures 10 cm, or about 4 inches, on a side.)

The gaps between a true satellite-defense capability and this demonstration appear to be great, in terms of the technological and practical challenges of squeezing propulsion and power systems, AI compute power, sensors, the lasers the swarm needs to communicate and weapon systems onto small, lightweight maneuvering satellites. But it is a gap that Shield Space believes it can bridge through the purchase of relatively cheap off-the-shelf technology rather than more expensive bespoke designs.

"Yes, it's a problem because of size, weight and power," Ritchie told Space.com. "We've had to totally innovate from scratch some elements of the mission… but we have only got roughly 100 cm by 100 cm [40 by 40 inches], so saving space or having systems that are already completely integrated is the main aim."

"We have commissioned EnduroSat to build us an autonomous 8U cubesat that has chemical propulsion and its own imagery-collecting capability, which we will put our software on," said Dan Molland, co-founder and CTO of Shield Space, "and which we will then use to conduct our RPO.

"The good thing about cubesats is they're very standardized and they're very off the shelf," he added. "There's always some level of adjusting you've got to do, but these cubesats are a lot more plug and play than more conventional platforms, which are usually all custom-built."

Yet to focus on the technical issues may be to miss the point. "It takes an extraordinary amount of data to train the models and algorithms to achieve a fully autonomous mission," said Ritchie, "and the problem [unlike in the Ukraine war] is that data is not readily available.

"We can train AI using synthetic data, but it's just not quite good enough for space. It's incredibly important to gather data from missions like this if we really want autonomous missions in the future."

There is also the complexity of the AI needed in a war-fighting system. "Starling is a really great example," Molland told Space.com. "With Starling, you're essentially just asking a guidance system to make sure you stay within a given range of this or that satellite… But if you are controlling a swarm to deliver [a] military mission, you have a much more complex set of questions."

It also comes with the challenge of ensuring that AI complies with any rules of engagement.

But Ritchie and Molland believe these technical challenges can be overcome, and they have an aggressive schedule of demonstrations planned that they think will prove it.

Bleddyn Bowen, associate professor of astropolitics at Durham University in the U.K. and author of the book "War in Space: Strategy, Spacepower, Geopolitics" (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), is more cautious about Shield Space's plans for the evolution of space warfare.

"They remind me of a late Cold War missile-defense scheme called Brilliant Pebbles," he told Space.com. "It was one of the more advanced research and development programs in the Strategic Defense Initiative."

The plan was to defend the U.S. against Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) by using thousands of small autonomous orbiting interceptors to destroy them by collision.

"With enough investment, a lot is feasible," Bowen said.

"But you're looking at many years of development and testing," he added, "and finding someone to buy the system."

It is clear from Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine that the future of warfare includes swarms of low-cost autonomous drones — and Shield Space is already planning an aggressive schedule of missions to prove that this pattern applies to the final frontier as well.

According to Ritchie, the startup hopes to quickly go from the first RPO demonstration to testing two full-sized 16U cubesats. It will then move on to a full carrier of 10 such cubesats, and then to a "super carrier" of 10 carriers, which will be deployed across multiple orbits.

"We then get towards our future vision, which we call space-based carrier strike," said Ritchie. In this scenario, "responsive launch or pre-positioned carriers will give us an ability to protect and defend entire orbits, should you choose."

Editor's note: The original version of this story suggested that Shield Space may be working on "kinetic impact" satellite-defense techniques. The company says it is not doing this, so the story was updated to that effect at 10:45 a.m. ET on Nov. 5.

SpaceX is building and operating two satellite networks at the moment, Starlink and Starshield. What’s the difference between the two, and who uses them?

For more than a week in October 2026, Ukrainian drone operators found their high-speed satellite links shut off. Officials in Kyiv said that terminals for SpaceX’s Starshield network stopped working at speeds of above 160 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour) from Oct. 14, hampering efforts to conduct defensive operations and intercept Russian drones. Full connectivity was restored on Oct. 24, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The arguments over who did what continue, but the affair highlighted how little is publicly understood about Starshield — what it is, how it relates to Starlink, and how it is operated.

What is Starlink?

Starlink is SpaceX’s commercial, mass-market satellite internet service. The company says it now has more than 11,000 Starlink broadband and mobile satellites in orbit, operating approximately 342 miles (550 kilometers) above Earth. This follows years of deployment using the company's Falcon 9 rocket..

The network serves consumers, enterprises and government customers across more than 160 countries. It is owned and operated by SpaceX. Anyone from a rural household to an airline can buy a terminal and a service plan.

Governments are also customers, with public agencies using Starlink for a range of purposes including connectivity, disaster response and national security, notably in the case of Ukraine in the wake of the invasion by Russia, which began in February 2022 and is ongoing.

What is Starshield?

Starshield is SpaceX’s network for serving national security customers. The company announced the program in December 2022, stating it would apply Starlink technology and SpaceX's launch capability to government needs, initially in three areas: Earth observation, communications and hosted payloads.

"They are using the same satellite buses," says Bleddyn Bowen, associate professor of astropolitics at Durham University in the U.K. “They look the same, but they have a lot more kit on them that allows them to do more things. They provide similar broadband internet, but with more secure hardware and software and hardened systems.”

The company says it has won multi-billion-dollar, multiyear contracts from the U.S. military in 2026 for Starshield-related services.

Some Starshield satellites may also carry sensors for intelligence and surveillance. But much about Starshield is secretive, with its finances not revealed and launches often classified.

Starshield makeup

Starshield is made up of a range of different assets, including spy satellites, military data satellites, and secure communications for ground users.

The spy satellites are sent into orbit in launches for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), for a "proliferated architecture" of spy satellites, including electro-optical, radar and relay spacecraft. The NRO does not use the Starshield name, but said earlier this year that it had launched more than 200 satellites in recent years, many of which are for its proliferated architecture.

Then there is the Space Data Network Backbone. The U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX a $2.29 billion fixed-price contract to build the network, previously known as MILNET, using Starshield satellites. It is meant to move data quickly between missile-warning sensors and interceptors as part of the Trump administration's Golden Dome missile defense plan. A prototype is due by the end of 2027. A Space Force official has described MILNET as government-owned and operated by SpaceX as a contractor, under Space Force oversight.

Starshield provides encrypted connectivity for military users through terminals. These can be dedicated Starshield terminals, or Starlink terminals for Starshield services.

Crucially, the networks overlap. "Those Starshield satellites are physically separate from Starlink satellites, but the Starshield satellites can use the Starlink network if they need to," Bowen said. That interoperability is available to U.S. national security users, he added, "but not if you're a commercial user of Starlink."

Use restrictions differ, too. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said that Starlink's terms of service bar its use for offensive drone strikes, while decisions about Starshield use rest with the U.S. government.

Who controls Starshield is a question that entered the public consciousness in the wake of the Ukraine Starshield speed limit affair. The U.S. government is the customer, and also in some cases the owner, but SpaceX builds the satellites, operates the underlying Starlink network on which some Starshield services run and, in some arrangements, operates the Starshield satellites themselves. How this command is divided between the government and SpaceX is unclear.

Bowen compared it to the U.K.’s Skynet military satellite system, in which contractor Babcock operates the satellites. "The actual button punching is done by the contractors, but the military and government are in the room and are calling the shots,” he said.

That question matters, because it determines whether SpaceX can act on its own or only with government oversight and approval.

What’s next?

Starshield appears set to become more central to U.S. military space. The Space Data Network Backbone prototype is expected next year, while NRO launches will continue, according to contracts. With SpaceX now a public company, quarterly reports could provide more insight into the system. For now, however, much remains classified.

Technologies developed and tested in orbit to remove space junk and fix broken satellites can be speedily repurposed to build fleets of bodyguard spacecraft to protect important satellites from adversary attacks, space clean-up company Astroscale thinks.

Astroscale made history with its 2024 up-close in-orbit inspection of a discarded Japanese rocket stage during the pioneering ADRAS-J mission in low Earth orbit (LEO), the region of space below altitudes of 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers).

The firm's ELSA-D mission, which ran from 2021 to 2024, was the first commercial endeavor to demonstrate orbital capture technologies in LEO. Now, this technology can come in handy as Western space assets face increasing threats from Russia.

Speaking on the sidelines of an event in London earlier this month, Alex Godfrey, Astroscale's head of defense, said the company could have a protector spacecraft ready for launch in under three years.

"In in-orbit servicing, we have to achieve very high levels of agility to be able to dock and close to a distance of zero meters to refuel something or remove it from orbit," Godfrey told Space.com. "With space control, you're rarely getting quite as close, so in some ways it's simpler because you are further away."

Space control — a military term for ensuring the space around Earth remains orderly and peaceful — is quickly becoming a hot talking point. Godfrey's remarks came just as the world witnessed in shock as Russia made close-up maneuvers around a radar satellite owned by Finland headquartered Earth-observation company ICEYE. The October incident, described by experts as the first rendezvous of two active satellites in low Earth orbit conducted without the consent of the target, raised concerns Russia may be preparing to damage the satellite, which is part of a fleet providing critical intelligence to Ukraine.

U.S. Under Secretary of State Thomas G. DiNanno described Russia's actions on X as "threatening behavior" and "consistent with on-orbit weapons operations."

The ICEYE incident is only the latest in a long string of activities conducted by Russia in space designed either to eavesdrop on or interfere with the activity of critical Western space assets. The Luch-1 and Luch-2 satellites have been stalking Europe's and America's communications satellites in geostationary orbit — the busy region 22,000 miles (36,000 km) above the planet where satellites have a fixed view of a portion of the globe—since 2014. Germany's military space command chief Major General Michael Traut admitted earlier this year that the Luch spacecraft have been spying on European strategic communications in space for years.

A bodyguard satellite would make sure no such intruder gets dangerously close. Godfrey said that the cost of a bodyguard mission would be on the order of a single percent of the value of a military-grade geostationary communications constellation such as the U.K.'s £8.4-billion Skynet fleet.

"To build a bodyguard satellite is absolutely within the capability and the budget of a single country like the U.K.," said Godfrey. "It would be similar to a carrier strike group where you have a [naval aircraft] carrier, but that carrier never leaves the port on its own. It has an escort of much smaller, lower-cost systems that move around to protect it."

Although Astroscale, headquartered in Japan but with significant presence in the U.K., is a leader in the commercial orbital rendezvous and proximity operations technology, no Western players currently match the deployed capabilities of Russia and China. Europe, in particular, is under-equipped for defense and military operations in space, according to the Secure World Foundation's Global Counterspace Capabilities Report. With Russia's accelerating orbital forays, the clock appears to be ticking.

Godfrey proposes a pan-European fleet of orbital bodyguards patrolling clusters of European assets to ward off future Russian attempts to jam or damage the satellites.

"The UK, for example, has multiple assets in different positions around the geostationary ring," Godfrey said. "That is difficult to protect with a single spacecraft. So what I encourage nations to think about is how to form a geo-patrol force through collaboration. If France has assets in a similar location to the UK and maybe Germany, then it makes sense for one spacecraft to protect two or three allied spacecraft, and then, in another region, another country takes responsibility for the protection."

Nick Shave, the UK managing director at Astroscale, told Space.com that the company sees interest in its technologies and is "in discussions" with "companies and customers across Europe" although it has not signed any contracts to develop bodyguard satellites.

"We have spent a good amount of time talking over the last few years, but now we have to go and really deliver," Shave said. "The UK government is promising funding for space control development from 2030 onwards. So what needs to happen now is really preparing the ground so that we've got the right capabilities, the right investment and the right demonstrator capability, by 2030."

In the meantime, Russia's COSMOS 2612 stalker satellite keeps lingering 298 miles (480 km) from the ICEYE intelligence satellite in LEO, keeping the Western space community on edge.

David Zamora is the chairman of the Space Data Association. He contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The commercialization of space is well underway, and as a result, Earth’s orbit is becoming ever more congested. The current number of active satellites in orbit stands at around 16,000, according to the European Space Agency( ESA), and this number is expected to jump close to 60,000 by 2035, Novaspace projects. While it’s not always given the recognition it deserves, space has fast become a critical infrastructure layer, underpinning nearly all systems that enable modern life as we know it. Therefore, it’s critical that a safe and clean operating landscape is maintained.

Yet this is becoming increasingly challenging, particularly given that, alongside the rapid increase in space traffic, there are also more than 1.2 million pieces of debris over 1 centimeter (0.4 inches) cm in Earth’s orbit, each of which could damage satellites and spacecraft and potentially cause disastrous consequences. With the number of active satellites and debris objects in space continuing to increase, the space environment is under growing pressure.

Balancing expansion with sustainability

Space was once the sole domain of nation states, but this is no longer the case. As technology has advanced, launch costs have decreased, and satellites have become more efficient, smaller and cheaper to build. These changes have democratized space, resulting in a massive increase in space traffic, not least constellations in low Earth orbit (LEO) that comprise thousands of satellites.

Plans are underway to further expand these constellations, and new and even bigger constellations are also expected to launch in the coming years. Added to that, we’re also likely to see the first space-based data centers within the next few years, which may well mark the start of the wholesale shift of data centers from Earth to space, which will further add to the congestion already being felt.

To ensure that space continues to meet our current and future needs, this continued expansion must happen in a sustainable way. Maintaining a safe and clean landscape is more important than ever before, and mitigating the impact of space debris is critical to that effort.

Maintaining a safe environment

Mitigating the impact of debris involves a multipronged approach. Whether intentional or unintentional, the creation of new space debris by future space missions must be minimized as much as possible. This applies during launch, operation, and end of life phases, and satellites and other spacecraft need to be designed with this in mind. Additionally, satellites that are no longer active should not remain in orbit for extended periods, because this only increases the chance of collision events which would create new debris. The standard rule has been 25 years, but there are recommendations now that this should be lowered to five years.

Also critical is the prevention of in-orbit collisions between active satellites and other objects. This is only achievable through effective Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and Space Traffic Coordination (STC) systems. SSA maps out and characterizes objects in space (both satellites and debris), determining their location, trajectory and velocity, while STC actively manages the space traffic identified through SSA to prevent collisions. When a conjunction is probable, SSA/STC service providers alert the operators involved, who then decide whether to undertake a collision-avoidance maneuver.

Extending the operational life of satellites is another important aspect of debris mitigation because it reduces the need for so many new launches, thereby reducing the likelihood of more debris being created. Innovations such as electric propulsion systems that allow for greater maneuverability and extended mission durations are part of the solution, as is in-orbit servicing, maintenance and refuelling.

While these strategies focus on preventing new debris from being created, we also need effective methods for removing existing pieces of debris. This is a rapidly growing sector attracting much investment. Debris-removal technology being developed ranges from physical capture and tethered deorbit to destruction with ground and space-based laser ablation and plasma systems, as well as the emerging concept of mining debris to extract metals and gases for in-orbit processing to feed into the circular space economy.

How stakeholders are responding

The UN views space safety and space sustainability as urgent priorities. Its treaties and agreements focus on preserving the peaceful, safe, and sustainable use of outer space, preventing collisions, managing space debris, and ensuring responsible operations. Governments, space agencies and international organizations are also strengthening their focus on space sustainability.

ESA has launched its Zero Debris strategy, which is aimed at achieving a debris-neutral orbital environment by 2030. As part of this approach, ESA has updated its debris mitigation requirements and standards that will govern how its missions are designed, built, flown and disposed of. It also sets requirements for any company or institution that works with ESA on its missions.

In the U.K., the UK Space Agency is also taking a proactive role in space safety and sustainability through its Active Debris Removal (ADR) program and through the development of space sustainability standards in partnership with industry. It is also in the process of developing a space sustainability strategy to ensure a coordinated approach to sustainable practices in space.

On the other side of the pond, NASA’s Space Sustainability Strategy identifies five key challenges that are felt nationally but also within the wider space community. These include the absence of a single framework for space sustainability that has been accepted by the space community and the fact that space sustainability may be in tension with other mission interests. The strategy defines six goals that are intended to address each of the challenges alongside corresponding objectives to guide NASA’s achievements of the goals.

The U.S. is also building on the National Orbital Debris Mitigation Plan, which was released in 2022, with the Orbital Sustainability (ORBITS) Act. The Act, which has been introduced to the Senate but not yet been enacted into law, seeks to establish a program for the active remediation of orbital debris as well as requiring the development of uniform orbital debris standard practices. The Office of Space Commerce has also developed TraCSS (Traffic Coordination System for Space) to provide basic SSA data and services to civil and private space operators in support of spaceflight safety, although the system is currently in beta mode.

The International Standard Organisation (ISO) is also working on a standard for STC (Space Traffic Coordination) so that SSA activities can be standardized. Titled Space Systems — Space Traffic Coordination (STC), the standard is moving toward final publication, and its core focus is on establishing baseline protocols, data exchange formats and operational requirements for space safety, on-orbit conjunction assessment and collision avoidance.

Beyond today

While these strategies are certainly moving the industry in the right direction, there is a real need to act quickly. Success will rely not only on speed, but also on sustained and collaborative effort, as well as engagement from all space users. The decisions made and actions undertaken over the next decade will shape the space environment for generations to come.

As to whether sustainability becomes a core principle rather than an afterthought, that remains to be seen. There is, however, reason to be optimistic.

Ukraine wants its own satellite-communication system, which shouldn't be surprising given the events of the past week or so.

The Ukrainian military just signed a letter of intent with two Finnish companies — the telecom giant Nokia and satellite maker ICEYE — to look into developing a sovereign satellite-communications network for Ukraine.

"Ukraine needs secure, sovereign and high-performance satellite communications systems that it controls," ICEYE cofounder and CEO Rafal Modrzewski said in a statement today (Oct. 22). "We have a proven track record of delivering sovereign missions at speed to help build that capability. ICEYE has proudly supported Ukraine since 2022, and we remain committed to continuing that support today."

Ukraine relies heavily on satellite-based communications and data to defend itself from Russia, which invaded the nation in February 2022 and continues to attack it with ground troops, missiles and drone strikes.

But Ukraine does not own those satellites. It primarily uses the services provided by SpaceX's Starlink megaconstellation in low Earth orbit (LEO) and Starshield, a military-grade, jamming-resistant version of Starlink employed by the U.S. government and its allies.

Starshield in particular is crucial to Ukraine, as it allows the nation to operate fast-moving drones over large distances in war zones. Ukraine has gotten very good at drone warfare, employing these little robots both in offensive and defensive capacities.

On Oct. 14, however, Ukrainian soldiers and officials reported a severe throttling of their access to Starshield services — a speed limit on terminal-carrying drones, which caused many of them to fall out of the sky.

It's not entirely clear who's behind the throttling. Some U.S. officials have apparently said the order came from Elon Musk, but the billionaire SpaceX founder and CEO put the ultimate responsibility on the Trump administration.

"Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS," Musk said on Oct. 14 via X, the social media platform he owns.

Whoever made the call, it certainly wasn't Ukraine. And the Starshield throttling — which apparently is still in effect — has doubtless reinforced the nation's desire to control its own satellite-communications infrastructure.

"Nations need communications they can rely on in every situation. Satellite networks extend and protect connectivity when networks on the ground are disrupted," Mikko Hautala, Nokia's chief geopolitical and government relations officer and chairman of Nokia Defense, said in the same statement.

"This makes them a key part of any secure communications system," he added. "Through this Letter of Intent, together with Ukraine and ICEYE, we will explore how trusted, sovereign satellite communications can strengthen Ukraine's resilience and give it control over the connectivity it depends on."

Nokia and ICEYE announced on Oct. 1 that they plan to work together to help nations develop such sovereign satcom systems. The partnership with Ukraine follows on from that earlier agreement.

ICEYE has already been aiding the Ukrainian defense effort. The Finnish company and its U.S. subsidiary jointly operate a fleet of Earth-observing satellites in LEO, which study our planet using synthetic aperture radar. Ukraine uses data from the ICEYE constellation for intelligence and planning purposes.

This relationship has put ICEYE — or one of its satellites, at least — in Russia's crosshairs. A Russian inspector satellite called Kosmos 2612 recently made an extremely close approach to ICEYE-X36, which is operated by ICEYE US.

The goal of the unsanctioned rendezvous is unclear. Russia may have wanted to assess the satellite's capabilities or interfere with it in some way. Or perhaps the nation simply wanted to send a message, letting ICEYE (and Ukraine) know that it could mess with satellites if it wanted to.

A Russian satellite just took a very close look at an American spacecraft in low Earth orbit.

A few days ago, the snooping satellite Kosmos 2612 rendezvoused with ICEYE-X36, a commercial craft that observes our planet using synthetic aperture radar (SAR).

The close encounter, which occurred between Oct. 15 and Oct. 19, was reported by Marco Langbroek and other satellite trackers, with Langbroek calling it "a worrisome cat-and-mouse game" in orbit. The rendezvous has garnered a lot of attention in space circles, because it was non-consensual and startlingly close; at one point, the two spacecraft may have been separated by just a few meters. What did Russia hope to gain from it?

Not an isolated incident

Before tackling that question, we need to set the stage a bit. For example, it's important to note that inspections aren't unheard of in the final frontier. Russia, the United States and China have all maneuvered satellites into close proximity of other nations' hardware in recent years.

Most of this activity has taken place in geostationary orbit, which lies 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth. At this altitude, orbital velocity matches our planet's rotational speed, allowing spacecraft to "hover" over one patch of Earth continuously. GEO is therefore a popular destination for spy, communications and weather satellites — and for spacecraft designed to shadow and assess them.

Kosmos 2612 is operating in low Earth orbit (LEO), which is part of the reason its activities have created such a stir. Neither China nor the U.S. has conducted an uncooperative rendezvous in LEO, as far as we know. But Russia has, according to Victoria Samson, chief director of space security and stability for the nonprofit Secure World Foundation.

"They've done a few," she told Space.com. "Kosmos 2543 got within about 30 kilometers [19 miles] of USA 245 in January 2020, and then Kosmos 2558 got within about 70 kilometers [43 miles] of USA 326 in August 2022. And they've done repeated approaches to 326."

Kosmos 2612 got much closer to its target than those other inspectors did, of course. And there's another big difference: USA 245 and USA 326 are classified spy satellites managed by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, while ICEYE-X36 is a private Earth-observing craft.

Eyes in the sky

There are about 80 ICEYE spacecraft in LEO at the moment. They image our planet using SAR, which can peer through clouds and gather data both day and night. Some of these satellites are operated by ICEYE, a company based in Finland, while others are managed by its American subsidiary, ICEYE US. ICEYE-X36 is one of the latter.

At least some ICEYE satellites provide imagery to Ukraine, which Russia invaded in February 2022 and continues to assault with ground troops and missile and drone attacks. Indeed, ICEYE signed a contract this past January firming up this data-sharing relationship with Ukraine.

"The agreement ensures that the Ministry of Defence continues to receive a high volume of high-resolution satellite imagery through ICEYE's world-leading SAR constellation, supporting the Ukrainian Armed Forces with persistent situational awareness on tactical timelines," ICEYE representatives said in a January statement.

That likely explains Russia's interest in ICEYE satellites, which is extensive and longstanding. For example, Kosmos 2612 launched in April of this year with five other spacecraft. In May, four members of this fleet, including Kosmos 2612, conducted maneuvers to get into a co-planar orbit with ICEYE-X36. Such maneuvers use a lot of fuel and are therefore not performed lightly. (It's unclear if ICEYE-X36 is dedicated to capturing imagery of Ukraine or Russia, but Russia certainly seems to think it is.)

However, we still don't know the purpose of Kosmos 2612's close approach (which is apparently over, at least for now), Samson stressed.

There are a few possibilities. For example, Russia may want to get a better idea of ICEYE satellites' capabilities, and/or figure out what exactly they're studying on Earth below. Or maybe Kosmos 2612 was actively interfering with ICEYE-X36 in some way — messing with its sensors, perhaps, or blocking or intercepting its communications with the ground.

However, Samson leans toward another explanation.

"I think they're getting frustrated," she said of the Russians.

"They've been kind of in a stalemate, particularly for the past six months or so. And so I think it's just more a matter of demonstrating military prowess in a manner that the Ukrainians cannot respond to," she added. "The Ukrainians are just as good, perhaps even better than, the Russians on drones. But when it comes to space stuff, they're not peers, and this is just a way to remind everyone that that's the case."

As Kosmos 2612's activities show, space is becoming an increasingly competitive and contested domain. The U.S. has long held the advantage above Earth, fielding the most capable reconnaissance and communications craft, but Russia and China are challenging that dominance.

This drama is unfolding above our heads now, and it affects everyone on the planet. Samson therefore wishes that governments around the world were more forthcoming about their space activities — for example, that we learned about Kosmos 2612's shenanigans from the U.S .Space Force rather than from private companies and civilians who pore over government tracking data.

"I think it just speaks to the importance of transparency, and sharing information about these sort of things," she said. "As much as you may want to, you cannot keep the existence of satellites classified, because people can see them."

The space around Earth is turning into a junkyard. Researchers think a refundable deposit scheme could force satellite operators to clean up their act before a tipping point is reached.

For years, space sustainability experts have warned that the growing number of satellites in orbit and the quantity of dead metal left behind threatens to trigger a dangerous cascade of collisions known as the Kessler Syndrome. Predicted in the 1970s by NASA physicist Donald Kessler, this chain of orbital smashups could make the space around Earth unusable and unsafe.

The dangerous tipping might be nearer than some think. Humankind's utilization of space is at an inflection point, as companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin and Amazon plan to launch constellations of hundreds of thousands of telecommunication satellites and orbiting data centers in the coming years.

"Low Earth orbit looks like lots of other resources that we have trashed as economic actors," Daniel Kaffine, a professor of environmental and resource economics at University of Colorado Boulder, told Space.com.

"Waiting until it gets really, really bad to start implementing any of these types of policy interventions has historically been what we have done," Kaffine added. "But maybe we can think about things we can do right now."

In a paper published last month in the journal Nature Communications, Kaffine and his collaborators propose a scheme that would require satellite operators to post a bond of $200,000 before launch, refundable with interest upon the completion of a successful deorbit. Companies that fail to remove their junk would lose the money, which could go toward a shared pool funding active debris-removal missions, the researchers said.

"You could possibly raise billions of dollars by that," said Kaffine. "We think it's a very neat policy that doesn't require international coordination."

International bodies, such as the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee, ask satellite operators to remove their spacecraft from orbit within 25 years after the mission's end. The American Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposes an even stricter standard — a five-year requirement for satellites in low Earth orbit. Still, a staggering 60% of satellites remain in place when their propellant runs out, the researchers say, as no consequences ensue if they fail to deorbit.

Solving the problem on the international level would be difficult, as international bodies have no powers to enforce compliance. Moreover, the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), which sets down rules for the peaceful exploration of outer space, requires the unanimous support of every member state to pass new regulations, which is nearly impossible to achieve.

"The policy we propose could be implemented on a national level, which is why we think it's interesting," Indigo Brownhall, a space sustainability researcher at University College London and the paper's lead author, told Space.com. "Any country in Europe can request satellites registered with them to follow this bond policy."

To put it simply, no satellite registered in a given country gets to space before putting the money into the kitty. The researchers acknowledge that it might be hard to persuade major players historically averse to regulations, such as the U.S., to roll out such a scheme. But they say a more environmentally conscious block, like the European Union (EU), could enforce compliance by limiting market access to those who observe their rules.

"The consumer market in Europe is massive, like 300 to 400 million people," Brownhall said. "And the EU can request anyone who wants to sell space data or any products in the EU to follow their rules. They did this with GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation]. And you can imagine that somebody like Starlink [SpaceX's satellite-internet subsidiary] surely wants to sell Starlink terminals to Europeans."

The authors estimate that, even if the scheme only covered 20% of global satellite launches, it would reduce the number of derelict satellites careening around the planet by 18%.

Currently, more than 57,000 pieces of space debris larger than 4 inches (10 centimeters) hurtle around Earth completely out of control, according to estimates by the European Space Agency. That's double the figure from less than 10 years ago. Most of these fragments were generated by explosions and orbital collisions that shattered satellites and used rocket stages into clouds of dangerous debris.

"Leaving big satellites that no longer work up there is like a ticking time bomb," Brownhall said. "Active satellites can move out of the way, but when two derelict satellites are going to hit each other, there is nothing you can do but watch it."

Kaffine said the policy could be modelled on U.S. oil operators' bond scheme, in place since the 1960s, which ensures that oil giants plug used oil wells after ceasing extraction.

"If the oil operators clean up after completing the oil production job, they get the money back," said Kaffine. "If they don't, the money goes into a fund, which the government then uses to clean up orphan wells. It's quite an analogous situation to what we see in space."

In the meantime, evidence of the worsening orbital situation is coming thick and fast. Space situational awareness companies such as U.S.-based LeoLabs, which use networks of ground-based radars and telescopes to monitor traffic in space, report increasing numbers of disintegration events — incidents involving either an explosion or a collision between old satellites, fragments and rocket bodies. In the past six months, LeoLabs has reported at least four fragmentation events in space, which together created hundreds of new pieces of space debris.

An old Soviet satellite has fragmented into multiple pieces in low Earth orbit, the latest in a string of recent breakup events that suggest satellites may be facing an increased risk of debris impacts.

The space domain awareness company LeoLabs detected a "debris generating event" in the known orbital location of the Soviet-era Meteor 2-7 weather satellite as it passed over one of their sites in Western Australia. The company said that an estimated "tens of fragments" were detected in the vicinity of the spacecraft, which launched in 1981.

The breakup of Meteor 2-7 follows on the heels of several other satellite fragmentation events in recent months, including that of the U.S. Cold-War-era spy satellite USA 32, which was confirmed to have disintegrated in September 2026. "This is the latest in a series of events we've seen over the last 6 months, LeoLabs wrote on X. "Together, they point to a worrying trend for space safety and security, and underscore the critical need for persistent sensing."

Orbital debris expert Jim Shell pointed out on X that Meteor 2-7 previously broke apart in March 2004. Shell added that the event occurred at an altitude of around 530 miles (855 kilometers), where, he said, "debris spatial density is highest."

Aside from the September breakup of USA 32, a Chinese rocket body also disintegrated in low Earth orbit (LEO) in late August 2026, according to LeoLabs. A SpaceX Starlink satellite experienced a fragmentation event just over four months earlier.

And in January 2026, a Russian "inspector" satellite disintegrated, although in a much higher geostationary orbit.

For years, experts have been warning that the ever-increasing numbers of satellites being placed into orbit are raising the risk of collisions and fragmentation events, which could have a cascading effect; as more satellites break up, they create more pieces of debris, which can then put other spacecraft at risk.

And data support those warnings. In 2005, the European Space Agency (ESA) reported it was tracking about 16,000 pieces of debris in Earth's orbit. By the time it reported the same data in 2026, ESA was tracking more than 44,000, an increase of about 180%. Even though the majority of those fragments are tiny, the high velocities at which they orbit mean they carry a lot of energy, making them capable of causing serious damage if and when they impact spacecraft.

It's not only debris that poses a risk, however. Satellites frequently have to dodge other satellites, particularly as LEO becomes ever more crowded. According to disclosures made by SpaceX in a semiannual report to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission earlier this year, each Starlink satellite performed over 40 avoidance maneuvers per year between June 1, 2025 and May 31, 2026 to get out of the way of debris or other spacecraft.

And some experts say it's only a matter of time before one of those maneuvers is unsuccessful. "I think we're heading towards a situation where there will be a collision involving an operational satellite in the constellation," Hugh Lewis, a space sustainability expert and professor of astronautics at the University of Birmingham in the U.K., previously told Space.com. "And it will not be for the lack of trying to avoid those things. It will be in spite of all those maneuvers."

Despite the increasingly worrying data and warnings from experts, however, private companies and governments worldwide continue planning to launch tens of thousands of more satellites each year in vast megaconstellations. SpaceX has repeatedly said it wants to put 1 million data center satellites in orbit, for example.

And we've already seen that the increasing amount of orbital space debris is putting astronauts at risk.

In February 2026, China experienced a brief emergency aboard its Tiangong space station when the "lifeboat" spacecraft for three of its astronauts was damaged by a piece of debris, rendering it unsafe for a return voyage. Three of the nation's astronauts (or taikonauts) were left without a lifeboat for 10 days.

Today's scenery in space is not a pretty picture.

With the rate at which orbital launches are now occurring, some Earth orbits are so crowded and carry so many potentially dangerous, high-velocity pieces of defunct satellite litter and spent rocket stages that they could jeopardize humanity's future in space. That's the output from experts at the European Space Agency (ESA), waving a number of cautionary flags in its new Space Environment Report 2026. In brief, this disquieting appraisal from ESA points out that the number and scale of commercial satellite constellations continues to increase each year.

The report estimates that the casualty risk from reentering rocket upper stages alone was over four percent in 2024, having doubled since 2020, points out space environment specialist, Ewan Wright from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. About 124 rocket stages reentered the atmosphere uncontrolled in 2024; over two per week, Wright told Space.com. "If that level is sustained for the next decade, the risk of someone somewhere being killed by rocket debris alone is 33 percent," he said.

Wright said that the casualty risk from satellites is also increasing, up to one percent in 2024. "The chance of an aircraft being struck, or airspace being closed due to a reentry, is also increasing as more objects reenter the atmosphere."

In Wright's view, these are avoidable risks. "All rockets should be required to do controlled reentries into the ocean, away from people and aircraft, to mitigate the risk entirely," he said.

Heavily congested

Earth's orbital environment is a finite resource. Too many satellites remain in heavily congested orbits at the end of their lives, creating a growing collision risk. Additionally, more than three intact satellites or rocket bodies are reentering Earth's atmosphere every day on average. At the same time, ten new payloads are launched daily.

One facet of using space that is quickly gaining in relevance is the concern about atmospheric pollution generated by reentries of space hardware. An ESA statement linked to the report suggests that a first task is to collect data on the extent and details of such pollution "to ensure a sound scientific basis for any mitigation measures, if needed."

Significant changes

Since the first issue of this report in 2016, there have been significant changes when it comes to humanity's usage of the space environment.

For the better, there has been a significant increase in the ability of space surveillance networks to reliably catalogue objects both in near geostationary orbits, as well as tagging launch traffic into low Earth orbit.

However, an increasing trend is the number of objects in orbit with an "unidentified" classification. That development reflects a growing gap between detected and catalogued "known origin" fragments.

This situation highlights the increasing complexity of the space environment, the report stresses, and the need for improved monitoring and space traffic management capabilities to be able to avoid collisions and fragmentations.

Health index

The ESA Environment Report 2026 is rife with key takeaways. And among them is a new trend they've added. That trend's bottom line: the casualty risk on the ground from fragments that survive atmospheric reentry is growing.

"Even though the numbers are low compared to everyday risks in life, the chance of a casualty increased in recent years due to increased traffic," the report notes.

This realization of what goes up can rain down is an outcome of more launches, more satellites in Earth orbit and more reentries into Earth's atmosphere of rocket stages and other space hardware.

An "ESA Space Environment Health Index" indicates that, in 2025, the long-term effect of current activities in space over time got an order of magnitude worse in just one year.

High price to pay

Active debris removal, the ESA report observes, is required to stop the growth of the number of objects over time that is caused by space debris causing new debris on their own through speedy smash ups, known as the Kessler syndrome.

"Some indicators show that the interest in and adherence to space debris mitigation measures is on the rise," the report points out, "but we need to be faster, more consistent and reliable. Without it, we are saddling future generations with a high price to pay for any activities in space."

To that point, even if no new satellites were launched, the debris population would continue to increase "because fragmentation events generate debris faster than they can naturally reenter the atmosphere." That means, the report adds, over time, this could make some orbital regions increasingly unsafe and potentially unusable.

Underscored in the report is that the greatest long-term threat is not simply the addition of new objects through launching more, but the self-sustaining cycle of collisions creating fragments that trigger further collisions.

'What would be desirable'

Is it fair to say this most recent appraisal by ESA best captures the situation compared to earlier studies?

In response, Stijn Lemmens, ESA's new Head of the Space Debris Office, told Space.com "yes it is." The report Lemmens said, "aims to aggregate all available and observable data in systematic and neutral fashion, providing year-on-year updates on trends."

This means modifications can occur between reports and elements, such as the future environment, Lemmens added, "are based on extrapolating how we behave now instead of what would be desirable."

Circular economy

ESA's long-term ambition, as reviewed in the report, is creating a circular economy in space through in-orbit servicing.

To do so means refueling, maintaining and repairing spacecraft in space, as well as recycling and reusing resources when manufacturing directly in space.

The paradigm change from "disposable" satellite to reuse and in-orbit servicing equates to a "seismic shift" throughout the space sector, the new report concludes.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) could help stop the uncontrolled proliferation of satellites in Earth orbit, which threatens to erase stars from the sky, astronomers hope.

The initiative, spearheaded by the nonprofit Outer Space Institute, aims to lobby the United Nations to request an advisory opinion from the ICJ, the UN's principal judicial body. Through this, scientists want to gain clarity over the legal responsibilities of launching states to preserve near-Earth space from orbital clutter and the dark night sky from excessive light pollution.

The campaign, originally conceived in 2023 to address the impact of internet-beaming megaconstellations like SpaceX's Starlink, has taken on new urgency over the past 12 months. The escalation comes as tech giants and aerospace firms — including SpaceX, Google and Starcloud — have announced plans to deploy unprecedented networks of hundreds of thousands of space-based data centers.

Furthermore, in July, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted a license to California-based Reflect Orbital to fly a demonstrator space mirror, called Eärendil-1. Scheduled to launch later this year, the satellite is the first step toward a possible future constellation of tens of thousands of such mirrors, which would reflect sunlight to photovoltaic plants on Earth after sunset. If those plans were to pass, the fleet could brighten the night sky so much that astronomical observations around the world might become impossible, critics say.

Aaron Boley, an astronomer at the University of British Columbia and co-director of the Outer Space Institute, told Space.com that the initiative was spurred by the failure to gain unanimous approval from the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) to set up an expert group to monitor light pollution.

"Getting stuff through COPUOS can be very, very difficult because COPUOS works through consensus," Boley said. "Consensus is very hard to achieve, and so you get a lot of stalled initiatives."

The committee negotiates rules for international collaboration in space, but the requirement for unanimous agreement means conflicting national interests frequently stand in the way.

With the ICJ, Boley added, the path may be smoother and faster. A single nation could put a resolution forward to the UN General Assembly to request the ICJ's advisory opinion. With the support of a simple majority of the states present and voting, the request is then passed to the court.

"You only need 50% plus one of the voting states," said Boley. "So that's very hard for a single state to block. If, for whatever political reasons, a state feels like it cannot vote, they still cannot stop it."

The court then reviews the presented evidence and issues an opinion regarding the interpretation of an international treaty or ambiguous piece of law. There is, however, a catch.

"The ICJ has no enforcement mechanism, so the opinions are more of a diplomatic tool," Robin J. Frank, an international law and policy expert and a former legal counsel at NASA, told Space.com. "But it can still be very valuable. It helps to raise awareness of the issue, gives like-minded countries an opportunity to cooperate and carries a certain moral authority. In the end, a state's self-interest is usually best served by its abiding by international standards."

Boley pointed out the case championed by the tiny South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, which in 2023 gained substantial international backing to obtain the court's opinion about nations' obligations to combat climate change. The ensuing advisory opinion, issued in July 2025, firmly stated that states must take action to prevent climate-related damage to vulnerable nations and future generations or face legal consequences. The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution based on the opinion in May 2026.

The opinion has since helped climate change activists worldwide boost their cases in local courts. For example, environmental campaign groups recently requested that a Paris court order the French oil giant TotalEnergies to disclose the climate risks related to its oil and gas production. Their argument, which relied on the Vanuatu advisory opinion, was successful; this past June, the court ruled that TotalEnergies must make such disclosures

"Even though it's not legally binding, the ICJ's advisory opinion comes with incredible authority," Boley says. "One could, for example, use it to actually bring forward a dispute."

Frank agreed. She said that, if dark-sky activists in the U.S., for example, wanted to mount a legal case against the FCC for disregarding environmental impacts of satellite megaconstellation projects, the ICJ's advisory opinion would come in handy.

"Using the ICJ advisory opinion in domestic judicial proceedings has a substantial weight," she said. "It might help sway the local courts to, essentially, comply with it. It can have a significant impact."

She added that the opinion issued in the Vanuatu case signals that the ICJ takes environmental issues seriously, providing a glimmer of hope to the astronomers.

The scientists would request the ICJ to clarify aspects of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which provides the backbone of international space law, said Boley. The Treaty's Article 9 sets out the concept of due regard, which means that, although nations are free to explore space, they must do that while respecting the activities and interests of other nations.

"The ICJ won't tell the U.S. how many satellites it can or cannot launch," said Boley. "But down the road, it can change how the U.S. approaches satellite licensing in general."

He added that astronomers have long been trying to engage with satellite megaconstellation operators and government bodies to raise awareness of the problem. So far, he said, they have not achieved the outcome they want.

The earlier attempt to set up an expert group within UN COPUOS to monitor satellite light pollution and impacts on astronomy was backed by Chile, Spain, Slovakia, Bulgaria, the Dominican Republic, Peru and South Africa.

The age of the orbital data center may be about to dawn.

Google announced today (Sept. 24) that a prototype satellite for its planned Project Suncatcher AI constellation will fly on SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare mission, which is currently scheduled to launch on Oct. 1.

The main goal is to see how core Suncatcher hardware — Google chips known as tensor processing units (TPUs) — perform in the final frontier, according to the company.

The satellite going up on Transporter-18 was built by the San Francisco-based Earth-imaging company Planet, which has partnered with Google on Project Suncatcher.

The prototype spacecraft carries four TPUs and will operate in Earth orbit for a year, if all goes to plan, according to The New York Times. During that time, Google will keep close tabs on the TPUs, noting, among other things, how they're affected by space radiation and how effectively the heat they generate is dissipated.

Indeed, cooling is regarded as one of the major challengers for operators of orbital data centers, as there is no airflow in space to carry away heat.

"We're working on a number of different approaches for this, including a combination of heat pipes and radiators to cool the chips," Google wrote in today's Project Suncatcher update.

"So far, our team has tested the technology in a thermal vacuum chamber that simulates both the thermal and vacuum environment in space," the company added. "We'll see how our new TPU cooling system works in space and refine our designs as we learn more."

The lessons will keep coming. Up next is a course in laser communication, a core capability that the Project Suncatcher satellites — which will operate in clusters of dozens of spacecraft — will need to possess.

"Maintaining the necessary connection requires extraordinary precision, similar to hitting a coin-size target from miles away while both points are in motion," Google wrote. "We'll test our work on this in 2027 when we put two satellites in orbit."

Those two spacecraft will be built by Planet as well, according to The New York Times.

Many other companies are eyeing orbital data-center constellations these days, drawn by the promise of continuously available power (from the sun) and the lack of neighbors to make NIMBY protests. SpaceX, for example, aims to operate a million-member megaconstellation of its Starmind AI satellites in Earth orbit, and to start building it as soon as next year.

It's unclear which, if any, of these off-Earth AI plans will come to pass. But the Transporter-18 launch could be a hinge point, teaching Google a lot more about its own prospects.

The U.S. Space Force is opening up about its operation of orbital weapons, but not much beyond admitting that they exist.

During a "State of the Space Force" address at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, on Tuesday (Sept. 15), Chief of Space Operations Gen. Douglas Schiess stated unequivocally that the Space Force uses active space-based weaponry to support United States national defense.

“Let me be crystal clear: Today, Guardians operate on-orbit weapons that can defend the joint force against space-enabled attacks,” Schiess said, referring to the official name for Space Force personnel.

Space is central to national security infrastructure and warfighting efforts, and serves a critical role in how the military communicates, navigates, conducts operations and tracks threats globally. It’s become an increasingly contested domain, with adversaries developing technologies designed to disrupt or destroy satellites in orbit as well as hypersonic weapons that challenge ground-based-only defenses.

Schiess didn’t specify what kind of weapons the U.S. operates in orbit, how many there are, or what exactly they do. But the revelation that the Space Force is operating those kinds of assets is by itself a pretty hefty admission. The news expands the known scope of U.S. military activity in the final frontier, which already included the use of satellites for GPS, communications, missile warnings and other targeting and intelligence operations.

“Space is both a battlefield and the backbone of our joint force,” Schiess said. “We face determined and credible adversaries who are building counter-space systems at incredible speeds to target directly the United States’ space advantage.”

The chief adversaries are China and Russia, experts have said. Both nations have developed a range of counterspace capabilities intended to threaten or interfere with other satellites, including through electronic warfare and anti-satellite (ASAT) systems. Russia demonstrated as much in 2021, when it destroyed one of its own spacecraft with an ASAT missile, which created a cloud of more than 1,500 pieces of orbital debris.

The U.S. has been rapidly expanding its own military presence in orbit over the past decade or so, and is ramping up those efforts even more with plans for the implementation of President Trump’s Golden Dome missile interception system. In the last year alone, the Space Force has awarded more than $12 billion in major contracts to companies like SpaceX, Rocket Lab, L3Harris and Boeing for a wide range of services, including national security launches, space-based tracking satellites and other defense technologies.

Schiess pointed to the Victus Haze mission as an example of how the Space Force is getting ready to react to orbital threats on short notice. Rocket Lab carried out Victus Haze in June, launching an Electron rocket and interceptor spacecraft within just 17 hours of receiving notice from the Space Force, setting a launch turnaround record.

Schiess also highlighted the Space Force’s critical role in Operation Epic Fury and the ongoing engagement of U.S. military forces in Iran. “Guardians are not supporting from the sidelines as a nice-to-have, but we are delivering space power directly into the fight as a need-to-have,” he said. Schiess even gave an anecdotal example of the actions of one Guardian, “Specialist Gray,” in the heat of battle.

“Even as alarm red sirens were blaring and incoming missiles targeted her site, she courageously held the line, protecting forces, denying adversary capability, and delivering space effects until her commander had to literally pull her from the console to safety,” Schiess said.

Schiess described her operations before she was pulled from that console, giving some clue as to what exactly is meant by “on-orbit weapons.”

He said the Guardian in question needed to “reconfigure her weapon system and execute critical non-kinetic fires,” and went on to add, “She locked onto the target, optimized her weapon system and waged electromagnetic warfare against a determined adversary.”

Those descriptions offer at least some clues about the technologies involved. Phrases like “electromagnetic warfare” and “non-kinetic” could point to signal jamming technology or other non-physical means of disrupting a target.

Schiess said the Space Force intends to continue expanding its combat power with more robust architectures and the ability to respond with increasing speed to evolving threats. That proliferation on behalf of Golden Dome and other national security programs stands to deliver substantially more military hardware into orbit in the coming years, but Schiess framed the buildup around the prevention of conflict, rather than its provocation.

“Our aim is deterrence,” he said.

For decades, researchers have been monitoring armed conflict around the world by analyzing news reports and collecting oral testimonies. This approach, while valuable, has its limitations. A new study suggests that a satellite's view from above might fill the gaps in our understanding of the grim realities of war.

In 2017, the Myanmar Army murdered several hundred Muslim Rohingya civilians in the village of Chut Pyin near the country's western coast. Reports of the massacre in the settlement of about 2,000 reached the world through the testimonies of survivors who fled to neighboring Bangladesh. The massacre was part of a years-long campaign of brutality against the Muslim minority conducted by the Buddhist-run state. Satellite data later showed that houses in the predominantly Rohingya neighborhood were burned down by the Myanmar military during the atrocity, providing undeniable proof that the ethnic minority was targeted.

The incident is one of many demonstrating the advantage of adding views from space into conflict research, study lead author Valerie Sticher, a political science researcher at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, told Space.com.

"We have huge data sets about wars around the world going back 40 years," Sticher said. "But those datasets are based mostly on media reports. And these reports are not always available and not always reliable. Media can have biases and often focus only on certain types of violence."

For example, human reporters are more likely to focus on the numbers of people killed rather than the number of houses destroyed, she said. Satellites, on the other hand, provide a broad sweep over vast areas of land and, crucially, revisit the same location repeatedly. They can reveal patterns in conflicts and trends that could otherwise go undetected, while providing an overview of areas controlled by authoritarian regimes.

The researchers are now developing a methodology to integrate satellite observations into conflict research and create automated image analysis pipelines that would generate early warnings and alert the world to what's happening on the ground.

"Automated satellite data analysis would allow us to respond faster," said Sticher. "For example, in Myanmar, the area affected by ethnic cleansing was closed to independent journalists and investigators. Satellite data was the earliest reliable information to reach the outside world."

Hannes Mueller, a conflict researcher at the Spanish National Research Council, said that totalitarian governments can be very good at preventing information about atrocities from reaching the world. However, they can hardly fool satellites.

"In Myanmar, for example, when the military clears villages, they frequently kill everybody in those villages," he said. "Then you don't have any eyewitnesses for you to find out what's going on. But they usually also destroy the entire village, and so the violence leaves a mark from space."

Mueller was not involved in the new study but has used satellites in his work since the conflict in Syria in the early 2010s. He lauds the new paper for trying to "plot the road" for a more systematic integration of satellite data into conflict-monitoring data sets.

"Imagine we could generate a data stack of the entire world of all housing destruction since 2020 without any gaps in it," he said. "That would be a complete breakthrough!"

But satellites, too, have their limitations, he said. Currently, spacecraft must be tasked to take images and beam them to Earth. Because of the limited download availability, they can't image every spot they fly over, meaning they usually only reveal the aftermath of catastrophic incidents. For example, the Syrian city of Homs only became the focus of satellite imaging campaigns after the Syrian military attacked it with heavy artillery to suppress pro-democracy protests.

"There are no images of Homs before it got attacked," said Mueller. "There is no archival data of the city from before. Then, after the attack, you suddenly get lots."

In the future, onboard AI image processing — which some of the commercial satellite Earth-observation companies have already rolled out — might solve the problem. Machine learning algorithms running on computers on board the satellites will be able to detect incidents of potential interest and autonomously select significant images to send to the ground.

But there are other concerns. Just as authoritarian regimes can deny access to warzones to independent journalists, governments can order Earth-observation companies to restrict access to images of specific areas. In fact, the U.S. government did just that earlier this year when it ordered American commercial Earth-observation providers like Planet Labs to stop releasing high-resolution images of the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz amid the escalating conflict in the region. The U.S also asked Europe to delay releasing images of that region captured by the European Sentinel satellites by 24 hours.

"With that, we are back to the same biases that we have with the news reporting," Mueller said. "We need to think about infrastructure that would provide us with transparency. That would really be a revolution in conflict research."

The new study was published in the journal Nature on Sept. 9.

A pair of private spacecraft just showed off some impressive maneuverability high above Earth.

The two probes — Mira satellites operated by the California startup Impulse Space — zoomed within 650 feet (200 meters) of each other in low Earth orbit (LEO) recently. The rendezvous demonstrated skills that could be useful to a variety of customers down the road, according to the company.

"These types of dynamic, agile maneuvers are how we unlock full access to space after launch and create new mission possibilities," Tom Mueller, CEO and founder of Impulse Space (and, prior to that, the first person Elon Musk ever hired at SpaceX), said in a statement on Tuesday (Sept. 8). "Our teams that design, build and operate Mira are leading the way toward a true space age, and customers across all sectors will be the beneficiaries."

Mira is an orbital transfer vehicle — a spacecraft designed to deliver customer payloads to precise locations in Earth orbit or beyond. The dishwasher-sized Mira can carry up to 660 pounds (300 kilograms) of gear and is highly maneuverable, as the recent rendezvous showed.

The operation involved Mira satellites that launched in January 2025 and November 2025, on missions that Impulse calls LEO Express 2 (LEO-2) and LEO Express 3 (LEO-3), respectively.

The action began this past February, when the LEO-2 Mira conducted a lengthy engine burn to close in on its counterpart. LEO-2 performed additional, smaller burns throughout the spring and summer, coming into orbital alignment with LEO-3.

"Then in July, LEO-2 executed a series of close approaches to LEO-3, starting at about 820 meters [2,690 feet] apart and subsequently moving closer to LEO-3," Impulse Space wrote in the Tuesday update. "Ultimately, for the closest approach, LEO-2 maneuvered to within about 200 meters of LEO-3."

Both Miras chronicled the rendezvous, snapping photos of each other with onboard camera gear. Two other companies, Starfish Space and HEO, worked with Impulse Space to pull off this orbital photo shoot.

Impulse has worked with Starfish before. The duo collaborated late last year on a rendezvous between LEO-2 and the first space-flown Mira, which launched on the Leo Express 1 mission in November 2023.

On that operation, called Remora, LEO 2 used Starfish Space navigation software to get within 4,100 feet (1,250 m) of LEO 1.

"We're showcasing some of the advanced capabilities that set Mira apart from other vehicles," Drew Damon, vice president of spacecraft programs at Impulse, said in Tuesday's statement. "Twice now, we've demonstrated that Mira has the agility and propulsion to support a new class of dynamic operations on orbit, and our team is excited to continue tackling the mission sets Mira is uniquely qualified to handle."

Impulse is not alone in developing and demonstrating orbital maneuverability. Such skills are a key priority of national governments, which want to service and upgrade their own satellites — and keep tabs on the activities of adversary craft. For example, earlier this year, two Russian spacecraft got within a mere 10 feet (3 m) of each other high above Earth.

United States Space Command just held its first-ever "Apollo Maneuvers" exercise, which saw spacecraft maneuvering through simulated contested environments.

U.S. Space Command combines assets and personnel from each U.S. military branch (including the U.S. Space Force) to project American military power into and from orbit. It's unclear which or how many satellites or spacecraft took place in Space Command's recent Apollo Maneuvers 2026, but the exercise involved international partners, according to a command statement. What is known is that the exercise aimed to demonstrate "dynamic on-orbit operations, validate contested logistics and advance collective space maneuver doctrine."

To put it in plain English, this means that Space Command practiced maneuvering satellites and other spacecraft in proximity to one another in a simulated conflict environment, in order to continue refining the "orbital dogfighting" that the U.S. military has been hinting at for some years.

In military terms, dogfighting refers to the close aerial combat that fighter jets engage in, pitting two or more pilots against one another in contests of flying ability and firepower.

In terms of space, this involves "objects in space maneuvering in and out and around each other in synchronicity, and in control," according to Space Force's Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael A. Guetlein.

“That's what we call dogfighting in space," Guetlein told attendees at a conference in 2025, according to Air & Space Forces, while speaking about Chinese satellite operations observed in 2024.

From statements that U.S. Space Command leadership gave about its recent exercise, it sounds like Apollo Maneuvers practiced just that, but in space.

"We will take some of our existing satellites and work with partners to demonstrate what are some of the requirements and capabilities to be able to maneuver for advantage, not just maneuver when you have to change your orbital position," Space Force Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, commander of U.S. Space Command, told reporters last month during a briefing at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, according to Air & Space Forces.

"The side that can maneuver persistently and at scale will set the operational rhythm in orbit."

When it comes to space and what appears to be the inevitability of a conflict extending to Earth orbit, we're still not quite sure what that will look like. But several nations have been developing capabilities and concepts for maneuvering satellites in close proximity to other satellites with the intent to destroy or disable them, or to deny or degrade their communications or intelligence-gathering capabilities.

The U.S. Space Force, in particular, has been developing an operations framework for fighting a war in space and has held multiple training exercises aimed at practicing "orbital warfare."

But Space Force and U.S. Space Command still appear to lack many of the technologies they say they need to wage such warfare. Speaking at the Space Foundation's Space Symposium in 2025, Whiting stated that that the United States needs "orbital interceptors" to fight in space.

"And what do we call these?" Whiting rhetorically asked attendees. "We call these weapons, and we need them to deter a space conflict and to be successful if we end up in such a fight."

But U.S. Space Force has ordered and executed recent missions that have demonstrated capabilities and technologies along the lines of what Whiting described.

In June 2026, for example, a Rocket Lab Electron rocket sent one of the company's Puma satellites to orbit, where it rendezvoused with a True Anomaly Jackal spacecraft that launched a month earlier. Once both spacecraft were in orbit, they maneuvered close to one another to simulate "dynamic engagements."

The mission showed Space Force's "readiness to lean on our commercial partners to deny, disrupt and counter any adversarial advantage — no matter where they try to operate in space," according to a Space Force statement.

A team of researchers just chased a pair of reentering satellites in a private jet to learn about the pollution caused by space debris burning up in Earth's atmosphere.

The satellites in question were the European Space Agency's (ESA) Tango and Samba spacecraft, which once formed the Cluster constellation, together with the already de-orbited Rumba and Salsa. The quartet used to study the interaction of Earth's magnetic field with the solar wind. After 25 years of service, ESA took advantage of the Tango and Samba's controlled demise to help scientists learn what happens when satellites break apart and burn up during their spiral back to Earth.

The international team of researchers chased the two reentries, which occurred one day apart — on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 — above the southern Pacific Ocean a few hundred miles from the Polynesian archipelago of Tonga.

Their goal was to understand what happens when satellites disintegrate and what chemical compounds arise in the process. Although companies such as SpaceX, Amazon and Blue Origin want to launch huge numbers of satellites to space in the next decade — SpaceX alone plans to loft 100,000 of its Starlink V3 spacecraft — very little is known about the effects of satellite reentries on Earth's atmosphere. Researchers are also still unsure which spacecraft burn up completely and how many fragments may reach the ground, putting lives and property at risk.

"We want to understand what happens to these bodies as they fly through the atmosphere, which causes friction and very high temperatures," Jiří Šilha, CEO of the Slovak company Astros Solutions, and one of the researchers aboard the plane, told Space.com. "We know that those satellites break up into fragments, which subsequently melt in the atmosphere."

The researchers chased the reentering spacecraft following exact calculations provided by ESA controllers, who were able to maintain connection with the spacecraft until the very last moment before they plunged into the atmosphere.

The satellite reentries, although they occurred during daylight, were visible from aboard the plane even to the naked eye, said Šilha, and created spectacular fireballs that lasted tens of seconds.

"Bolides and meteors only last a few seconds or less," said Šilha. "But satellites are slower. They enter the atmosphere at a shallower angle, and the atmosphere slows them down further."

But the researchers were there for science, not for a sky show. And it was a rare opportunity: The Cluster trajectories were so precisely known that the scientists could prepare for them and be at the exact spot at the exact time to witness those explosions from only a couple of hundred miles away.

The aircraft, a small commercial business jet, was packed with 30 cameras and spectrometers fitted with special filters to capture not only how the satellites disintegrated but also detect the spectral signatures of the chemical elements released as their bodies burned up.

Eight scientists were squashed on board the darkened jet operating the instruments through the aircraft's six windows as the pilots navigated to the vicinity of the spot where ESA analysts had predicted the breakup would occur.

"We were flying toward the object, and first it looked like a compact source of light as the material ablated," said Šilha. "At some point, there was a sudden explosion as the satellite disintegrated."

The plane allowed the researchers to overcome any clouds that could obscure the view from the ground, and also to bypass the thickest layer of the atmosphere, which would distort the measurements. As the satellites hurtled through the air, slowing down from the mind-boggling speed of 22,370 mph (36,000 kph) at which they hit the upper atmosphere, the jet approached them to within a distance of around 75 miles (120 kilometers).

"We begin observing it when it's at about 90 kilometers [56 miles] and it stops being visible at about 65 to 70 kilometers [40 to 44 miles]," Šilha said. "For about thirty to forty seconds after the explosion, you can observe an interesting structure as all those various fragments ablate in the atmosphere. Then they all either burn up or slow down."

Šilha said the cameras captured tens of fragments, in detail that had never been observed before.

The researchers also attempted to trace seven chemical compounds, including titanium, sodium and potassium, which get released as satellites burn up. The team was especially interested in aluminum, which makes up the majority of a satellite body. Aluminum is not naturally present in Earth's atmosphere and most likely forms aluminum oxide during the incineration. The potential presence of aluminum oxide in the atmosphere in higher concentrations worries scientists, as it could potentially trigger ozone depletion in the stratosphere.

"We tried to measure the aluminum at different altitudes, using specialized filters, which could tell us when this aluminum interacts with the atmosphere," said Šilha. "That's when the aluminum oxide likely forms, and that's something that has never been observed before. We don't know exactly how and in what quantities the aluminum oxide might be forming."

The researchers will now analyze the data to learn exactly what chemical reactions may be occurring during every second of the breakup and burn-up process. The data will help atmospheric physics and chemistry researchers improve their models to further our understanding of the potential damage the growing satellite industry might do to the planet and its climate in the future.

"The data will help us validate whether the models agree with reality," said Šilha.

The team previously chased the reentry of the first of the four Cluster satellites — Salsa — in September 2024. The lessons from that campaign helped the team get closer to the Tango and Samba spacecraft and obtain more and more accurate data.

It began with an unusual flash detected off the coast of South Africa by an aging American satellite — and to this day, debate continues over whether this odd Cold War event involved an illicit atmospheric nuclear test.

The strange story of the "South Atlantic Flash," better known as the Vela Incident, began on Sept. 22, 1979. At that time, Vela 6911, a satellite in a constellation developed by the United States for the specific purpose of detecting nuclear detonations, observed something that immediately alarmed officials: a peculiar flash of light emanating from somewhere over the South Atlantic Ocean.

A significant part of what concerned U.S. officials at the time had been the double flash of light detected during the event — a distinctive feature that strongly resembled the flashes produced by a nuclear explosion in Earth's atmosphere. The characteristic double flash results from the rapidly changing brightness of the fireball and shock wave produced by an atmospheric nuclear detonation, creating a distinctive optical signature that Vela's sensors were specifically designed to recognize. The South Atlantic event, therefore, seemed like a prime candidate for a secretive nuclear test being carried out by an unknown party — but if that were the case, who was responsible?

What do we know?

U.S. officials responded to a possible nuclear test

Then-President Jimmy Carter was promptly alerted to the situation, as evidenced in diaries the former U.S. leader would publish years later. "There was indication of a nuclear explosion in the region of South Africa," Carter wrote in an entry on the same date of the event. A later entry penned the following February would go on to add that "We have a growing belief among our scientists that the Israelis did indeed conduct a nuclear test explosion in the ocean near the southern end of Africa."

Despite that belief regarding the possibility of a clandestine nuclear test, a scientific panel assembled in 1980, chaired by MIT professor Jack Ruina, eventually put forward an alternative explanation: that the flash had more likely been an anomaly caused by a small meteoroid striking the satellite.

Notably, the panel did not rule out the possibility of a nuclear explosion at the time, although the alternative they put forward remained controversial among scientists and intelligence officials.

Documents and government insiders surface

By the turn of the 21st century, formerly classified documents began to surface that revealed the extent of the inner tensions between U.S. government agencies over what caused the Vela incident.

Among the critics of the debris-induced "anomaly" hypothesis had been Defense Intelligence Agency Vice Director Jack Varona. According to documents released in 2006, Varona said the investigations by the 1980 scientific panel had been a politically motivated "whitewash," and that evidence collected by the U.S. intelligence community included detections "unique to nuclear shots in a maritime environment," based on an analysis by the Naval Research Laboratory.

Varona wasn't alone. Other former intelligence officials who came forward over the years included Stansfield Turner, the former Director of Central Intelligence during the Carter administration, who in 2003 described the Vela detection as a "man-made phenomenon."

Similar views were advanced by retired CIA officer Tyler Drumheller, who in 2006 wrote that he had sources at the time who "collectively provided incontrovertible evidence that the [South African] apartheid government had in fact tested a nuclear bomb in the South Atlantic in 1979, and that they had developed a delivery system with assistance from the Israelis."

What remains unknown?

Scientists revisit the mystery

While we still don't know if the South Atlantic Flash was a nuclear test, several scientists have reexamined the available evidence within the last decade, and what they found has lent further weight to the idea that the Vela incident had involved a detonation of some kind.

Among the most significant assessments, a 2017 study by Christopher Wright and Lars-Erik De Geer combined modern research into interplanetary dust and hypervelocity impacts with revelations from recently declassified documents, as well as publicly available information that had been previously overlooked.

Their conclusion: while no model was presented for the tenuous "meteoroid" theory advanced by the May 1980 scientific panel, the double flash observed by the Vela satellite in 1979 was indeed "consistent with a nuclear explosion, albeit detected by an aged satellite for which background modulation was abnormal and/or commenced earlier," adding that additional radionuclide and hydroacoustic evidence existed which supported the conclusion "that the Vela Incident was a nuclear weapon test explosion."

Wright and De Geer weren't alone either. A 2022 study examined data collected by NASA's Nimbus-7 satellite just 16 minutes and 44 seconds after the double flash over the South Atlantic, which suggested a disturbance in the ozone layer that appeared to be consistent with a blast-generated shock wave.

Still, some of the original members of the 1980 scientific panel have defended its work amid the more recent scientific studies. Richard Mueller, who served as the panel's youngest member at the time, defended the group's conclusions in a November 2019 oral history conference, maintaining that the chances the Vela incident had involved a nuclear event were "as close to zero as it gets."

This determination, Mueller argued, was made despite early interpretations by many panelists that a nuclear event had seemed most likely. Wright and De Geer, both of whom attended the 2019 oral history conference, were among the participants that pushed back on Mueller's views.

Who was responsible?

Amid the mounting evidence over the last several decades suggesting the Vela incident was indeed a nuclear test, debate continues over who was most likely to have been responsible.

Although suspicions have long centered on a cooperative — and secret — strategic effort between apartheid-era South Africa and Israel, publicly available evidence remains lacking, and a fair amount of information in declassified documents that could point to this possibility remains redacted.

The mystery continues

Thus, after more than four decades, questions continue to linger over the famous Vela incident, including what nations might have been involved in such a test if it occurred. Despite that uncertainty, one thing does seem evident: information conveyed in unredacted portions of declassified records, combined with modern scientific analyses, increasingly point to the likelihood that the strange "South Atlantic Flash" in 1979 was anything but natural.

Each of the sun-reflecting mirrors proposed by U.S.-based startup Reflect Orbital will appear 40 times brighter than the full moon to observers standing within its beam on Earth, a study has found. The light pollution produced by each of those mirrors would completely wipe out stars from the sky for those underneath them, turning the starry night into an eerie twilight zone.

"It will be worse than big cities like London," Gaspar Bakos, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Princeton and one of the authors of the study, told Space.com. "You would not see any stars if you were in the beam."

Reflect Orbital recently received a license from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch a demonstration satellite called EARENDIL-1 into an orbit 373 miles (600 kilometers) above Earth. The spacecraft will be fitted with a giant mirror 60 by 60 feet (18 by 18 meters) in size to test how sunlight can be reflected to Earth to extend the operations of solar power plants into nighttime hours or even to illuminate disaster zones after dark for free.

Despite the company's intentions, the FCC's decision stirred an outcry among astronomers, environmental campaigners, commercial pilot associations and other stakeholders, who fear the effects that might come to pass if the FCC approves Reflect Orbital's plan to launch 40,000 space mirrors even larger than EARENDIL-1 in the coming years.

Bakos is one of the astronomers who filed objections to the FCC against the plan. He said that the new study provides hard numbers on Reflect Orbital's impact where there previously were only rough estimates.

"There has been some disbelief from Reflect Orbital about our original estimates, so we have taken data on light scattering in Earth's atmosphere which is based on papers that go back for decades to calculate the light pollution," said Bakos. "These are scattering calculations that have been extensively tested in real life situations. So, we now have scientifically accurate renderings based on this paper."

Instead of focusing on EARENDIL-1, the researchers calculated the impact of Reflect Orbital's operational mirrors, which will be 174 by 174 feet (54 by 54 m) in size. They found that to observers on Earth standing at the center of the mirror's 3.4-mile-wide (5.4 kilometers) beam, the satellite would appear 40 times as bright as the full moon and the sky as luminous as that in the after-sunset twilight.

But thanks to atmospheric light scattering — the bouncing of photons off particles in the air — the area affected by the mirror's passage would be much wider, the study found. Even at a distance of nearly 9 miles (14 kilometers) from the beam, the sky would be brighter than when the moon is full. At a distance of 21 miles (34 kilometers), the light-polluted area above the horizon in the direction of the beam would still appear brighter than the night sky during a full moon.

That would be just a single mirror. But Reflect Orbital wants to fly 40,000 such satellites. Bakos said that data suggests that to trigger energy generation even in the most efficient solar panels of today would require the combined reflected light from at least 400 such mirrors at the same time. Together, the beam from those mirrors would be 10,000 brighter than the full moon, which, however, only makes up about 2.4 percent of the brightness of the sun, the paper states.

The sky glow resulting from these combined beams, the researchers found, would be visible from 50 miles away (80 kilometers), and extend the twilight zone up to 9 miles (14 kilometers) from the beam.

"It would be almost daytime brightness," said Bakos. "It would be just like before sunrise. But in fact, that's too low for solar panels to actually operate. Even the very best ones would barely turn on even with 400 mirrors illuminating the patch."

In renderings created by Bakos and his team based on the calculations, a pristine dark sky at a dark location is shown to completely transform into a star-free twilight zone as the mirror flies overhead.

Reflect Orbital's spokesperson told Space.com in response that the study's findings were based on "inaccurate assumptions" and insisted that "the vast majority of people will never see the light in their lifetime as the vast majority of service locations will be very remote," serving "large construction and solar projects in the middle of nowhere."

The spokesperson further added that "only the satellites required to serve approved locations would be active; inactive satellites would remain below naked-eye visibility."

The researchers, however, criticize the company for failing to provide technical data to back up their claims.

Reflect Orbital, however, insists that they "engaged substantively with legitimate concerns raised by astronomers, environmental researchers and scientists" and that such "feedback has informed our technology and operational plans."

The company says that they are "working on a coordination agreement with the National Science Foundation and commissioning third-party research through independent researchers and federal partners."

For comparison, SpaceX's Starlink currently consists of around 11,000 satellites. According to some estimates, around 30 Starlink satellites are visible in the sky from a single spot on Earth at any point in time. Starlink satellites, however, are much smaller and dimmer than the Reflect Orbital mirrors.

Bakos said the overall effect of the mirrors would depend on the reflectiveness of the illuminated surface and the cloudiness of the sky. A forest, for example, might absorb most of the light while snow-covered fields or concrete city streets would scatter it further.

"It's not just the beam," said Bakos. "The glow of the reflected light from the surface will cause the sky to glow. For example the light pollution from a town illuminated by the beam will be ten to 20 times brighter than from the artificial lighting in that same town. Artificial light only illuminates streets and sidewalks, but here, everything would be illuminated — every backyard, park, roof or river."

The FCC received around 1,900 objections against the Reflect Orbital application. In its Order and Justification of Reflect Orbital's mission license, the agency stated that "impacts on optical astronomy fall outside [the FCC's] review and authorization."

In the U.S., satellite projects are exempt from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires federal agencies to assess environmental impacts of their decisions. The exemption has been in place since the 1980s when only a handful of satellites were being launched in a year.

The study was accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal and is currently available on arXiv.

The final frontier is getting more and more contested, so satellite companies are investing in some self-defense.

At least one of them is, anyway. Florida-based Lonestar Data Holdings announced today (Aug. 25) that it has contracted Polish startup Ares Shield to provide protection for its off-Earth data centers, in a deal worth up to $6 million.

"Our clients entrust us with mission-critical data, which is why we treat the security of our orbital infrastructure as the foundation of our entire service," Lonestar CEO Stephen Eisele said in a statement today. "Ares Shield technology offers a unique solution that allows us to further protect our satellites without the risk of generating space debris. For a company whose product is data security, it is a compelling option."

Lonestar has already tested its data-storage tech on four space missions, including two that went to the moon.

For example, one of the company's devices hit the gray dirt aboard Intuitive Machines' Athena lander in March 2025. Athena toppled over shortly after touchdown, but Lonestar's mini data center achieved its desired milestones regardless, according to the company.

Such work has helped inform the development of Lonestar's first commercial space-based offering — a platform called StarVault, which will store customer data at a healthy remove from natural disasters and other issues that could crop up here on terra firma.

"StarVault combines Lonestar's advanced cryptographic key escrow capabilities with space-based data storage infrastructure, creating a new class of digital resilience — extending secure data beyond Earth," the company said in a statement in April.

The first StarVault payload is currently scheduled to fly aboard Sidus Space's LizzieSat-4, which is manifested on SpaceX's Transporter 18 rideshare mission. That flight is expected to launch from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base in late October.

Other StarVault missions will follow, as Lonestar builds a data-storage network in low Earth orbit and, perhaps, more far-flung locales.

Multiple satellites in that network will be protected by Ares Shield technology, if all goes according to plan. That tech is a combination of sensors, AI-driven analytics and a high-power microwave (HPM) emitter, which are integrated into a module that attaches to the client satellite.

Ares Shield's system will be able to detect and classify potential threats, such as approaching "inspector" satellites that may have designs on stealing the client's data. And the defense module can neutralize them via electronics-frying HPM emissions, knocking satellites out without creating a cloud of space debris.

But shooting to kill will likely not be the first option, said Ares Shield CEO Grzegorz Zwolinski.

"The defense system can show the opponent that we can create malfunctions in their hardware, jam them, or do like small-energy attacks," Zwolinski, who previously co-founded the Polish aerospace company SatRev, told Space.com. "Then they will realize that it's not worth losing their system on this particular infrastructure, which we are protecting."

Ares Shield plans to deliver its first defense systems for Lonestar in 2028 or 2029, he added. The newly announced agreement calls for three satellites to be protected initially, with Ares providing modules for more spacecraft in the constellation over time.

And there could be other customers in the near future as well.

"We are discussing another delivery for other operators," Zwolinski said. "So, we are seeing more and more interest."

Such interest is not surprising, given the rise of in-space surveillance and the continuing development of satellites capable of rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) — the ability to meet up, and potentially interfere, with other satellites in orbit.

These threats have increased dramatically in the past few years, according to Zwolinski.

When he co-founded SatRev back in 2016, "there were mostly peaceful actions, but during the the war in Ukraine, more hostile actions started to appear on orbit," Zwolinski said, referring to Russian's ongoing invasion, which began in February 2022.

"The inspector robots and RPO attacks started to be more frequent," he added. "Russia is is trying to exercise those attacks more and more often. China is doing a lot of RPO attacks on NATO satellites. There are more and more actors which are producing the inspector robots.

"So, it appears to me that we should have something to answer for those problems," he continued. "I think in the future, most satellites will need our protection."

That need will only increase as more and more data centers reach orbit. And that's expected to happen relatively soon. For example, Elon Musk has said that SpaceX plans to operate one million of its "Starmind" AI satellites in Earth orbit — and that it aims to launch the first prototype spacecraft early next year.

Ares Shield plans to protect infrastructure here on Earth as well. The company is currently building HPM systems that can take out drones — which have become key weapons on the modern battlefield — at a distance of 330 feet (100 meters), according to Zwolinski.

"The plan is that, in the next five months, we want to increase the distance where we are shooting the drones, and the most wanted is 2 kilometers," he said.

No GPS available in space? A satellite experiment may have a solution for that.

NASA's Starling mission — made up of a swarm of four cubesats in low Earth orbit (LEO) — is testing out navigation by using other satellites as moving landmarks. The hope is that this tech will allow future missions to navigate if GPS is not available.

The three-year-old tech demo will be extended beyond its previous expiration date this year until at least 2028, NASA announced on Monday (Aug. 17). The aim is to get the most out of the onboard experiment, a collaboration with industry partner EraDrive called FALCON (short for "Fast Autonomous Lost-in-space Catalog-based Optical Navigation").

"As NASA prepares for more missions beyond Earth's orbit, technologies like FALCON can support lunar satellite swarms, distributed science missions and human exploration," NASA officials said in Monday's statement.

While NASA's applications are civilian, alternative GPS solutions are also being investigated by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) out of concern that the limited number of GPS satellites could be vulnerable to adversaries. Earlier this year, for example, Space Force entities SpaceWERX and Space Systems Command jointly launched an initiative aiming for new ideas for "positioning, navigation and timing" (PNT) capabilities in space.

The aim of FALCON, however, is to deal with sheer distance. While satellites in Earth orbit have ample access to purpose-built navigational markers such as GPS, that access rapidly thins out as missions go farther afield. And this isn't just an abstract concern; NASA aims to send astronauts to the surface of the moon again as soon as 2028 on the Artemis IV mission, as part of a larger effort to build a moon base.

Industry and the military are also very interested in the moon and the area around it, known as cislunar space — and how best to navigate in the new environment. The moon's orbit also introduces complications to navigation; in 2025, for example, Canada's Outer Space Institute reported that "mass concentrations," or mascons, pull down on orbiting satellites and may affect their pathway, in some cases even inducing crashes into the lunar surface.

But before testing at the moon, NASA wants to learn more closer to home. It partnered with EraDrive, an autonomous spacecraft navigation company that originated with a group at Stanford University, which provided flight software and algorithms for FALCON. The experiment uses data from Starling's cameras, as well as a catalog on the spacecraft that charts thousands of known satellites and space objects around it.

The mission not only is trying out "GPS-independent navigation" but is also showcasing space situational awareness, or SSA — that is, the ability to understand the environment around the spacecraft (including other satellites). Some other spacecraft, like SpaceX's Starlink broadband satellites, use SSA to automatically dodge threats of space debris in LEO.

Starling's team is hoping to bring even more capabilities for navigation and SSA. "The results from FALCON can have far-reaching implications for on-orbit space-traffic monitoring, collision avoidance and alternative navigation," Roger Hunter, program manager for NASA's small spacecraft and distributed systems program, said in the statement.

FALCON notched two major milestones in its first three years. For PNT, the spacecraft used its cameras to observe other satellites and objects — and to match their information with the onboard database, which includes roughly 20,000 objects from publicly available DoD records. "FALCON then used the observed and verified objects as reference points to determine Starling's orbit," NASA stated.

FALCON's in-orbit observations also helped mission managers better understand the pathways of 200 individual objects, beyond the orbital estimates in the DoD catalog. The estimating work was performed over just three days and autonomously, meaning ground operators did not participate.

"The self-orbit determination capability made possible through FALCON is a first for spacecraft using optical cameras, to navigate by their relative position to other objects in space," NASA stated. "Separately, the catalog-update experiments produced better object position predictions onboard Starling than those provided by ground stations."

Starling's four spacecraft operate at an altitude of about 350 miles (565 km), which is about 6 miles (10 km) higher than originally planned. That's because SpaceX advised mission managers that Starling's mission plan put it at risk of coming close to Starlink satellites already operating in an orbital shell at 340 miles (555 km), according to Space News. By comparison, the International Space Station typically orbits slightly lower than Starling or Starlink, at 250 miles (400 km).

All of which is to say that the Starling mission demonstrates operations in crowded conditions. But in the future, NASA is hoping to port the lessons learned to the moon and Mars for science applications — meaning, to improve measurements from spacecraft — as well as for interplanetary traffic management.

Amid the major uptick in national defense space contracts since the Trump Administration announced plans to assemble a "Golden Dome" missile-defense system in orbit, Rocket Lab has landed another deal to contribute to the cause.

The California-based company was awarded a $397 million Space Force contract to design, manufacture and launch a fleet of "Flatellites" to augment existing infrastructure's ability to track airborne threats in real time. The project is funded under the Space Force's Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator (SB-AMTI) program, and is one of several national security contracts that Rocket Lab has scored over the last two years.

"We are proud to contribute to the deployment of a resilient space-based sensing layer that will enhance the Joint Force’s ability to operate in contested airspace," said Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck in an Aug. 4 statement.

The Flatellites deal is the company's single largest national defense contract so far this year. Since the beginning of 2026, Rocket Lab has now announced four major U.S. government-funded defense contracts worth a combined $943 million: $190 million from the Department of Defense for 20 HASTE (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron) test launches, a $90 million Space Force contract for two satellites in geostationary orbit and another Space Force deal for $266 million to launch up to 18 missile-defense missions from Alaska.

Rocket Lab also recently unveiled GHOST design, a new deployable shipping container-based system capable of supporting Electron and HASTE launches for responsive national-security missions from mobile or temporary locations. And, during a recent earnings call, Beck voiced the company's intent to carry out the aforementioned Alaskan launches using GHOST (short for "Global Hypersonic & Orbital Spaceport Technology"), saying, "We've mastered the art of building launch sites. Now we're making them deployable worldwide."

The flat design of Rocket Lab's Flatellites will increase the number of spacecraft that can be delivered per launch and has been optimized for orbital constellations, according to Rocket Lab's statement. The satellites will be equipped with low latency, high bandwidth communication systems and sensors for tracking adversarial air-based threats.

They will launch in stacks aboard Rocket Lab's upcoming Neutron rocket, similar to the payload bay configuration used for Starlink satellites on SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. Neutron is Rocket Lab's next-generation launch vehicle designed to compete with Falcon 9 lift capabilities and partial reusability, and is currently expected to debut sometime near the end of this year or in early 2027.

Satellites high above Earth may soon have fewer places to hide.

San Francisco-based company Astranis announced today (Aug. 13) that it's developing a line of spacecraft called Perceptor, which will keep an eye on satellite activity in geostationary orbit (GEO).

GEO lies 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth, an altitude at which orbital speed matches our planet's rotational velocity. It's therefore a popular destination for communications, weather and reconnaissance spacecraft — and, increasingly, an arena for off-Earth spying, as space powers seek to keep tabs on their competitors' activities.

Astranis currently operates five satellites in this distant orbital realm, which "support the U.S. military, bring connectivity to remote areas and provide critical capabilities like GPS," according to the company's website.

It plans to leverage and extend this expertise with Perceptor, helping the U.S. government and other potential customers learn more about what's happening high above our heads. The new line will be based on Astranis' "MicroGEO" satellite platform, so named because it's smaller than typical GEO craft.

"Astranis provides mission-critical infrastructure for strategic higher orbits. What we found is our means to detect and respond to emerging threats to this infrastructure are sorely lacking," John Gedmark, Astranis' CEO and co-founder, said in a statement today.

"There are blind spots that will be used against us if not eliminated," he added. "With Perceptor, we're meeting the increasing demand for security in GEO with our proven on-orbit platform and ability to produce at scale."

Perceptor spacecraft will sport a variety of sensors, which will allow them to take the measure of other satellites and their broader GEO surroundings.

"Multi-angle flybys can assess spacecraft capabilities, help troubleshoot anomalies on friendly spacecraft, and provide additional eyes in a domain where awareness has historically been limited," Astranis' statement reads.

Each Perceptor will also be highly maneuverable, using electric propulsion "to traverse the full GEO arc, repositioning dozens of times over its mission lifetime," company representatives added.

The statement does not provide a target timeline for the first Perceptor missions. But the need for such a capability already exists, as the activities of certain Russian and Chinese satellites show.

In 2020, for example, officials with the U.S. Space Force announced that two Russian spacecraft got within 100 miles (160 kilometers) of an American spy satellite, behavior the branch's then-chief described as "unusual and disturbing."

And, in 2023, experts announced that China's TJS-3 GEO spacecraft had taken close looks at USA 233 and USA 298, both of which are thought to be Space Force spy satellites.

A new way to move around Earth's outer atmosphere could soon get a field test.

The Spanish company Kreios Space plans to launch into orbit the world's first satellite that uses scooped-up air to push it forward, the company announced on Tuesday (Aug. 4).

The technology Kreios Space has been developing is called air-breathing electric propulsion (ABEP). It relies on air sourced from Earth's atmosphere, which is then heated up, ionized and expelled to generate thrust.

This method will allow satellites in very low Earth orbit (VLEO) — the region from roughly 60 miles to 250 miles (100 to 400 kilometers) above our planet — to counteract atmospheric drag without the aid of liquid fuel.

"Kreios is building the satellites that make sustained operations in very low Earth orbit possible," Kreios Space CEO Adrián Senar said in the Aug. 4 announcement.

"By enabling satellites to fly lower, longer and more efficiently, we are enabling higher-resolution Earth observation, much better satellite communications, more responsive and accurate missions and a more sustainable orbital infrastructure," he continued.

Kreios Space chose Lithuanian-based Kongsberg NanoAvionics to provide the satellite bus that will carry the ABEP system into orbit for the test run.

"Kreios is tackling one of the most demanding operating environments in space, and this mission joins a very short list of European VLEO initiatives," Kongsberg NanoAvionics CEO Atle Wøllo said in the same statement.

"Our engineering team has worked closely with Kreios to configure the MP42 satellite bus to the mission's specific requirements and support the integration of Kreios' technology," he added.

Kreios Space did not give a target launch date for the mission in Tuesday's statement, saying that the company will launch it "at a time when interest in and development of VLEO technologies has accelerated." But the company's website identifies 2027 as a notional target for its first space mission.

A new, very low frontier

Satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) — altitudes of roughly 100 miles to 1,200 miles (160 to 2,000 km) — generally don't need constant propulsion. Usually, a small boost from traditional thrusters here and there is enough to keep a LEO satellite on the right track. To power the thrusters, these satellites usually have some form of fuel built in.

VLEO works differently. It's low enough that there's still some atmosphere present, which generates drag on spacecraft. If you want a satellite to move around VLEO, it'll need to employ propulsion most or all of the time to counteract that drag. Any fuel that the satellite brings with it therefore won't last long.

So, if satellites are going to operate in VLEO, it would be very helpful to have a method of propulsion that doesn't require traditional fuel — a method like ABEP.

Satellites in VLEO have a few advantages over those operating in LEO, like sharper imagery thanks to the closer vantage point. One of the biggest advantages is that VLEO is much less crowded. There are thousands of satellites in LEO — most of them SpaceX's Starlink broadband spacecraft — and the number is growing all the time. But VLEO has plenty of room.

If ABEP technology works and companies start outfitting satellites with this new propulsion method, then we might start seeing satellites operate quite close to Earth, zooming through the atmosphere and using the air around it to stay on course.

Martin Halliwell is a Partner at NewSpace Capital, one of the world's first private equity firms devoted exclusively to growth-stage companies working in the space technology sector. He formerly served as Chief Technology Officer of SES, where he led global technology and R&D from 2011 to 2019. Halliwell contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices section.

For most of the space age, satellites have been puppets on a string. Every meaningful decision — where to point a camera, when to fire a thruster, how to route a signal — was made by engineers on the ground and radioed up on a schedule.

That model is starting to break down, not because it stopped working, but because the number of satellites in orbit has exploded. A single company can now operate thousands of spacecraft at once, and no ground team can watch that many moving parts in real time. Artificial intelligence is stepping into the gap, and it's changing three things in particular: how individual spacecraft think for themselves, how whole constellations act as a team, and how the communication networks those satellites form get managed.

AI on the spacecraft itself

The simplest change is that satellites are starting to make more decisions on their own, onboard, without waiting for instructions from Earth. This matters because of a basic physics problem: a satellite in low orbit is only in radio contact with a given ground station for a few minutes at a time, and even geostationary satellites face communication delays and limited ground-station bandwidth. If a satellite has to wait for a human to notice a problem, approve a response, and send it back up, that can take hours. An onboard AI system can notice something interesting — a wildfire, a ship, a hardware fault — and act on it immediately.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been testing this idea directly, with onboard AI that analyzes data as it's collected and decides what's worth keeping, what's worth acting on, and what to ignore. The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory has gone a step further, demonstrating a neural network that controlled a satellite's orientation in orbit without a human in the loop — AI managing not just the payload, but the spacecraft's core flight functions. Newer Earth-observation satellites are even carrying small, purpose-built processors (similar to the chips used in some laptops) so they can combine different types of sensor data on the spot and beam down a finished answer instead of a mountain of raw data for humans to sort through later.

AI for managing constellations

Once you have hundreds or thousands of satellites flying together — a "constellation" — a new problem appears: they need to behave like a coordinated fleet, not thousands of individuals. This is one of the areas where AI has the clearest, most practical role.

The most visible example is collision avoidance. Low Earth orbit is increasingly crowded with active satellites and debris, and a mid-size constellation can face dozens of close-approach warnings a day, each requiring a decision about whether to move the satellite out of the way. That volume is beyond what human teams can evaluate one by one, so operators are turning to AI systems that ingest tracking data, calculate collision risk, and in some cases plan or even execute an avoidance maneuver without waiting for a person to sign off. NASA's Starling project and related "distributed spacecraft autonomy" work go further still, teaching small satellites to share data with each other, divide up observation tasks, and adjust their collective plan on the fly — essentially letting the constellation manage itself as a team rather than as separate spacecraft that happen to share an operator.

AI for network orchestration

The third shift is in how satellites talk to each other and to the ground — and this is where AI may have the biggest impact on ordinary users, because it's what makes services like satellite broadband fast and reliable. A modern broadband constellation is a network in constant motion: every satellite is moving at roughly 17,000 mph (27,400 kph), links between satellites and ground stations are constantly breaking and re-forming, and demand for bandwidth shifts by time of day and location. Deciding which satellite should talk to which ground station, how to route a data packet through a mesh of satellites overhead, and how to shape each satellite's radio beam to serve the busiest areas — all of that has to be recalculated continuously.

This is a scale of real-time optimization that traditional, rule-based network management can't keep up with. Operators are turning to AI models — often the same family of technology used for demand forecasting or logistics — that can predict traffic patterns hours in advance and continuously re-optimize beam shapes, routing paths, and satellite handoffs across the whole constellation at once. SpaceX's Starlink network, for example, has described using this kind of AI-driven system to manage traffic across its laser inter-satellite links and adjust beam patterns in real time as demand shifts around the globe. Researchers are also applying newer AI techniques, including models that treat the whole constellation as a connected graph, to make these routing decisions faster and more efficient as networks scale into the tens of thousands of satellites.

Why it matters

None of this replaces human oversight — operators still set the rules, review anomalies, and can step in when something looks wrong. But it does change the job: instead of manually commanding every satellite, ground teams increasingly supervise AI systems that handle the routine, high-volume decisions on their own. As constellations grow from hundreds of satellites to the tens of thousands now being planned, that shift from "human commands every satellite" to "human supervises an AI-managed fleet" isn't just convenient — it's becoming the only way these systems can keep working at all.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 5:50 p.m. ET on Aug. 7 with a significantly revised version.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) can single-handedly green-light massive spaceflight projects that could completely change the view of the night sky for the entire world. Despite the outcry these projects have caused, space law experts say there is very little other nations and the international community can do to thwart them if the FCC were to grant them licenses.

On July 10, the FCC approved an application by California-based Reflect Orbital to launch a 59-by-59-foot (18-by-18 meters) space mirror to test how to reflect sunlight onto solar farms on Earth after dusk. The decision has sparked outcry among astronomers and environmentalists who are concerned about the impact on global light pollution levels that Reflect Orbital's plans might have.

Opponents see the FCC's approval, despite hundreds of objections filed in response to the application, as an indication that the agency might eventually grant Reflect Orbital a license to fly an entire constellation of 50,000 such sun-reflecting mirrors. On top of Reflect Orbital's plans, companies including SpaceX, Blue Origin and Starcloud are awaiting the FCC's decisions on respective applications to deploy their own massive fleets of orbiting data centers and internet-beaming satellites. If all those projects come to fruition, the view of the night sky could change beyond recognition all over the world.

"The technology is outpacing the regulatory environment."

The United Nations' Outer Space Treaty conceived in the late 1960s lays down the international framework for the use and exploration of outer space. The document states that approvals for satellite projects are the domain of the nation in which those satellites are registered.

"The U.N. Treaty for Uses of Outer Space very well specifies that how many satellites are shot into space and how they are registered is a prerogative of the country in which they are registered," a source familiar with the operations of the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), who didn't wish to be named, told Space.com.

The states from which they launch, however, are responsible for any damage the satellites registered under their flags cause to other countries. But Ruskin Hartley, the CEO and Executive Director of the advocacy group DarkSky International, told Space.com that this liability provision only covers physical damage such as satellites colliding in space or spacecraft crashing down on Earth and damaging property.

"It hasn't been tested at all but most people don't think this damage extends to optical interference," Hartley said. "It would have to be physical damage. If a satellite reflects sunlight down and damages someone's observatory, that probably doesn't count as damage under the Outer Space Treaty."

In its Article I, the Outer Space Treaty states that "the exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries." But what exactly that means and what could be done if there is no consensus about those benefits is not clear at all.

The anonymous source told Space.com that UNOOSA and the UN-wide Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) may discuss the issue, but despite the global consequences, are unlikely to come up with a mechanism to stop the corporations from doing what they want if the FCC backs them.

"These UN institutions were all started in the last century and are very slow," the source said. "They require unanimous consensus to pass anything and that obviously hardly ever happens. So nothing gets passed. By the time UN COPUOS and UNOOSA are done discussing anything, SpaceX will have launched another thousands satellites."

The European state of Slovakia in cooperation with the International Astronomical Union (IAU), in fact, submitted a paper to UN COPUOS in June calling for a "general prohibition on the use of space mirrors" or the development of "strong oversight mechanisms."

Aaron Boley, an astronomer at the University of British Columbia, who has been involved with the initiative, admits that these efforts are not likely to progress fast enough.

"There is indeed a major challenge right now with single states being able to create large changes to the sky and the orbital environment," Boley told Space.com in an email. "At the U.N. COPUOS, there are important steps being taken. But these agreements can be slow to achieve."

Hartley added that the companies pushing for grandiose space projects are taking advantage of existing legal loopholes that are not being effectively closed.

"These entrepreneurs that are pursuing these projects, either in the U.S. context as private entrepreneurs or in some instances in Europe and in China as government-level projects, clearly demonstrate that the regulatory environment and regulatory framework has significant gaps and holes in it," Hartley said. "Essentially, the technology is outpacing the regulatory environment."

Unilateral U.S. decisions

According to international space law and policy expert and former NASA legal council Robin J. Frank, this is not the first time the U.S. has pushed ahead with its agenda regardless of the concerns of the international community.

"This is not the first time the FCC has started down the route of unilateral decisions," Frank told Space.com. "Recently, for example, the FCC has approved direct-to-cell communication systems, which connect from a satellite directly to your phone, to use parts of the radio frequency spectrum that have not been authorized for that use by the International Communications Union. Their argument is that they are giving the U.S. industry a leg up."

The U.S., responsible for roughly 25 percent of the global GDP, has historically been reluctant to agree to binding international mechanisms that could restrict its actions, Frank added. Other major global powers, such as China or Russia tend to have a similar attitude, she said.

Currently, the U.S. is not even a party to the Paris Agreement, an international treaty that binds nations to work toward reducing their greenhouse gas emissions in order to curb global warming.

Frank added that individual nations could, for example, take action against constellations of orbiting mirrors by banning them from beaming light onto their territory at a threat of hefty fines. That however, is still not going to stop the development and mitigate the overall light pollution these satellites cause as they inadvertently reflect light as they zoom around Earth.

DarkSky International previously sued the FCC at the District Court of Columbia, challenging its decision to grant SpaceX a license to launch tens of thousands of satellites without conducting an environmental review. The court eventually rejected the non-profit's arguments, but Hartley said the advocacy group would consider filing another lawsuit if the FCC were to green-light the full Reflect Orbital constellation of 50,000 space mirrors or SpaceX's million orbiting data centers.

Despite the massive growth in the past decade, the satellite industry is exempt from the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act, meaning neither the FCC nor the satellite companies are obliged to prove their technologies will not be detrimental to the environment. That exclusion was put in place in the 1980s when satellite launches were few and far between. Many argue it's more than a high time to do away with it.

"It's a regulatory failure," Hartley said. "The ultimate fix is probably a legislative fix, or an administration that directs them to act differently. But this administration is not going to do that."

"This is an issue that's going to affect the quality of life for everybody on Earth."

A recent study by astronomers from the European Southern Observatory found that the brightness of the night sky would rise by up to 300 percent if all the currently planned constellations were to get deployed. That, the astronomers say, would be an end to astronomy as we know it.

Other experts pointed out that the need to have access to constant sunshine would force all orbital data center operators into a single narrow region of space, creating a bright "Saturn's ring" of satellites around the planet.

In its justification for granting the Reflect Orbital test flight license, the FCC stated that arguments about light pollution are outside its merit to judge. No other U.S. government agency, however, currently has a say over granting licenses to satellite companies.

Hartley added the issue far exceeds the interests of astronomers. The brightening of the sky would affect the entire world, including indigenous communities who rely on stars as part of their cultural heritage. The excessive light pollution is also likely to confuse wild animals and affect ecosystems.

On top of that, the air pollution from large quantities of re-entering satellites and the rockets that launch them risks damaging the ozone layer and altering the thermal balance of Earth's atmosphere, according to ongoing research. Greenhouse gas emissions released during launch and the manufacturing of the satellites may offset the advantages of putting data centers to space, extolled by the companies behind those plans.

"The industrialization of space is going to impact carbon in the atmosphere, through the launch phases of all these rockets, and it's very clear that the deorbit of these satellites is likely to change the composition of the atmosphere," Hartley said.

"This is more than just a niche issue for astronomers. This is an issue that's going to affect the quality of life for everybody on Earth."

The outgoing head of the U.S. Space Force has some stark words for his international partners.

Speaking at the 2026 Global Air and Space Chiefs Conference on July 15, in what was his last public speech as Chief of Space Operations (CSO), Gen. Chance Saltzman told attendees that if an armed conflict ever reaches space, as military leaders have for years been predicting and planning for, no military or nation in the world will be spared.

"If a conflict extends into space, none of us will be able to avoid the war zone. Unlike a combat zone in the air, land or sea, we will not be able to steer clear," Saltzman said in his remarks at the conference, published by the Space Force. "Whether we want to be in the combat zone or not, orbital mechanics will put all of our space capabilities into the space war zone."

Saltzman's warning touches upon the fact that there isn't an unlimited amount of space in Earth orbit; in fact there are some crowded orbital inclinations that contain thousands of spacecraft. When a satellite or other spacecraft breaks up in one of these orbits, it can create hazards for many other spacecraft  — even crewed ones.

When Russia destroyed a satellite with a missile in a 2022 test, it left a dangerous debris field in orbit that persists today. The ISS has had to dodge it multiple times.

If a conflict broke out or extended to space, and that conflict involved the destruction of even just one satellite, it could potentially create a runaway effect that leaves parts of Earth's orbit unusable.

But despite the grave nature of his warning, Saltzman stressed that ultimately the shared nature of space means that all spacefaring nations should aim toward cooperation.

"We will share the consequences; therefore, we should share the responsibility for a safe, secure and stable space domain," Saltzman said, adding later in the speech that "these widespread consequences of conflict in space should make deterrence a goal for all of us."

Saltzman has stressed the need for international cooperation in prior speeches. The outgoing CSO called defending the peaceful use of space "the ultimate team sport" when introducing Space Force's International Partnership Strategy in 2025. "The domain is too big, too complex, too dynamic, for a single nation to secure alone," Saltzman said.

While head of the U.S. military's newest branch, Saltzman has seen the Space Force evolve into a fully "combat-credible" force, to use the outgoing CSO's own words.

Saltzman touted the Space Force's contributions to recent U.S. military operations earlier this year at the Space Foundation's 41st Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. "We aren't just talking about theories or plans anymore. We're talking about real operational combat, space effects and the Guardians who deliver them," Saltzman told attendees.

Saltzman is set to retire in August 2026 after serving as the Space Force's second Chief of Space Operations since 2022. President Donald Trump has nominated a replacement, Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess, to serve as Saltzman's successor. Schiess has served as Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Operations since November 2025.

During a recent confirmation hearing, Schiess defended the Space Force's $71 billion budget request, stating the funds are needed to deter China's development of military space capabilities. "The 71.1 billion dollars that the president has asked for is exactly what we need," Schiess said, according to Space News.

The U.S. Space Force is adding three dozen spacecraft to its growing constellation designed to detect and track incoming missiles from orbit. The Space Development Agency (SDA) announced the agreements, worth a combined $1.75 billion, on July 14, naming L3Harris Technologies and Sierra Space as the recipients.

Each company will provide 18 Accelerated Missile Defense Tranche 3 (AMDT3) spacecraft, for a total of 36 satellites that will grow the SDA Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture's Tranche 3 Tracking Layer constellation, part of the Trump Administration's Golden Dome initiative. All 36 are expected to be ready for launch by the end of 2028, according to an SDA statement.

SDA's contracts with each company differ slightly. One calls for "18 missile warning and missile tracking variant space vehicles" from Sierra Space, while the other requests "18 missile defense variant space vehicles" from L3Harris, all equipped with infrared sensors to add to the constellation's global network.

L3Harris will receive up to $955 million for its 18 satellites, which the Space Force describes as "Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor-like" (HBTSS) spacecraft. Sierra Space's agreement has the potential to reach $798 million for its 18-satellite contribution. Altogether, the 36 spacecraft will be distributed across four orbital planes as part of a hybrid missile-defense architecture designed to provide "global stereo coverage" of next-generation missile threats.

The Tracking Layer uses infrared imaging in low Earth orbit to detect and track missiles, and it transfers that data in real time through a low-latency communications network to military forces on the ground. According to the agency, the new satellites will increase the constellation's coverage and integrate into the spacecraft of SDA's first three Tranches.

“AMDT3 expands upon SDA’s previous and current Tracking Layer generations — Tranches 1, 2 and 3," said SDA Director G.P. Sandhoo, "marking another milestone in delivering a resilient, global missile warning, missile tracking, and missile defense capability.”

Sierra Space will base its satellites on the Horizon vehicle, from the company's Eclipse satellite series, which it also used in the design of the spacecraft it provided for the Tranche 2 Tracking Layer program, according to a Sierra Space release.

L3Harris plans to build on the success of the HBTSS satellites the company developed for the Military Defense Agency, according to an L3Harris release. The company "has more than 70 missile tracking and defense satellites on order, including five on orbit, between MDA’s HBTSS program and SDA’s Tracking Layer across Tranche 0, 1, 2 and 3," the company said.

The 36 satellites from L3Harris and Sierra Space are in addition to the 72 Tranche 3 Tracking Layer spacecraft SDA ordered in December 2025, via contracts worth $3.5 billion. L3Harris was included in those agreements as well, along with Lockheed Martin, Rocket Lab and Northrop Grumman. In total, the two rounds of awards bring the Tranche 3 constellation to a planned 108 satellites, worth about $5.25 billion. If all goes to plan, all of them will be available to launch by the end of 2029.

The newly contracted satellites from L3Harris and Sierra Space could begin heading to space sooner than that, however. SDA describes the new contracts as "accelerated," though a launch timeline has not been established to the overall group. Once in orbit, the Space Force will assume responsibility for the satellites' operation and integration "in support of joint force operations and delivering warfighting capabilities," the SDA statement said.

A bright "Saturn's ring" of satellites could circle the night sky if plans to launch a million data center spacecraft and tens of thousands of space mirrors come to pass. This ring, traversing the sky for hours after dusk and before dawn, would outshine every star and planet, and be visible from every spot on Earth.

Hugh Lewis, a professor of astronautics at the University of Birmingham in, the U.K., told Space.com that the only way to accommodate the high number of data center constellations that have been proposed is to stack them above another in orbit above the boundary between day and night, creating an artificial "Saturn's Ring" of satellites around the planet. That ring would show in the sky as a luminous band much brighter than any star or planet and even the full moon.

"If you were to look up at night, they would be all in one plane, really close together, going in the same direction," said Lewis. "The impact on the night sky would be absolutely catastrophic."

The next time you're away from urban light pollution, spend some time outdoors after dark and enjoy the view of the Milky Way and the constellations that have inspired awe since humankind woke to consciousness. Chances are those views are not here to stay forever.

Such a notion would have seemed like science fiction only a few years ago, but since the orbital data center frenzy kicked off last year, the once-fanciful prospect has become a distinct possibility.

A flurry of companies including SpaceX, Starcloud, Cowboy Space, Orbital and Blue Origin have applied to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for licenses to launch more than a million data center satellites combined. China has already jumped on that bandwagon, too, with plans to develop an orbital data center network within the next five years.

On top of those projects, California-based Reflect Orbital wants to launch 50,000 orbiting mirrors into space to reflect sunlight to solar power plants on Earth after dusk. Reflect Orbital received its license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Friday, July 10, to fly the first of these mirrors — a 60 by 60 feet (18 by 18 meter) demonstration satellite named Eärendil-1, which is expected to launch by the end of this year.

Lewis explained that all these data centers and mirrors would have to orbit Earth in the same orbital plane to have access to constant sunshine. This orbital plane follows the terminator line — the boundary between day and night — and takes the satellites over the planet's north and south poles.

"Orbital data centers and Reflect Orbital all tend to rely upon what these operators call 24 hours of sunlight in space," Lewis said. "To have that, you have to be in a particular orbit, which follows the dawn-dusk line. It's not like the Starlink megaconstellation, which is distributed around the Earth."

Samantha Lawler, an astronomer at University of Regina in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, agrees with Lewis. Lawler and her colleagues used computer modelling to visualize the impact of several of the proposed data center fleets including SpaceX's Starmind, Blue Origin's Project Sunrise and the Stampede constellation proposed by Cowboy Space.

In those visualizations, satellites visible from the planet's surface not just outshine the visible stars, they also outnumber them. Lawler explained that as Earth turns under the terminator orbit, the Saturn's ring of satellites would move across the sky twice a day — in the early evening hours between 6 and 8 p.m. and just before dawn.

"[The ring] would pass overhead at the same time every night," Lawler said. "That means its effect would be worse during winter time than the summer time."

Lawler cautions that the visualizations are based on publicly available data and may not reflect the exact technical specifications of the satellites involved. The work has also not yet been peer-reviewed.

However, Lawler added that the scattered light from that ring would continue brightening the sky for up to two hours after it would sink below the horizon, just like the sun keeps illuminating the firmament after it sets.

"It would make our taxpayer-funded telescope time much less effective," Lawler said. "We could do a lot less science for the same cost, and many science cases, including the search for dangerous near Earth asteroids, would be seriously compromised."

There would be no escape from the view of the ring anywhere in the world.

The modelling shows that some of these constellations — Blue Origin's Project Sunrise in particular — would fly their satellites in an additional orbital inclination that would create the shape of X on top of the main "Saturn's ring."

"If you were close to the equator, you would virtually have this X shape of crawling satellites come up in the sky early in the morning and after sunset," said Lawler. Further up north, you would see this as two separate bands. One band would come up in the morning and the other would emerge as the sun sets."

The actual brightness of this "Saturn's ring" would depend on the exact number of the satellites in it. But researchers warn that as each Reflect Orbital's space mirror is bound to be at least as bright as Venus — the brightest object in the sky after the full moon — the luminosity of this band would be extreme.

An earlier study by the European Southern Observatory concluded that a constellation of 50,000 Reflect Orbital mirrors would increase the brightness of the night sky by up to 300 percent, making the world's most expensive telescopes effectively useless.

"Humanity has already fundamentally altered the cosmos to the point where Earth is now an artificial 'ringed planet' choked by satellites and space debris," astronomer and dark sky advocate John Barentine, told Space.com. "But projects like Reflect Orbital will turn those mostly now invisible rings into bright reflective tracks. We aren't talking about a just scattered field of bright, moving dots anymore.

"Rather, this is a permanent, artificial 'ring of Saturn' effect cutting right through the most critical twilight observing windows for global astronomy."

On paper, many of these projects seem to make sense. Data centers on Earth take up precious land. They require enormous amounts of water for cooling, strain power grids and generate greenhouse gas emissions. In space, cooling and access to electrical power would be free.

Reflect Orbital wants to deliver sunlight to Earth after dark to increase the yield of solar plants and agricultural farms, provide free, sustainable lighting to construction sites and illuminate disaster zones in search of missing persons. The company maintains that it works to minimize disruption to astronomy and intends to cooperate with the scientific community.

"Every stage of our development is guided by data — testing, measuring, listening and adapting," the company's spokesperson said in an email. "We are actively commissioning independent, third-party research on the impacts of our technology."

The astronomers who spoke to Space.com, however, unanimously claim that the Reflect Orbital constellation and astronomy cannot coexist. "If we have mirrors in orbit, astronomy is over," Lawler said .

The American Astronomical Society (AAS), issued a statement criticizing the FCC's decision to grant Reflect Orbital a license to fly its test satellite.

"Reflect Orbital's proposed satellite, which would reflect sunlight back to Earth at night, carries the potential for significant harm to our members and the broader community of those who depend on a dark night sky," the AAS wrote. "This harm could include damage to sensitive research telescope equipment, potential flash-blinding of pilots and drivers, and — as Reflect Orbital stated in its own FCC filings — potential permanent eye damage to anyone looking through a mid-sized telescope."

In the past, astronomers praised SpaceX for attempts to dim the Starlink satellites by using dark paint and special visors to reduce reflectiveness. But Lawler said that many of these attempts have been undone by SpaceX's gradual increase of the satellites' size. While first generation Starlinks were about 570 pounds (260 kilograms) in mass, the latest generation weigh more than 4,400 pounds (2,000 kilograms) each.

"They did a lot of work to make the satellites darker, but then they also made them bigger and put them on lower orbits, and that has made them much, much brighter," Lawler said. "You can see Starlink satellites everywhere even with the naked eye. They are very visible and they are all over the sky."

In its Order and Justification of Reflect Orbital's mission license, the FCC stated that "impacts on optical astronomy fall outside [FCC's] review and authorization."

"The Commission's rules do not address the protection of optical astronomy, and thus we decline to interpret commenters' concerns in connection with the Commission's mandate," the FCC wrote.

The astronomers, however, point out that no other regulatory body in the U.S. and outside has a say in awarding satellite licenses to US companies and reviewing applications with respect to impacts on the night sky and the wider environment.

"The FCC is the only agency that's regulating American satellite launches," said Lawler. "But if the FCC says that this is not their problem, then whose problem is it?"

The AAS in its statement called on the FCC to "consider all of the impacts of the satellite's use case."

"In the absence of another licensing agency that could take these considerations into account, we believe that it is critical for the FCC to consider all of the impacts of the satellite's use case," the AAS wrote.

Robert Massey, the executive director of the U.K. Royal Astronautical Society added: " This is setting a bad precedent and opening up to the full deployment of the constellation that could get to the 50,000 satellites in a few years. It's really disappointing that the FCC authorized this."

SpaceX's Starlink satellites made over 355,000 collision avoidance maneuvers throughout the past year, with each satellite now dodging debris and other spacecraft on an almost weekly basis.

The numbers are based on disclosures made by SpaceX in its latest semiannual report to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). According to the latest report, Starlink satellites performed an overall 207,152 avoidance maneuvers between December 2025 and May 2026, up nearly 60,000 from the 148,696 reported in the previous half year. That brings the yearly total to over 355,000, more than three times as many as the constellation performed in 2024. On average, each Starlink satellite performed more than 40 space dodging maneuvers per year between June 1, 2025 and May 31, 2026.

Experts fear the situation might soon get out of hand. "I think we're heading towards a situation where there will be a collision involving an operational satellite in the constellation," Hugh Lewis, a space sustainability expert and professor of astronautics at the University of Birmingham in the U.K., told Space.com. "And it will not be for the lack of trying to avoid those things. It will be in spite of all those maneuvers."

The increase coincides with the growth of the internet-beaming constellation and the overall number of satellites in space in the past five years. Starlink grew from about 6,000 satellites in 2024 to more than 10,000 as of June 2026. Over the same time period, the overall number of operational spacecraft in orbit rose from around 10,000 to about 16,000.

The SpaceX constellation orbits at altitudes between 298 miles (480 km) and 342 miles (550 kilometers) and uses an autonomous collision avoidance system that initiates a maneuver when the probability of a collision appears higher than 3 in 10 million. Lewis says that although SpaceX is "doing an excellent job" managing orbital traffic, the steep growth cannot continue without risks.

"The avoidance maneuvers reduce the probability of a collision to about one in a million, which is so small that it's negligible," Lewis said. "The problem is that if you make a million maneuvers and you have a residual probability of one in a million, you end up with an aggregate risk across your entire constellation that you can't get rid of."

Lewis points out that with the expected continued rise in avoidance maneuvers (SpaceX has applied to the FCC to increase the size of its constellation to 100,000 satellites), SpaceX will have made a million avoidance maneuvers over the lifetime of the Starlink constellation as early as June 2027. By 2030, the constellation may be making more than a million maneuvers every year. At that point, the one in a million risk of a collision may no longer be negligible at all.

Tommaso Sgobba, the Director of the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety, told Space.com that the increase in collision avoidance maneuvers is a predictable certainty.

"The more satellites you pack into [an orbital] shell, the more pairs of satellites exist that could potentially cross paths," Sgobba wrote in an email. "Adding satellites does not just add risk one unit at a time, it multiplies the number of possible pairings. Double the satellites in a shell and you roughly quadruple the number of pairs that need to be watched."

Sgobba also said that the collision probabilities predicted are highly inaccurate as the effects of air drag, which change frequently with space weather, are currently impossible to predict.

He said that due to the vast uncertainties in satellite trajectory predictions "operators lack tools to tell a real threat from statistical confusion," adding that "satellites are frequently dodging ghosts, burning fuel and shortening their operational lives in the process."

SpaceX, being the largest constellation currently in orbit, takes the bulk of responsibilities for orbital maneuvering. Instead of communicating with the other operator to decide who will make the dodge, Starlink satellites automatically avoid other objects — both space debris fragments or operational satellites — whenever there is a conjunction alert.

Other ambitious constellations, such as Amazon LEO or China's Thousand Sails, or Qianfan, are currently being deployed, actively adding to the high number of satellites operating in low Earth orbit.

Lewis said that the only way to safely manage multiple constellations is to make sure their orbits do not intersect. That, however, is not the case based on available information. The Thousand Sails constellation, in particular, is expected to occupy similar regions as Starlink. Many of the recently announced orbital data center projects want to launch into particular orbital regions that are convenient for their operations and are therefore likely to overlap.

"The safe thing to do is to separate the constellations," Lewis said. "But then you are talking about orbital carrying capacity and the first mover benefit, because if I go into a particular altitude with my constellation, then nobody else can use it."

Sgobba calls for predicted numbers of collision avoidance maneuvers based on satellite numbers to be mandatorily disclosed to regulators before applications are granted.

"Right now, there is no clear requirement for a company to say, before launch, how many collision avoidance maneuvers a constellation of this size and density will need every year and whether the satellites carry enough fuel and automation to actually perform them all," Sgobba wrote.

"In short, the crowding of orbit is not an accident waiting to happen. It is a manageable, predictable engineering workload and the argument worth making publicly is that regulators should be treating it that way, by asking for these numbers up front rather than reacting to headlines about near misses after the fact."

Tiny pieces of space junk only 2 inches (5 centimeters) in size are cluttering a valuable orbital region where some of the costliest satellites reside, a new study has found.

Researchers from the University of Warwick in the U.K. found that the geostationary orbit — a region of space at the altitude of 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) — is full of dangerous, previously unseen bits of space junk that could destroy satellites.

The geostationary orbit is quite unique. Satellites at this altitude circle Earth in sync with the planet's rotation, appearing permanently suspended above a fixed spot on the equator. A single satellite in the geostationary ring has a constant view of a vast portion of the globe. This feature has been taken advantage of for decades for things like TV broadcasting, internet delivery, Earth observation and weather monitoring. But, as it appears, those satellites might not be safe up there at all.

"The debris in geosynchronous orbit is a potential minefield," Stuart Eves, the study’s co-author and space consultant at SJE Space, said in a statement. "No one in their right mind would enter a terrestrial minefield without a mine detector. Similarly, no one in their right mind should launch a satellite to GEO without an adequate debris survey."

The researchers uncovered the previously invisible debris by re-examining a dataset from an earlier space debris survey conducted by astronomers using the 8.3-foot (2.54-meter) Isaac Newton Telescope in La Palma, Canary Islands. They ran the data through new image processing algorithms to distinguish smaller and much fainter fragments than was previously possible in the distant geostationary orbit.

"The blind stacking technique is a very powerful method for improving the sensitivity limit of astronomical datasets," Ben Cooke, a research fellow at the University of Warwick's Center for Space Domain Awareness and co-author of the paper, said in the statement. "It involves testing many potential paths in an image sequence along which hidden targets might be moving and stacking the images to help bring those targets above the noise floor. This project shows a successful, real-world application of the method."

The researchers found 25 previously missed debris tracks in the images, 80% of which were caused by previously unknown objects.

The finding is concerning as space debris at such high altitudes behaves differently from that circling closer to Earth. The residual atmosphere at 22,000 miles is almost non-existent, meaning there is no air drag to force the orbital clutter spiral into the atmosphere and burn up.

"Debris in the neighborhood of the geostationary belt is particularly concerning," James Blake, also a Warwick research fellow and the study’s co-author, said in the statement. "It's very far away, well above the Earth's atmosphere, so small objects tend to be incredibly faint and difficult to detect, and any debris that's generated will stick around indefinitely."

While orbits near Earth naturally clear up as the residual air at these altitudes slows the junk fragments down, at the higher altitude, the concentrations of such fragments will forever keep rising, making the region ever more tricky to operate in.

Moreover, the satellites that reside in this unique orbital region tend to be very large and expensive, designed for much longer missions than those making up megaconstellations in low Earth orbit. These satellites, frequently fitted with solar panels spanning 100 feet (30 meters) or more, can suffer substantial damage from a collision with the tiniest piece of junk.

"Pieces of space junk can be moving very quickly relative to one another, as much as several kilometers every second," Blake said. "The energies involved are really high, and even small debris can cause a lot of damage to very expensive satellites, so small things really matter."

The researchers are now looking to analyze additional images obtained by other telescopes around the world to get a fuller understanding of the scale of the debris contamination in the region.

The study was published in the Journal of Astronautical Sciences in June.

The first of perhaps tens of thousands of sunlight-directing space mirrors just got cleared for liftoff.

California-based startup Reflect Orbital just got a license from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch and operate its first demonstration satellite, a spacecraft that will unfurl a reflective surface that measures about 60 feet (18 meters) on a side.

That satellite, called Eärendil-1 is targeted to fly later this year. And it could be the first of many: Reflect Orbital aims to operate 50,000 or more such mirror-craft in low Earth orbit by 2035, beaming reflected sunlight down to a variety of customers on the surface.

"We're grateful to the FCC for recognizing the importance of testing novel technologies in space," Ben Nowack, Reflect Orbital's co-founder and CEO, said in an emailed statement on Friday (July 10).

"This license is the first step toward rigorously testing our technology's efficacy and the safeguards we have developed," he added. "We're excited to demonstrate how our technology works and to introduce transformative, clean technology the world urgently needs."

That technology could aid a variety of industries and endeavors, according to Reflect Orbital.

"Imagine the endless possibilities when sunlight is not limited by geography or time of day," the company's website reads. "A search-and-rescue team locates a missing person in minutes. A city has safer, evenly lit streets without the carbon emissions. Construction projects complete in half the time with teams able to work through the night safely."

The planned mirror constellation will also boost the productivity of solar arrays on Earth, allowing them to take more of the electricity-generating load from polluting options such as fossil fuels, according to the company.

Not everybody is thrilled about Reflect Orbital's plans, however. Satellite megaconstellations in general are controversial. Some folks object to how they're changing the night sky, for example, and others worry that deorbiting huge numbers of satellites will pollute Earth's atmosphere with heavy metals.

There are some specific concerns about Reflect Orbital's plans as well — namely, that it will introduce a new type of light pollution for people and ecosystems to deal with.

"The beam reflected by these satellites is very intense, four times brighter than the full moon, and they will be flying multiple satellites in a formation," John Barentine, an astronomer at the Silverado Hills Observatory in Tucson, Arizona and a consultant at Dark Sky Consulting, previously told Space.com.

"That will have an effect on wildlife in the directly illuminated area, but also, through atmospheric scattering, on the surrounding areas as well," he added.

Reflect Orbital stresses that it will do its best to minimize such potential impacts.

"We design for safety in three ways: 1) the light is contained within the spot, 2) the light can be turned off quickly and at any time so that none of it reaches the Earth, and 3) we can intentionally avoid sensitive areas like research observatories or protected habitats," the company's website states.

"The light is not bright enough to start fires or harm eyes, even when viewed through a telescope, and cannot be concentrated past maximum natural sunlight irradiance," it adds.

Imagine you're on a hike in a remote mountain range. Your hyperactive dog catches the scent of a deer and, powered by his hunter's instinct, disappears in the forest. He has a GPS tracker in his collar that can send his coordinates via the cellular network. But where you are, there is no mobile coverage. You keep whistling and calling but to no avail: your dog is nowhere to be seen.

That exact scenario prompted technologist Jonathan Bensamoun to develop what he describes as the world's first satellite-connected wearable device for dogs. Bensamoun is the founder and CEO of Fi, which has been manufacturing dog trackers since 2017. He first conceived the idea to make GPS devices for dogs when he adopted a young German shepherd named Thor and wanted to make sure that his hired dog walker wasn't cutting corners when taking him out for walks.

But even though the company had quickly grown into a market leader, Bensamoun kept hearing customers complain about the device's usefulness. That's where SpaceX's Starlink satellites came in.

"The number one complaint from customers is either 'I live in an area where the cellular network is not really good' or 'I get really worried about my dog when it's away from the typical suburban area. I am worried when it escapes the yard and runs into the woods," Bensamoun told Space.com.

When Starlink began delivering connectivity directly to smartphones in 2024, Bensamoun knew a solution to the problem was on its way. And on July 8, the world's first satellite dog tracking service came online.

The device combines a GPS receiver, which determines the dog's position in real time, and a simple battery-powered modem that connects to T-Mobile's cellular network, which partners with Space's Starlink system. When the dog's position registers outside a pre-defined zone, the owner receives a message via a smartphone app.

When no cell tower is within reach, the device links with an overflying Starlink satellite to complete the task. The dog owner can also set a geo fence around the dog, an area within which the dog is allowed to move without triggering an alert. When the dog crosses that virtual boundary, for example, escapes from the backyard, the tracker sends a message to the owner.

The device's battery lasts "multiple days", according to Fi, giving the desperate pet owner plenty of time to locate the refugee. To speed up the search, Fi enables the owner to send the dog signals — short bursts of vibrations or sounds — to entice it to come home voluntarily.

"You can train your dog with those vibrations and reward it with food every time they receive the vibration," said Bensamoun. "That way, they will start associating the vibration with their food being ready at home."

GPS tracking has been around for decades. In the animal realm, wild, endangered animals became the first to wear them in the 1990s. But those early devices were clunky and expensive, good for large mammals such as moose and caribou, but not fit for commercial use on pets. The technology finally shrunk to small enough dimensions in the early 2010s when first GPS dog trackers entered the market.

Today, some 11 million dogs worldwide are tracked or monitored by GPS in some form. Fi's new tracker — the Fi Ultra Direct-to-Cell tracker — takes the technology another step further by providing "nearly omnipresent connectivity," said Bensamoun.

SpaceX is nothing if not ambitious.

Elon Musk's company just filed an application with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to operate a 100,000-member constellation of "Gen3" satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO).

This will presumably be an updated version of SpaceX's Starlink broadband network, according to astronomer and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell, who reported the news via X today (July 9).

The new plan would dramatically expand Starlink's already extensive orbital footprint. SpaceX currently operates nearly 10,800 of the internet spacecraft in LEO and has FCC approval for about 4,000 more.

And each individual Gen3 satellite will be considerably larger than its predecessors. According to McDowell, SpaceX's FCC application states that each one will weigh 4,400 to 5,500 pounds (2,000 to 2,500 kilograms) and cover an area of 3,230 to 4,300 square feet (300 to 400 square meters) with its solar arrays extended.

For perspective: The Starlink satellite version that SpaceX is launching these days, known as the V2 Mini, weighs about 1,760 pounds (800 kg) and covers about 1,250 square feet (116 square meters), according to SpaceflightNow.

SpaceX launches V2 Minis aboard its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, generally in fleets of 29 satellites apiece. The Gen3 is so big, however, that it will probably need to fly on Starship, the giant, super-heavy-lift rocket that SpaceX is developing to help get people to the moon and Mars, among other tasks.

Starlink Gen3 isn't even the biggest satellite assemblage that SpaceX is cooking up: The company also aims to build a million-strong AI megaconstellation called Starmind.

"Launching a constellation of a million satellites that operate as orbital data centers is a first step towards becoming a Kardashev II-level civilization, one that can harness the sun's full power, while supporting AI-driven applications for billions of people today and ensuring humanity's multi-planetary future," Musk wrote in a February 2026 update about the planned AI constellation.

A number of other companies, including Amazon and Blue Origin, are also building out large constellations in LEO, or plan to do so in the near future.

A variety of people and organizations have objected to how crowded Earth orbit is becoming, voicing concerns about the effects on astronomical observations, wildlife, Earth's atmosphere and humanity's enjoyment of the night sky, among other issues.

A constellation of cubesats fitted with special detectors could sniff out nuclear weapons hidden on satellites launched by adversary nations, according to a new study.

In 2024, rumors began to swirl in military circles that Russia might be developing a space-borne nuclear weapon. At that time, two years into the war in Ukraine, Russia was well aware of how big a lifeline SpaceX's Starlink broadband constellation had been for the Ukrainians. Starlink has not only provided connectivity to ravaged cities and frontline troops but also helped Ukrainians counter-attack the Russian invaders more effectively.

Drones fitted with Starlink terminals could reach much more distant targets than those controlled via conventional radio links. As the Starlink signal is almost impossible to disrupt by jamming, the idea that Russia might consider wiping the megaconstellation out by brute force didn't seem impossible.

Researchers know that a nuclear detonation in orbit would flood the space around Earth with fast, energetic electrons. These particles would destroy most unhardened satellites within range, which would extend to orbits even hundreds of miles away from the explosion.

"It would make the low Earth orbit and very low Earth orbit — where the Starlink satellites are, where many reconnaissance and communications satellites are, and where the International Space Station is — uninhabitable for a long period of time," Areg Danagoulian, an associate professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of the new paper describing the proposed detection method, told Space.com.

"We would essentially not only lose the satellites in those orbits, we would lose those orbits for a few years," he added.

Humankind has already seen the effects of a nuclear explosion in space. In 1962, the U.S. detonated a 1.4-megaton hydrogen bomb at an altitude of 240 miles (400 kilometers) above the Pacific Ocean. Radiation from the explosion, known as the Starfish Prime test, destroyed one-third of all satellites in orbit at that time. Admittedly, there weren't that many up there — fewer than 100 — but the impact was far-reaching.

Today, a nuclear detonation in space would be a catastrophe. It would knock out internet-beaming constellations such as Starlink and Amazon Leo, as well as hundreds of Earth-observing satellites that keep an eye on the activity of adversary nations, the changing climate and areas struck by natural disasters.

No reliable way currently exists to detect and defuse a nuclear bomb in space. Danagoulian proposes a constellation of small "9U" cubesats, each one about the size of a large shoebox and each carrying a special detector capable of sensing radiation emitted by unexploded nulear bombs.

He explores a scenario in which Russia launches a suspected space nuke into an orbit with an altitude of 1,200 miles (2,000 km). That number is not random. In 2022, Russia's Kosmos 2553 satellite, orbiting at that exact altitude, triggered suspicions it might be testing components for a future orbital nuclear weapon.

Russia claims the satellite just observes Earth. At that altitude, the satellite passes through the Van Allen belt, a region of intense cosmic radiation trapped by Earth's magnetic field. Most of the belt stretches between altitudes of around 600 miles (1,000 km) to tens of thousands of miles, but in some areas the radiation can reach much closer to Earth's surface.

The interaction between the fissile material inside the nuke and the energetic particles from the radiation belt would create distinct signatures, Danagoulian said, which could help confirm whether a suspicious satellite carries a nuke or not.

"The thermonuclear weapon would contain a significant amount of uranium," Danagoulian said. "The high-energy protons [in the uranium] would break up when another proton is coming in and shred the nuclei. That would knock out a large number of neutrons. This interaction turns that device into a very intense neutron source that otherwise would not be there."

The process is known as proton-induced neutron spallation, which essentially means the ejection of fragments from material triggered by impacts of protons.

The detector satellite Danagoulian proposes would have to be able to get quite close to the suspect spacecraft — a few kilometers. The inspector spacecraft would carry a sensor combining two types of detectors. At the heart of the device is a neutron scintillator, which detects all incoming neutrons and protons. Around it is a "cage of diamond" detector that detects only neutrons — not protons. Such a set-up helps filter out the particles present in the environment naturally, said Danagoulian. In addition, by using two "planes of neutron detectors," the sensor can determine the direction from which the neutrons arrived.

"If the external diamond detector triggers and gives a signal, you can ignore the particle, because it's most likely a proton and not a neutron," said Danagoulian. "Once you identify those neutrons, by having those two detections, you can back project and find out where the neutron came from."

Danagoulian says such a nuke sniffer would have to be launched into an orbit aligned with that of the suspicious satellite and creep up as close as 2.5 miles (4 km) from it. It would then take about a week to gather enough measurements to confirm whether the object is hiding a nuke or not. A constellation of 10 such satellites could reduce the process to mere hours, Danagoulian said.

If a nuke were detected, the military could then try to jam the satellite's communications link from the ground, making it impossible for the adversary to remotely detonate the bomb. There is currently no technology available to safely defuse a nuclear weapon in space.

The United Nations Outer Space Treaty, which provides the legal foundation for humankind's use of outer space, bans the use of nuclear weapons in orbit. However, the treaty has no means to ensure compliance.

Other approaches to nuke detection in space have been explored, including maneuverable X-ray satellites, but those would be quite a bit more complex and expensive.

Danagoulian also suggests that high-grade radiation hardening could improve satellites' chances of surviving a nuclear winter in space.

The paper was published online in the journal Nature today (July 8).

The American Earth-observation company Vantor maps Earth from space in 3D. The images are available in near-real time, revealing immediate effects of natural disasters and armed conflict. What is more, the images are also absolutely stunning.

Vantor, which operates a fleet of 10 satellites that image the surface of the planet with a resolution of 12 inches (30 centimetres), released the first set of its 3D shots from space on July 1. The images capture a variety of targets, all in amazing detail.

For example, there are shots of iconic landmarks in Paris; the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the modernist quarter La Défense emerge in the images as if seen from a landing plane. Other image sets track the progress of ship-building activity at China's Yulin Naval Base and decreasing water levels at Arizona's Hoover Dam.

the standard resolution of 20 inches (50 cm) with an accuracy of 13 feet (4 meters) in all directions, and the HD version with a 6-inch (15 cm) resolution and a 10-foot (3 m) accuracy in all dimensions.

The 3D views are created by combining multiple satellite images taken from different angles and are updated every 24 hours or less to track even the most rapidly occurring changes in the landscape. The images form a basis for 3D maps that could, for example, help autonomous drones navigate in areas hit by GPS jamming.

The satellite fleet's ability to rapidly update the imagery is a unique feature that was impossible to achieve by other 3D mapping technologies. Most commonly, mapmakers and organizations would have to conduct costly imaging campaigns from aboard aircraft or using remotely controlled drones. Neither of these approaches, however, allows such regular and frequent revisits, according to Vantor. On top of that, drones and planes may not be able to safely access and map areas controlled by unfriendly nations.

"From command and control to autonomous systems operating in GPS-denied environments, many of today's most complex missions require current, accurate 3D terrain," Peter Wilczynski, chief product officer at Vantor, said in a statement.

"With WorldView 3D, customers can update the specific areas they care about, including remote and contested areas where traditional aircraft collection is limited, with unmatched speed and scale," Wilczynski added. "This is the future of spatial intelligence."

The U.S. Space Force has acquired one of its first publicly acknowledged offensive weapons, one that can blast adversary satellites with beams of electromagnetic radiation to disrupt their signals without physically damaging them.

The system, known as Meadowlands, was developed by L3 Harris. It is an electromagnetic warfare system, meaning it is designed to disrupt, deny or degrade an adversary's use of the electromagnetic spectrum  — such as radio waves, for example  — rendering their satellites effectively silent, unable to communicate or share data with forces on the ground. These are "reversible effects," meaning they don't permanently destroy satellites but instead jam or interfere with signals being transmitted to or from them.

Or, as the Space Force puts it, Meadowlands provides the U.S. military with a "robust toolkit for spectrum dominance," according to a statement. Based on the few publicly available photos shared by the U.S. Space Force, Meadowlands appears to consist of an antenna dish mounted to a wheeled trailer, which presumably could allow it to be transported either by ground or a large cargo aircraft. This would allow it to be deployed in areas where adversary satellites might be stationed overhead.

According to available budget documentation, Space Force requested nearly $460 million in Fiscal Year 2027 to develop Meadowlands and the support and training needed to field it.

Space Force leadership has repeatedly stated that these types of systems are key to the U.S. military's current emphasis on space-based warfare. "Continued U.S. Space Force investment in electromagnetic warfare systems, software, and advanced training is essential to modern warfare," said U.S. Space Force Col. Angelo Fernandez, commander of Mission Delta 3 – Space Electromagnetic Warfare, a unit tasked specifically with operating systems such as Meadowlands.

In the same statement, the Space Force said that these types of capabilities were central to the success of Operation Midnight Hammer, a June 2025 offensive in which the U.S. military attacked nuclear sites in Iran.

During that conflict, "electromagnetic warfare professionals successfully created a silence zone to ensure secure bomber ingress and egress, effectively halting adversary communications to provide vital indications and warnings," Space Force said in the statement.

Gen. Chance Saltzman, the service's current Chief of Space Operations, cited how Space Force personnel employed the same types of capabilities during the ongoing conflict with Iran in a keynote speech at the Space Foundation's annual Space Symposium in April 2026.

"On day one of Operation Epic Fury, one of these specialists led the planning and execution of high-tempo space electronic warfare fires for U.S. Central Command," Saltzman said. "That's what it means to be a Guardian in today's Space Force."

The service has been procuring these types of systems and training its personnel in what it calls orbital warfare since the Space Force was created back in 2019. Because satellite surveillance and communication systems are so vital to the battlefields of today, the ability to disrupt an adversary's use of space is a highly sought-after one by militaries worldwide.

The world's first commercially built nuclear-powered satellite has reached orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The BOHR (Betavoltaic Orbital High-Reliability) satellite, built by Florida-based company City Labs, launched to space early this morning (July 7) on SpaceX's Transporter-17 rideshare mission.

Transporter-17's Falcon 9 rocket, which was carrying a total of 81 payloads, lifted off early this morning from the SpaceX pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, and began delivering its payloads to their various orbits about 50 minutes later.

BOHR is a novel cubesat demonstration mission from City Labs, which is testing out its proprietary "NanoTritium" betavoltaic micropower source in space for the first time. Similar to how spacecraft like NASA's Voyager probes' radioisotope thermoelectric generators produce power from the heat emitted from their plutonium cores, City Lab's NanoTritium device harnesses the beta particles emitted from the radioactive decay of tritium, which can be converted directly to electricity using a semiconductor.

“This is a historic step for commercial nuclear power in space,” said City Labs CEO Peter Cabauy in a statement.

BOHR is designed as a pathfinder mission to test the feasibility of City Labs' new technology, which is meant to provide continuous power to spacecraft without a reliance on solar energy. Though its tritium core isn't actually BOHR's power source — the cubesat is still dependent on solar power for general operations — City Labs' technology could help introduce new vehicles capable of exploring places that current spacecraft can't operate for long periods of time, like permanently shadowed regions at the moon's poles.

The moon's south pole, specifically, has come into focus as the target region for NASA's Artemis lunar landing missions. An abundance of water ice there, and its potential for extraction as a resource, makes the lunar south pole particularly suited to support long-term habitation of the moon, and NASA is actively funding the development of nuclear reactor technology to support that goal.

"City Labs’ BOHR arrives as the first commercial answer to that challenge," the company said in a statement. Though the cubesat's NanoTritium power source cannot produce nearly enough energy to power something like a moon base, City Labs sees its application scaling to eventually be able to do so.

One benefit of using tritium as the basis for a power system is the low radiation levels it emits. "City Labs’ tritium-based power systems… are engineered for safe handling, transportation, and integration within standard commercial launch environments," the company stated.

BOHR, and City Labs' tritium development, was funded under a Department of Defense contract. It's also the first nuclear-powered mission to be greenlit under the Federal Aviation Administration's nuclear launch approval under Trump's National Security Presidential Memorandum-20, which was issued in 2019.

City Labs hopes the success of this mission will pave the way for more nuclear-powered spacecraft to support national defense as well as private space missions in the future.

"BOHR demonstrates that safe, compact, and regulatory-approved nuclear power systems are ready for routine commercial deployment," Cabauy said.

SpaceX launched a passel of satellites to orbit early Tuesday morning (July 7).

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 81 payloads lifted off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base on Tuesday at 3:12 a.m. EDT (0712 GMT; 12:12 a.m. local California time), kicking off a mission SpaceX called Transporter-17.

As that name suggests, Transporter-17 was the 17th flight of SpaceX's Transporter rideshare program. The company operates another rideshare series as well, called Bandwagon, which has launched four missions to date.

The 20 Transporter and Bandwagon missions that flew before Transporter-17 sent more than 1,800 payloads to Earth orbit. Transporter-1 lofted 143 of those back in January 2021, which remains the global single-launch record.

The 81 payloads that went up on Transporter-17 included "cubesats, microsats, hosted payloads and orbital transfer vehicles carrying eight of those payloads to be deployed at a later time," SpaceX wrote in a mission description.

Perhaps the biggest satellite riding the Falcon 9 on Tuesday was CAS500-4, a South Korean Earth-observation craft that tips the scales at about 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms).

The satellite, whose name is short for "Compact Advanced Satellite 500-4," is the fourth member of a planned five-satellite CAS500 fleet in low Earth orbit (LEO). CAS500-4 will help the South Korean government monitor crops and forests, among other tasks.

The first stage of the Transporter-17 Falcon 9 landed about 8.5 minutes after launch on the SpaceX droneship "Of Course I Still Love You," which was stationed in the Pacific Ocean. It was the 11th flight for this particular booster, according to the company's Transporter-17 mission description.

The Falcon 9's upper stage, meanwhile, continued hauling the 81 payloads to LEO, where they'll be deployed starting about 50.5 minutes after launch. CAS500-4 won't be released until nearly 2.5 hours after liftoff.

Transporter-17 was the 79th Falcon 9 launch of 2026. Nearly 80% of this year's missions have been devoted to building out Starlink, SpaceX's giant broadband constellation in LEO.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 3:25 a.m. ET on July 7 with news of successful launch and rocket landing.

If the number of satellites in Earth's orbit exceeds 100,000, humanity may lose its ability to study the universe from the planet's surface.

That's the conclusion of a study conducted by astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) which warns that if existing plans to deploy a million orbiting data centers and tens of thousands sun-reflecting mirrors were to come to fruition, the world's most cutting-edge astronomical telescopes may as well be mothballed.

"We can reach conditions where basically, there is no point in operating the telescopes anymore because all the data will be corrupted. All. 100 percent," Olivier Hainaut, the director of operations at ESO and lead author of the study, told Space.com.

Hainaut used computer modelling to understand the effect of varying numbers of satellites of different brightness levels on astronomical observations. The modelling showed that if 100,000 satellites were to orbit the planet and all were barely visible to the naked eye, astronomy could cope. If those satellites were brighter, however, around magnitude 7 or below in astronomical terms, astronomical research would become more difficult and costly.

Satellites affect the sky in two ways. Firstly, the sunlight they reflect increases the overall brightness of the sky, creating light pollution. Second, brighter satellites also create streaks in telescope images that mar observations.

"If you increase the light pollution, it means that you will see fewer natural stars and you will see more of these satellites," said Hainaut . "For telescopes that means increasing exposure times. If you have a 10 percent increase in light pollution, you have to increase all the exposure times by 10 percent. It scales directly. For a 100 percent increase in light pollution, you have to increase all the exposures by 100 percent."

The exposure time increases mean that less science gets done and every observation becomes more expensive. The International Astronomical Union says that an increase in light pollution by more than 10 percent compared to natural dark sky conditions is an astronomy killer.

As light pollution has spread with urban development over the past two centuries, astronomers have increasingly been retreating into ever more remote locations. Many of the world's most expensive telescopes, including the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and the ESO's Very Large Telescope and Extremely Large Telescope, are located in Chile's Atacama Desert where the night sky is still nearly perfectly dark.

But while it is possible to retreat from the city lights, there will be no escape from satellite light pollution, Hainaut warns. You may be visiting a tiny village in Africa, camping in the Australian outback, or on an expedition to Antarctica or the Amazon rain forest, and your sky would still be brightened by the satellites.

"What they propose would make our observations close to impossible"

What is worse, if plans to launch thousands of sun-reflecting mirrors, as proposed by the U.S. company Reflect Orbital, were to come to fruition, the sky would transform completely.

Headquartered in Hawthorne, California, Reflect Orbital's vision is to deliver light on demand to solar power plants at night and to illuminate warzones and areas struck by natural disasters. The company has applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch a demonstration space mirror into orbit later this year.

The satellite, called Eärendil-1, is 59 by 59 feet (18 by 18 meters) in size, and should be the first in a constellation of 50,000, if things were to go according to Reflect Orbital's plan. "Reflect Orbital is really bad," said Hainaut.

"What they propose would make our observations close to impossible.
These are super bright satellites."

Astronomers have calculated that each Reflect Orbital space mirror would be brighter than the full moon if observed from the area where its beam is aiming. But the satellites would be visible regardless of where their beams are aiming to everybody around the world.

"Even outside the beam, the satellite will appear brighter than the planet Venus, which is the brightest object in the night sky after the moon," said Hainaut. "If they were to launch 50,000 of these space mirrors, there would be many hundred or even a few thousand of these super bright objects visible to observers anywhere on Earth."

Reflect Orbital, meanwhile, says that they have been engaging with the astronomy community throughout the company's development and that the company is currently commissioning independent, third-party research on the impacts of their satellites.

"Every spot of light we deliver will be requested, approved and contained," a company spokesperson told Space.com. "We will only provide redirected sunlight when it is signed off by the appropriate authorities in the relevant jurisdiction."

Today, in areas with relatively low levels of light pollution, one can only see a few hundred bright stars in the sky. That means there would be more satellites than stars visible in the sky anywhere in the world with the full Reflect Orbital constellation in orbit. The constellation would also brighten the night sky by up to 300 percent, Hanuit calculated.

"If you increase the light pollution, it means that you will see fewer natural stars," said Hainaut. "And you will see more of these satellites."

Hainaut said that SpaceX's planned orbital data centers, despite the fact that they feature 230-foot-wide (70 m) solar panels, would be much dimmer and about as visible as Starlink satellites.

"From the available information, we see that these satellites have been optimized to minimize the impact as seen from the ground," Hainaut said. "The reflective surfaces are tilted away from Earth and the satellite itself is very narrow, pointing to Earth with its small end."

Still, overall, satellites operated by all operators around the world should remain below 100,000 satellites combined if astronomy is not to suffer, scientists caution. SpaceX is currently awaiting FCC's decision on its application to launch one million orbital data centers.

Currently, some 14,000 satellites orbit the planet.

"For astronomy, this would obviously be catastrophic."

Robert Massey, the Deputy Executive Director of the Royal Astronomical Society, said Hainaut's findings were "not hugely surprising."

"For astronomy, this would obviously be catastrophic," Massey told Space.com. "It's very difficult to imagine how you could mitigate that on this scale. But I am also concerned about the public impact. The public has not signed up for having an entirely transformed sky."

Massey pointed out that based on the international law governing space activities, it is perfectly legal for a U.S. organization to be single-handedly deciding on something that would impact the entire world.

"If it's agreed by the FCC, this will be deeply regrettable," Massey said. "This will say that we are in a world where large corporations can determine the view of the sky above our heads, just as they can transform the environment on Earth. But the transformation of the environment on Earth is subject to pretty tight regulations."

The Trump administration has been taking steps to reduce the burden for satellite operators to prove their projects will have no negative environmental impacts. Currently, no environmental review has to be undertaken by the FCC or private companies before satellite applications go for approval.

Betty Kioko, an institutional affairs adviser at ESO, said the United Nations Outer Space Treaty, signed in 1967, states that the responsibility for space launches is with the nation states where those space objects are registered. She, however, added that the Treaty requires states to use space "for the common good of humankind."

"We now have to wait for the FCC to decide, because ultimately, the Outer Space Treaty was written at a time before we envisioned access to space by private entities."

ESO is among hundreds of organizations from around the world that have filed objections to the SpaceX and Reflect Orbital applications.

The study has been published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Editor's note: This story was updated on July 2 to include comments from a Reflect Orbital spokesperson.

Over 1,300 deaths have been attributed to a heat wave that swept across Europe and broke temperature records earlier this month.

From its perch in sun-synchronous low Earth orbit, Europe's Sentinel-3 satellite captured data that helps visualize the heat wave and aids researchers in understanding both the causes and effects of the atmospheric phenomena that led to these soaring temperatures.

What is it?

In this image from the European Space Agency (ESA), land surface temperatures are depicted on a scale that depicts hotter temperatures as red and violet. On the date this image was taken, June 23, France recorded its hottest June day ever, according to ESA.

The Sentinel-3 satellite detected surface temperatures as high as 131 degrees Fahrenheit (55 degrees Celsius) in parts of central Spain, western France and northern Africa, while Madrid saw 118 degrees F (48 degrees C), and surface temperatures in Rome reached 111 degrees F (44 degrees C).

Why is it incredible?

Temperatures this high were unprecedented across of much of Europe. Authorities with the World Health Organization (WHO) estimate that over 1,300 deaths may be linked to the heat wave. And things may get worse for the continent.

"Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth, heating at twice the global average," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X.

By providing real-time temperature data over both water and land using its Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer instrument, the Sentinel-3 satellite is providing unprecedented data about these extreme weather events and how they affect populations.

An experimental satellite has mapped the scale of GPS jamming across Europe and the Middle East from space for the first time.

The data surprised the team behind the project and indicated that satellites orbiting far from Earth aren't the only ones that experience degradation of their positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) signals, which could affect their performance and the safety of their operations.

The new measurements were made by Pulsar-0, the first satellite of the novel Pulsar navigation constellation developed by California-based Xona Space Systems. The experimental satellite orbits 310 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth, testing Xona's technology before the company begins deploying its navigation constellation of 300 spacecraft in low Earth orbit (LEO) later this year.

The purpose of the Pulsar constellation is to provide a more resilient PNT service compared to the United State's GPS network and other global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), such as Europe's Galileo or China's Beidou. The PNT signals distributed by GNSS satellites underpin many systems that our civilization relies on in everyday life, including the operation of power grids, finance operations and oil drilling.

But because GNSS satellites orbit quite far from Earth — at altitudes abve 12,000 miles (19,000 km) — the signal that ground-based receivers detect is weak and can be easily jammed.

GNSS jamming (the overpowering of GNSS signals with noise) and spoofing (which involves overriding the original signals with false ones carrying incorrect coordinates), have become almost a global emergency over the past five years.

For example, Russian jammers have been disrupting GNSS signals along Russia's western borders, officially to protect the country from Ukrainian drone attacks. Every month, this interference affects tens of thousands of flights that cruise over the region. The warring parties in the Middle East, too, use jamming and spoofing to deflect drone attacks and hide the positions of illegal ships at sea.

Xona's satellites will use a similar signal, but one that's 100 times stronger, to offer greater resiliency against such deliberate interference. But the Pulsar-0 spacecraft also carries a GPS receiver to make sure the two systems will be able to work together. When the Xona team first turned on that receiver a few months after Pulsar-0's launch last year, they were shocked by the scale of signal degradation the receiver was reporting above Europe and parts of the Middle East.

"When we fly over North America, for example, we see a beautiful signal all the time," Kaz Gunning, Xona's co-founder, told Space.com. "But as soon as we started doing any operations above Europe, we noticed that there was really something going on there. We thought we were going to see some jamming, but it's quite a bit more than we expected."

In the hardest-hit areas, the strength of the GPS signals at the satellite's altitude dropped from the regular 40 decibels to as little as 10 decibels.

Gunning says that, due to the altitude of the Pulsar-0 satellite, the map may not truthfully reflect where jamming is worst for users on the ground. The data, however, revealed that satellites in heavily used LEO suffer from some degree of GPS signal disruption all the way from France in the west to the borders of Pakistan in the east.

The measurements mean that satellites in LEO are not out of the reach of ground-based jammers, and that the PNT signals those satellites need to time-sync their operations and determine their position in space can't always be relied upon.

"You lose the GPS capability as soon as you pass over these regions," said Gunning. "That may be a problem for imaging satellites that are trying to position themselves to take images of a certain region. You can't do altitude determination, you can't do the positioning without the GPS signal. You can't even accurately point at your telecommand antenna on the ground. That's generally going to disrupt satellite operations."

Satellite constellations such as SpaceX Starlink also rely on GPS to avoid collisions with other spacecraft.

It's not just deliberate jamming and spoofing that can wreak havoc with the precious PNT signal. Severe solar storms, too, can cause serious disruptions. The Gannon superstorm in May 2024, for example, distorted the GNSS signal so much that precision farming machinery in parts of the U.S. couldn't operate for days. Technologists are therefore racing to find backup solutions to transmit the PNT signal to everyone who needs it whenever GNSS is down.

Xona hopes that the Pulsar constellation, once up and running, will make the lives of those dependent on GNSS much easier.

Gunning says that, with the superior strength of the PNT signal transmitted by the company's planned LEO constellation, existing jammers would only be able to affect about 5% of the area they can currently disrupt.

"The effect of the jamming is going to be reduced to a smaller radius," Gunning said. "The degradation area will go down, and the full lock-out radius will also go down."

Xona plans to launch a batch of six satellites in October and begin ramping up production shortly thereafter. The company raised $170 million in a "Series C" funding round this March and hopes to begin delivering basic service in early 2027.

"We expect early customers in timekeeping to begin utilizing Pulsar at the end of this year with intermittent coverage," Max Eunice, Xona's head of communications, told Space.com. "Pulsar's capability will increase with every subsequent launch, unlocking new advantages for new customer segments as our constellation fills out."

The U.S. military is looking into putting "orbital warehouses" into orbit around Earth where fuel and other materials could be stored for easy pickup by future spacecraft on satellite servicing missions.

A new U.S. military challenge aims to "accelerate operational logistics" to help the U.S. Space Force keep its satellites active and respond in a timely fashion to threats. The challenge was created amid repeated warnings that China and Russia are actively maneuvering their own satellites close to U.S. spacecraft in orbit and launching new types of orbital weaponry.

"An orbital warehouse will have the same functionality as a terrestrial warehouse: to receive, store, inspect, and cross-load supplies, while offering protection of those supplies from the environment," a Space Systems Command (SSC) spokesperson told Space.com via email. "The orbital transfer vehicles would transport the supplies to and from the orbital warehouse, or other location of interest."

The challenge, led by the SSC and SpaceWERX (the Space Force's innovation arm), is asking companies to offer fundable ideas for orbital warehouses and orbital "transfer vehicles" that can haul fuel and supplies to and from these depots, as well insight on the best orbits in which to put the depots and vehicles, and how to manage fuel and reusability for longer-term missions. A call-out this summer will offer more details.

There's no timeline available on when these orbital warehouses (or other assets) will be operationally ready, although the SSC spokesperson added that the work is linked with the new "Objective Force 2040" planning document released in April by the Space Force, defining where the branch of the U.S. military hopes to be in the next 15 years.

SSC stated that the capabilities it is looking for include in-space servicing, propulsion, orbital mechanics, robotics, autonomy, metrology (measurement tools), materials and cryogenics, ground-to-space logistics, and mission analysis.

Planning is already underway for two funded on-orbit demonstrations in 2027 to help inform the requirements of the challenge.

"Starfish Space will build and launch the US-Otter 1, which will demonstrate rendezvous and proximity operations and docking with a client vehicle in near geosynchronous orbit," the SSC spokesperson said in an email. (Geosynchronous orbit is 22,236 miles or 35,786 kilometers, above our planet, and allows a spacecraft to remain above a fixed location on Earth.)

Additionally, Astroscale U.S. plans to build and launch its Provisioner spacecraft (previously known as Astroscale Prototype Servicer–Refueler, or APS-R) in partnership with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), and two directorates of SSC. The demonstration will use fuel from DIU, stored on a commercial Orbit Fab depot. Provisioner would then be used to refuel satellites owned by the government: AFRL Tetra-5, and so-far undisclosed SDA satellites.

SSC, the spokesperson stated, fully expects warehouses will be key to future missions using capabilities like those demonstrated by Astroscale U.S. (the American subsidiary of Tokyo-based Astroscale) and Starfish Space.

A broad sweep of entities can participate in the challenge: anything from startups and small businesses, to larger companies, academia and research labs.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 12:45 p.m. ET on June 15 to clarify that Astroscale U.S. (rather than Astroscale) is involved in this project, and that the company's spacecraft is now known as Provisioner.

Did you ever see an Iridium flare? For two decades until 2019, these communication satellites would become dazzlingly bright for a second or so in the night sky. I used to see them by accident before discovering that some websites and apps could forecast precisely when and where they would occur. I got so obsessed with Iridium flares that I would build my stargazing sessions around them. Eventually, I started trying to take night sky images just as they flared. Why? In a long exposure, the flare produced a diamond-shaped light. It was beautiful. I carried on doing the same for the International Space Station (ISS), capturing it racing across the night sky, again to a tight pre-determined schedule.

Then SpaceX came along. After launching the non-flaring replacements for Iridium in May 2019, SpaceX began launching its Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. There were complaints about their brightness from astrophotographers, who saw their streaks in long exposure photos, but for stargazers, they were initially a delight. Each time SpaceX launched a batch of satellites into orbit on a Falcon 9 rocket, a string of moving lights could be seen in the night sky. It got called a "train" by some because it resembled a freight train racing through the sky. To me, it looked like an alien invasion. During COVID-19, glimpsing Starlink trains was something new to do (I spent hours on Heavens Above). Now it's something to actively avoid.

About 11,000 Starlinks later, that seems naive. Sure, there are now 12 million people worldwide who use Starlink internet access. I hope most of them are in previously off-grid communities in Africa, which was said to be one of Starlink's major selling points.

Look up soon after sunset, and Starlinks and other satellites are everywhere. As primarily a naked-eye stargazer and binocular astronomer, it doesn't particularly bother me, but for astrophotographers and both visual and radio astronomers, the mega-constellation era is a tragedy. Being photobombed by satellite streaks in images is a big problem, but so is radio interference in low Earth orbit. Astrophotographers can stack images and use software to remove trails (as if post-processing wasn't already time-consuming enough), but for astronomers, mega-constellations can hugely affect spectroscopic data and wide-field surveys, such as the Rubin Observatory.

Within a few years, there's likely to be about 40,000 Starlinks, but with Amazon and other companies preparing rival mega-constellations, a phase of hyper-expansion is about to begin. It's going to get a lot, lot worse. As with Iridium satellites, mega-constellations of satellites will eventually de-orbit, burn up and disappear from the night sky, though probably not en masse in our lifetimes.

When to see satellites

The best time to fully appreciate just how dominant satellites are becoming in the night sky is during summer in the twilight hour immediately following sunset or before sunrise. At this time of year, the sun may have dipped below your horizon, but it's not far below, so its light still shines on satellites far above you.

By the middle of the night, the sun is farther below the horizon. Satellites therefore pass through Earth's deep shadow and don't get lit by the sun, making them more or less invisible.

Stargazer's corner: June 12-18, 2026

Here comes a beautiful week for being outside looking west as twilight unfolds after sunset. That's because the moon reaches its new phase on Sunday, June 14, which means dark skies (albeit during short nights in the Northern Hemisphere's mid-latitudes) and a crescent moon after sunset. On June 15, you'll see a young waxing crescent with Venus, Jupiter and Mercury, with the latter as high as it gets. On June 17, the crescent passes close to Venus and the Beehive Cluster. These moments are short-lived, but they reward those willing to step outside at just the right time.

Constellation of the week: Lyra

Lyra is small (and said to resemble a harp), but it commands attention because of Vega, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. About 25 light-years away, it's one of the most studied stars and serves as a standard yardstick to measure the apparent magnitude (brightness) of other stars. It's also the brightest in the famous Summer Triangle asterism, now obvious in the east after dark.

In the cult movie Contact (1997), astronomers discover an extraterrestrial signal emanating from Vega. In reality, a recent image from the Hubble Space Telescope of a 100-billion-mile-wide disk of dust around Vega revealed no directly visible large planets.

My latest stargazing obsession: the ISS

At this time of year, true darkness is in short supply, especially at mid-northern latitudes. But twilight has its own advantages. Every 90 minutes or so, the International Space Station buzzes around Earth, but as Earth revolves beneath it, it appears to take a different trajectory. Using NASA's Spot The Station app (and many other stargazing apps), it's possible to see the dates and exact times of passes over your location over the next week or two. The app also has an augmented reality mode that lets you point your phone at the night sky to see where the ISS will appear in the west. When you see it, it will cross the sky and disappear into Earth's shadow to the east, taking between one and six minutes. Since the ISS is always brightest during twilight and the Milky Way becomes visible as twilight ends, it's a narrow window, but it is sometimes possible to image both together. If you're patient, seeing the ISS can add an extra dimension to stargazing.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk outlined more details for his company’s planned data centers in space ahead of a widely anticipated IPO on Friday (June 12) expected to make him a trillionaire.

A new half-hour video offers a typical Elon Musk fireside chat about where the billionaire founder of SpaceX wants to be taking his technology next. In the video posted on X on Monday (June 8), Musk described launching AI satellites, with "a lot of solar cells", as well as radiators and high-speed optical (laser) links for communication. SpaceX also expects to launch an AI-satellite-focused production facility by the end of next year, to be "operating at some reasonable volume," Musk said. "So, if anybody wants to work on AI satellites, this is kind of going to become the hub of that."

The common pitch among these companies is that space is necessary to generate AI capabilities because data centers on Earth are running out of physical space to host them, as well as lacking community support out of concerns about significant power and water usage by these big computing hubs. The challenge is that orbital data centers are mostly notional, and not actually demonstrated by operating tech — at least yet. But SpaceX is confident it can develop the necessary technologies to make an AI data center constellation a reality.

The next generation of Starlink satellites SpaceX is developing already possess a lot of the tech needed to advance to AI centers, according to Musk. "A lot of this technology, we've already made for the Starlink V3 satellites," he said. "Basically, we don't think this is a super-hard problem, compared to things we already do."

Musk described "racks of compute" (referring to the banks of computer chips on each satellite) that would connect with each other through laser links between the AI satellites, as well as with Starlinks. The data could be sent to the ground using antennas, or laser links at "not a particularly high latency" (meaning, high speed).

Each AI satellite, Musk said, would generate 150 kW of power at peak, and 120 kW consistently, and would launch aboard SpaceX's heavy-lift Super Heavy and Starship vehicles the company is still testing out every few months for eventual mission operations.

The SpaceX CEO also appeared to wave off concerns about overcrowding low Earth orbit, even after numerous reports have emerged about Starlink satellites having to maneuver away from each other or from other spacecraft. (SpaceX's Starlink constellation is currently at 10,000-plus operational members, according to analyst Jonathan McDowell.)

"There's a lot of space up there, and so even when you're talking thousands, or even — you know — up to a million satellites, yeah, you got plenty of room to move around up there. Space is really big, so it's not like space is going to get crowded," Musk said in the video.

Pointing to the growth of Starlink, Musk said SpaceX is uniquely positioned to be the company delivering on orbital data centers. "We've got a pretty good idea of how to operate, just really large constellations, and do it safely now, right? We are the only operator that has any experience of that scale."

Musk periodically offers these sorts of chats for Starship and the company's Mars plans, often (as with this video) mixing in musings about where he sees "civilization" and "humanity" going next. But lately, there’s been financial incentive to add AI into the planning for SpaceX.

When the IPO drops, SpaceX plans to list its shares at $135 apiece for a value of more than $1.75 trillion — and it is heavily betting on its company xAI, and orbital data centers in space to generate AI capabilities, in its pitch to investors.

SpaceX is also in a race to attract attention from space investors, who are watching other orbital data center plans from entities ranging from big players like Google and Blue Origin and Microsoft, to smaller companies like Cowboy Space Corp. (formerly Aetherflux) and Starcloud.

Correction 6/12: The SpaceX IPO was announced on Friday (June 12) not Thursday (June 11).

The U.S Space Force has awarded SpaceX $4.16 billion to help the military track airborne targets using satellites.

The massive contract is under the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator (SB-AMTI) program, which will add space systems to the U.S. military's tracking capabilities. SpaceX is the first of nine companies that Space Force has disclosed for the SB-AMTI vendor pool. The other eight companies have yet to be publicly announced.

Space Force announced the SpaceX contract on May 29, stating that the award is for a satellite constellation that can "track and target airborne threats globally." The idea is that satellites can help with tracking in places where it could be dangerous for aircraft, which the military has long used for airborne tracking capabilities. The service aims to get an SB-AMTI satellite constellation up and running by 2028.

"By focusing these capabilities to the space domain, we are providing the Joint Force with sustained battlespace awareness of contested airspace," USSF Col. Ryan Frazier, acting Space Force portfolio acquisition executive for SBST, said in a statement. "We are beginning development and integration efforts immediately to meet the program's rapid deployment milestones and address emerging national security requirements."

Space Force described the SB-AMTI architecture as a "complex system-of-systems," which will integrate space-based sensors with fast, secure communication, as well as data processing technologies on the ground.

It says that this program reflects "a rapid and strategic shift" toward a deeper collaboration between the contractors, research labs, and agencies that are collectively known as the government space industrial base.

"Our mission is to deliver a resilient sensing layer that ensures our joint warfighters maintain a decisive information advantage in the air domain — especially in a denied or contested environment," USSF Col. Frazier said in a separate statement on April 27. Denied or contested environments refer to airspace in which the U.S. military might face anti-aircraft attacks or other forces' aircraft.

Future sensors

SpaceX's satellites won't replace the current airplanes that the military uses to track moving targets. Right now, the two methods are meant to compliment each other.

In the announcement, the Space Force highlighted the need to track airborne targets from space due to "continued challenges as adversaries develop increasingly sophisticated anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) systems."

A2/AD systems are used to prevent adversaries from entering a specific airspace. If the military moves some airborne target sensing to orbit, then it could reduce the risk to military aircraft that traditionally serve this function in contested regions.

"We are providing continuous oversight where traditional sensors cannot reach to protect their freedom of maneuver," USSF Col. Frazier said in the April 27 statement.

The Golden Dome missile defense system is one of the Trump Administration's keystone military initiatives, and these satellites would be expected to help track missiles for the Golden Dome, Reuters reports.

Space Force anticipates that it will issue more awards in the coming year, which will help to expand its diversity of vendors.

A new report stresses the strategic and security implications of placing mass drivers on the moon  — essentially electromagnetic catapults   — by arguing that these launchers could serve as valuable first strike weapons systems.

According to the theory behind them, these mass drivers could use powerful magnetic fields to throw satellites and other probes into space without the need for costly and heavy chemical propellants. Putting railguns on the moon isn't a new idea, and was most recently proposed by SpaceX as a means of launching thousands of AI data center satellites into deep space.

But according to a new report, these mass drivers are inherently dual use, meaning they can be used for both civilian and military purposes; while it's true they could help launch peaceful satellites, being large electrically-driven cannons, they could also potentially launch weapons from the moon. "This duality places mass drivers in a uniquely sensitive strategic position," the new report states. "While mass drivers can bootstrap an off-world economy, they carry an equally potent and unsettling military capability: the ability to operate as an unassailable, undetectable first-strike platform."

Written by Andre Sonntag, an independent space power and policy analyst focused on cislunar security, strategy, and near-term space conflict, the special report titled "Strategic Implications of Lunar Mass Drivers as a Dual-use Technology" was published by the American Foreign Policy Council.

It points out that the U.S. faces a narrowing window "to shape the strategic environment of the lunar frontier" and argues that developing and deploying these mass drivers will be a key factor in the spacefaring superpowers' efforts to control cislunar space.

Space colonies, solar power satellites

The idea of lunar-launched payloads dates back to the 1970s and the work of Princeton professor and space visionary, the late Gerard O'Neill.

Mass drivers are based on the coilgun design, adapted to accelerate a non-magnetic object. One application O'Neill proposed for mass drivers: toss baseball-sized chunks of ore mined from the moon's surface into space. Once in space, the lunar-lobbed ore could be used as raw material for building space colonies and solar power satellites.

O'Neill worked at MIT on mass drivers, teaming up with Henry Kolm and a group of student volunteers to build their first mass driver prototype. Backed by grants from the Space Studies Institute, follow-on prototypes improved on the mass driver concept, showing that a mass driver only 520 feet (160 meters) long could launch material off the surface of the moon.

'Unparalleled source of space power'

That launch capability, the new report argues, means these mass drivers could be "an unparalleled source of space power" that other launch systems will not be able to compete with. "For these reasons, the United States must take measurable steps towards practical development of lunar mass drivers as soon as possible," the report recommends.

If the United States does not invest in these technologies, Sonntag writes, its competitors will then be able to field them first and potentially control cislunar space. But it could be some years before the technology is ready to launch anything of significant mass.

"No mass driver architecture is currently mature enough for an immediately scalable, industrial application," Sonntag told Space.com by email. "The primary issue, regardless of architecture, is that with regards to scaling."

Current mass drivers can only launch small payloads, Sonntag said, and there are still logistical and technological barriers to scaling the concept up for larger spacecraft. But with the right investment and know-how, it might soon be possible, Sonntag said.

The report doesn't call out any companies specifically, but the idea has already been proposed by some of the biggest names in the space industry.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, never short of catapulting visionary quests forward, advised newly acquired xAI workers in February that he sees a need for a factory on the moon that could use on-site lunar resources to manufacture artificial intelligence (AI) data center satellites. To churn out thousands of those spacecraft each year, Musk called for a colossal catapult to be built on the lunar surface.

But many specifics of the company's concept remain unclear. "While we do not know the details of the SpaceX mass driver, they should have the resources and workforce to develop such systems," Sonntag said.

And other companies are developing their own mass driver plans, Sonntag said. "Apart from SpaceX, companies like Auriga Space and Electromagnetic Launch Inc have been working to develop the technologies for other practical mass drivers. However they are much smaller companies that would be greatly enabled by additional funding."

With that funding secured, "a commercially relevant system could be ready by the mid 2030s," he added.

First-strike platform

Mass drivers on the moon would operate largely outside existing early warning and attribution architectures, thereby complicating detection and response by existing early warning systems.

Weaponized mass driver payloads, the report suggests, could likely fall into one of three categories:

1. Kinetic Energy Impactor (KEI) - inert projectiles designed to slam into targets at high speeds
2. Satellite & Anti-Satellite (SAT/ASAT) - spacecraft or satellites designed to destroy, disrupt or degrade other spacecraft
3. Nuclear Reentry Vehicle (RV) - payloads similar to those found on intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear warheads from space

A lunar mass driver could also be used to rapidly launch space-based missile defense systems such as those envisioned by the Trump administration's recent Golden Dome concept.

High throughput logistics chain

The newly-released study points out that the United Nations Outer Space Treaty prohibits military installations on celestial bodies as well as the deployment of nuclear weapons in space.

But even with the treaty, regulating any dual-use technologies is difficult. "As mass drivers are mixed use and would be primarily for civilian applications, this would heavily obfuscate the exact purpose of any system as to whether it is a military installation," the report observes.

There are recent developments in the People's Republic of China (PRC) that view mass drivers and related technologies as central to lunar industrialization and long-term space development. Chinese scientists recently suggested putting a magnetic launcher on the lunar surface in order to launch payloads into space or send resources back towards Earth, according to Sonntag's report.

"Researchers have claimed that the system could operate at roughly 10% of the cost of conventional rockets while supporting frequent, automated launches to Lunar orbit or Earth return trajectories," the report states.

Integrated with China's International Lunar Research Station plans, and broader industrialization plans by that country, mass driver capabilities would enable a sustained, high throughput logistics chain between the moon and Earth, Sonntag's report adds.

Meanwhile, as experts and governmental leaders in the United States continue to sound the alarm on how tight the race against China to establish a presence on the moon is becoming the new American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) report stresses that the U.S. can and must shape the rules of the cislunar frontier by acting first, setting precedence before anyone else can establish their own norms.

"The United States, via the Artemis Program, should pursue an aggressive campaign to establish a distributed permanent presence at certain locations of the lunar south pole and equatorial regions," argues the report. "Having an established presence would give the United States de facto control of these strategic locations."

NASA's Artemis Accords and Artemis program of lunar exploration aim to do the same thing, along with a collation of more than 66 nations who have signed along to help establish those norms  — but with an emphasis on establishing "safe, peaceful, and prosperous future in space for all of humanity to enjoy."

DARPA is at last ready to test fueling up satellites in faraway Earth orbits, to keep those machines working a little bit longer.

DARPA's (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) long-delayed Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellite (RSGS) demonstrator is slated to launch as soon as this summer, the U.S. military's research and development group stated in a statement on Wednesday (May 20). And as the name suggests, robots will form an integral part of the spacecraft's work.

The heart of the mission will be a "highly dexterous robotic servicing suite", DARPA stated, that should be able to jump in on several critical tasks to help satellites needing a boost: "on-orbit upgrades, inspections, anomaly resolution, and satellite relocation."

What's more, DARPA aims to up the ambition by tackling this work far away from our planet. The program aims to service satellites in geosynchronous orbit (GEO), which is roughly 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above the Earth.

These satellites, orbiting at about 90 times higher than the International Space Station (at 250 miles or 400 km), are positioned in a sweet spot allowing the speed of their orbit to match the rotation of the Earth. The satellites' positioning allows them to get a consistent view of one patch of planet, which is helpful for providing reliable telecommunications—or for performing long-term climate or defense monitoring.

But at such a distant perch from Earth, satellites in GEO typically have few options when they run out of fuel besides simply being maneuvered out of the way, for a new satellite to take their place. With space junk rising (along with collision risk between satellites), that's where DARPA and its partners on the mission aim to make a difference.

RSGS was originally announced in 2017, but has had delays for various reasons, according to Breaking Defense. The original contractor, then known as Maxar Technologies, left the project in 2019, then the pandemic interrupted the industry's supply chain distribution.

Newer prime contractor SpaceLogistics (a Northrop Grumman subsidiary) also had challenges integrating the DARPA payload on their spacecraft, the report said. But DARPA emphasized RSGS is at last ready to fly. Assuming an on-time launch, RSGS will begin work in 2027 after a 10-month journey to geosynchronous orbit using electric propulsion.

Other participants in RSGS include NASA and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. Working together with its partners, DARPA wants to ensure their robotic servicer is able "to adapt to a variety of on-orbit missions and conditions" with safety and efficiency in mind, according to DARPA materials.

The eventual goal is for DARPA to support a servicing spacecraft that could work for years in orbit, potentially helping out spacecraft dozens of times. What's more, the agency emphasized, the maintenance will go beyond refueling the spacecraft.

"Even fully functional satellites often have their operational lives cut short simply because they carry obsolete payloads — a frustrating situation for owners of assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars. With no support once in orbit, GEO satellites are equipped with redundant systems and maximum fuel capacity, which increases their complexity, weight, and expense," DARPA stated.

The overall approach, therefore, includes installing new payloads on the spacecraft along with doing preventative maintenance: orbit adjustments, fixing up mechanical problems, and doing inspections to address any other anomalies that may come up.

A typical geostationary satellite lasts about 15 years, according to IEEE. That is a very long time compared to say, a SpaceX Starlink in low Earth orbit or LEO (which might last five years.) But the rapid refresh rate of Starlink and other LEO satellites also ensures the tech will not get old, and that the satellites can be replaced frequently and at low cost. That's not the case in GEO.

DARPA and its partners will need to prove that they can service a geostationary satellite, which costs hundreds of millions of dollars to launch, at an affordable and rapid pace. They also are competing in a quickly growing field of other companies looking at space servicing, ranging from Astroscale to Thales Alenia Space. But the agency not only frames their approach as possible, says that the RSGS program will create a new approach to satellite operations altogether.

"By transitioning from a paradigm of disposable space assets to one of sustainable, upgradable, and resilient satellites, RSGS aims to fundamentally alter space operations for both the public and private sectors," officials wrote of the mission in a separate statement. "With launch on the horizon, the RSGS program is poised to pave the way for a more resilient and sustainable infrastructure in space."

On the morning of Jan. 8, 2025, a red dot popped up on NASA's Fire Information for Resource Management System. It was the first sign of what would become one of California's worst wildfires in history, going on to claim a dozen lives and burn down thousands of homes in the Palisades. All the while, the Aqua satellite was orbiting above, scanning the planet and beaming data down to ground stations in Alaska and Svalbard.

This satellite carries infrared sensors that capture changes on Earth impossible to see with the human eye, making it vital for coordinating emergency responders during natural disasters. Upon detection, NASA converts Aqua's infrared wave data into GPS coordinates, allowing officials to plot the spread of fire as points on a map. These coordinates make up what's known as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), an instrument that spots fires on the Earth’s surface. This process often alerts emergency services faster than 911 calls from the ground.

But now, scientists are starting to find surprising gaps in that data. Logs maintained by NASA show multiple occasions where fire-tracking datasets reported errors. Why? Incoming space debris.

Missing data is a problem for scientists trying to explain the Earth's climate to politicians and business leaders who make decisions on what to do about climate change. While the data loss is currently small, scientists say the problem will only get worse over time as space debris increases.

But Aqua isn't alone. It's one of three main satellites that make up the core of the Earth Observing System (EOS), a constellation that coordinates orbit to measure the land, ocean and atmosphere simultaneously.

The EOS fleet has allowed us to understand how aerosols affect cloud formation, map the deforestation of the Amazon, and discover how the Earth's oceans have darkened thanks to phytoplankton blooms. And indeed, all three satellites — Aqua, Terra and Aura — are at risk from space junk. Starting in 2005, the EOS fleet swerved to avoid space debris on at least 32 occasions. The maneuvers may have left corrupted climate data in several of those instances, according to data logged by the Land Data Products Evaluations Assessment. Even beyond data, there is also the loss of precious fuel.

"Even without collisions, space debris has an economic cost," Andrew Bonwick, vice president at Relm Insurance, which offers satellite insurance and has to price in the risk of collision, told Space.com. "Each time a satellite has to maneuver to avoid a potential collision, it uses fuel which is a finite and precious resource."

"Things will get worse before they get better," said the NASA scientists in the 2018 report that assessed debris maneuvers. The report found that the risk of a collision between an EOS satellite and a piece of orbital debris is increasing.

In its heyday, Aqua flew around 438 miles (705 kilometers) above the surface of the Earth, moving from the North Pole to the South Pole in an ellipse 14 times a day, scanning the entire planet. The satellite sits in sun-synchronous orbit, capturing the light waves emitted from the Earth's surface.

Along that journey, Aqua has survived a battery short-circuiting, a solar panel thermistor failure, and lost 23 of its solar cell strings. But thanks to careful fuel management, the satellite has lasted 18 years longer than originally designed.

"If we knew we were going to have a spacecraft and instruments that would last 20 years, we might have put more fuel in it so that it would last even longer," said Aqua Project scientist Claire Parkinson in 2022.

Climate satellites like Aqua are more at risk from debris because they have to fly close to the planet to capture their data. Low Earth Orbit (LEO) has the highest amount of space junk, trapped there by the Earth's gravity and travelling at faster speeds than the upper atmosphere.

In 2005, the European Space Agency (ESA) was tracking about 16,000 pieces of debris. By 2026, that number had increased to more than 44,000, an increase of about 180%.

The vast majority of space debris is too small to be tracked, with ESA estimating that more than a million small pieces are unaccounted for. Even a speck of paint can be enough to wreck a satellite.

Space junk is created when satellites break up in orbit, either because of collisions or anti-satellite tests such as those carried out by China and Russia. On April 28, two Russian spacecraft passed within 10 feet (3 meters) of each other.

But space junk avoidance isn't the main reason satellites use fuel. If left alone, Aqua would eventually drift off course. Gravity from passing mountains and ocean bulges slowly pulls the satellite out of orbit, while solar radiation changes its spin, corrupting its data.

For that reason, scientists constantly have to correct satellite trajectories to avoid spacecraft crashing into other spacecraft or even just random bits of space junk. While it's true that spending fuel shortens the life of a satellite, avoiding space debris is usually worth it. Most of Aqua's fuel was used on orbital-course corrections.

"For applications where satellites are tasked to provide detailed imagery of particular areas, the job may just not get done, especially where the imagery is time critical or depends on frequent revisits," says Bonwick.

Now, Aqua is reaching the end of its life span. It's set to be switched off this year after traversing the skies for almost a quarter-century, leaving behind a legacy for future climate scientists. Less than 66 pounds (30 kilograms) of fuel remains, held in reserve for the time Aqua is lowered into the atmosphere and safely burned up. Until then, the satellite continues its orbit, like a car in neutral rolling down a hill.

After it's switched off in the fall, Aqua will no longer have enough fuel to dodge incoming space junk. The risk of collision for U.S. government satellites is supposed to be 1 in 1,000, but the risk increases once fuel runs out.

In 2007, when China destroyed one of its own satellites, multiple satellites had to maneuver to avoid space debris, raising concerns about the possibility of Kessler Syndrome, where satellite collisions begin to cascade, like dominoes.

There have been four confirmed space collisions, according to the ESA, but only one involving a climate satellite: An incident in 2021 when a piece of debris from a Russian Zenit-2 rocket hit China's Yunhai-1 02 meteorological satellite.

The danger is increasing, with ESA estimating a 20% rise in collision risk since 2024. Because of the increased risk, satellites have become almost uninsurable, meaning NGOs and government agencies are increasingly bearing the cost of threats to climate satellites.

MethaneSAT, a satellite designed to capture methane emissions to help better understand the greenhouse gas, stopped transmitting data in 2025 only fifteen months into its life cycle. After high solar activity, the satellite suddenly shut down. Investigators couldn't agree why.

Two years before that, the first satellite from London-based SatVu, HOTSAT-1, went into orbit for Earth observation. But only months after releasing its first images, the satellite’s infrared camera went dead. "If that satellite had not been insured, that would have killed the whole company," says Bonwick. "It's not just balance sheet protection, it's survival."

The MODIS fire-tracking dataset is set to continue until Aqua and its partner satellite Terra are turned off. NASA, which responded to an initial email from Space.com but has yet to answer specific questions concerning the issue, is continuing its fire detection capabilities through the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), a database that survives on multiple NASA satellites.

But with the space agency suffering from government cuts, private firms are now filling the gap. Google has published plans to launch a constellation of satellites specifically for fire detection, which promises to capture even smaller fires at greater resolution than before.

On May 4, Aqua celebrated its 24th birthday. It will probably be its last. It completed more than 126,000 orbits of the Earth, and enabled at least 30,000 scientific publications.

The satellite leaves behind one of the longest single-satellite climate data records ever compiled. Its contributions to climate science will be hard to replace.

Update 5/21: Bonwick's comment regarding satellite insurance possibly killing a company was in reference to the HOTSAT-1 satellite from London-based SatVu.