LAUNCH at 0220 UTC Oct 11 of Yinli-1 no. Y2 from the Donfang Hangtiangang ship near Haiyang in the Yellow Sea, placing the Jilin-1KF02B07 commercial imaging sat in orbit along with two Shutianyuxing-01 sats for an unknown customer

Dark was going to build co-orbital counterspace capabilities for the French military; curious to see who picks up the mantle now www.satellitetoday.com/finance/2025...

Thales Alenia Space has inaugurated its €100 million satellite manufacturing facility in Rome, which was partially funded through Italy’s €190 billion National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). europeanspaceflight.com/thales-aleni...

Gardiner: “With space control, [we’re] looking at … how do we as Australia best contribute not only to the defense of Australia and our immediate region, but then also [to] a credible capability, cooperatively within a partnership?” breakingdefense.com/2025/10/aust...

Planet announces new line of satellites for daily Earth imaging Planet has announced a new class of imaging satellites that will replace a line of spacecraft dating back to the company’s earliest days.

Très intéressante reconstruction en 3D du Large Space Simulator à l'ESTEC (Pays-Bas). Cette chambre à vide est utilisée pour les missions emblématiques de l'ESA, afin d'y tester les satellites et autres véhicules spatiaux en "conditions réelles".

Nice info graph of #hybrid attacks on Europe by The Economist. www.economist.com/briefing/202...

By the way, EOSAT was bought by Space Imaging Inc in 1996; Space Imaging became Geoeye in 2006 and was bought by Digital Globe in 2012, which was then acquired by Maxar and became Maxar Intelligence in 2023 and Vantor in 2025.

The Landsat 4 remote sensing satellite was launched by NASA in 1982 and later operated by the commercial company EOSAT for NOAA and USGS until it was retired in 2001. It reentered over the China-Vietnam border area on Oct 8.

ArianeGroup CEO Martin Sion has been appointed as the next head of French train maker Alstom, as the rocket builder ramps up production of Ariane 6. europeanspaceflight.com/arianegroup-...

Defense budgets on both sides of the Atlantic reshape space industry European rearmament and Trump’s Golden Dome drive surge in investments and valuations, executives say

Stoke Space raises $510 million Stoke Space, a company developing a fully reusable launch vehicle, has raised $510 million to fund operations through its first launches, bringing its total capital raised to nearly $1 billion.

En août dernier, l’Espagne et le Portugal vivaient également une période d’incendies catastrophiques, avec des surfaces brûlées record. Retour sur les feux de l’été en Espagne et au Portugal vus par les satellites d'observation : un-regard-sur-la-terre.org/2025/10/reto... #wildfires #copernicus

China's inclined-synchronous Shiyan 29 satellite, launched on Sep 5 and drifting since then, has now synchronized its orbit at 95.1E.

First images of comet #3I/ATLAS from Europe's Mars orbiters 😍 Observing the comet from 30 million km away, #ExoMars reveals the halo of gas and dust surrounding the comet's nucleus. Read more 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl... 🔭🧪

News: The Pentagon has sent out its revised rules to reporters who wish to have building access. The new rules say that even soliciting tips on social media is grounds for losing badge access, per a copy I've obtained. More in tonight's edition of @status.news. Subscribe: www.status.news/subscribe

Well hello there KOMPSAT-7, payload for Vega-C VV28 #CSG #VV28

The next Ariane 6 mission, which will carry the Sentinel-1D satellite for the European Commission, is scheduled for launch on 4 November at 10:03 CET.

Removing these 50 objects from orbit would cut danger from space junk in half

The next French lasers for Mars exploration are taking shape. At 1.5 kg they could be carried by a small drone

🤖 Après #ChemCam & #SuperCam, voici #MicroLIBS : la nouvelle génération d’instruments laser français pour l’exploration martienne. 🔴 Un concentré de technologie… dans la taille d’une boîte à chaussures ! #CNES © CNES/RIBET Adrien, 2025

SDI document detailing the High Endo-atmospheric Defense Interceptor (HEDI) upgrade to Brilliant Pebbles, and follow-up Ground-Based Free Electron Laser + Combat Mirror, Space-Based Laser and Orbital Particle Beam technologies for ICBM interception: apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA...

SpaceX lands majority of U.S. national security launches awarded for fiscal year 2026 SpaceX was assigned five of seven National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3 Lane 2 missions. United Launch Alliance got two.

We've expanded our capability to communicate with scientific, exploration and space safety missions across the Solar System with the inauguration of a new 35-m diameter antenna in Australia – the fourth in our Estrack deep-space tracking network. www.esa.int/Enabling_Sup... @operations.esa.int

The real space war is being fought in cyberspace

The spreadsheet behind the Golden Dome sticker shock Todd Harrison demonstrates the 'Defense Futures Simulator' that calculated eye-watering missile defense costs — and invites critics to prove him wrong with their own numbers.

HEO looks to expand satellite imaging beyond low Earth orbit An Australian company that is a leader in taking images of spacecraft in low Earth orbit is seeking to widen its aperture to monitor higher orbits, and even beyond.

First time I’ve seen this reported in the press after rumours among experts: BILD reports/confirms there was a “mothership drone” over Germany which sent out smaller drones. Which a) really points to a capable actor and b) is concerning because it increases possible reach of these drones

China and U.S. take initial steps toward space-traffic coordination SYDNEY, Australia – Yesterday, the China National Space Agency (CNSA) contacted NASA about a potential on-orbit collision. The CNSA message read, “We would like to recommend you hold still and we'll do the maneuver,” Alvin Drew,…

1960 - The first laser is a 2cm long ruby rod that operates in millisecond pulses and doesn't break a watt of average power. 1962 - Robert L. Forward: "And here's how we'll use gigawatt laser beams to drive 10 km wide lightsails out of the Solar System" The art he attached:

Maxar retires its name, rebrands as Vantor and Lanteris The Maxar name is disappearing from the space industry as two successor companies emerge with distinct identities: Maxar Intelligence will now operate as Vantor, and Maxar Space Systems will go by Lanteris

Arianegroup now fully claims that Themis 3 has been replaced by tests on Maia (something that was already seen as increasingly likely over the past year). In which case the test is probably NET 2028

ESA 🤝 KASA We have announced with the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) that we will work together on peaceful uses of space, starting with space weather monitoring and sharing space communications facilities. 🔗 esa.int/About_Us/Cor...

That's more like 2027. On the optimistic end.

CNSA has released an image of Tianwen-2 in deep space using a robotic arm, giving us a proper look at the spacecraft and return capsule for delivering samples from near Earth asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa. Tianwen-2 has been in space for 125 days, is 45 million km from Kamoʻoalewa.

Synspective purchases 10 additional Electron launches Synspective, a Japanese company developing a constellation of radar imaging satellites, has signed a deal with Rocket Lab for an additional 10 Electron launches.

ArianeGroup work on reusable launcher pathfinders. Hop tests soon in Kiruna.

Now on @sciam.bsky.social: NASA’s next-gen Habitable Worlds Observatory may be our best chance to find alien life. But can a nation busy ripping itself apart unite to launch a mission to solve life’s cosmic mysteries? By @nadiadrake.bsky.social (and me). www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-...

Ce soir à 12:00 le réacteur belge Tihange 1 sera mis à l’arrêt. Celui de Doel 2 suivra le 1er décembre. En l’espace de 5 ans la Belgique a donc perdu 3.8GW de capacité bas-carbone, malgré une population à 73% favorable à l’utilisation du nucléaire pour la production d’électricité.

A l'heure des tensions, un nouvel enjeu : celui de la Très haute Altitude. Histoire à lire dans #Lachroniquespatiale @thalesaleniaspace.bsky.social @hemeria.bsky.social @armeesgouv.bsky.social @armee-air-espace.bsky.social @gifas.fr @ajpae.bsky.social

Pulverizing ~50m asteroids within one day of impact: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3... 5x100 kg impactors with a closing velocity of 20 km/s deliver 736 J/kg to the asteroid, far exceeding the 100 J/kg disruption threshold, reducing it to pieces too small to reach or affect the ground.

My new article is up: thespacereview.com/article/5066/1

LAUNCH at 0300 UTC Sep 29 of the Shiyan 30-01 and 30-02 satellites by CZ-2D from Xichang to a 584 x 591 km x 35.0 deg orbit. The satellites, built by SAST/Shanghai, are reported to be testing Earth observation tech. Previous SAST Earth observing sats have mosty been for radar imaging.

Report claims NASA taking illegal steps to implement budget proposal As the federal government nears a potential shutdown, a report by Senate Democrats alleges that NASA is already taking steps in to carry out the administration’s proposed budget.

An extraordinary Telegraph article from 2014 that reminds us where Nigel Farage stood on Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Mr Putin 16 years ago.

Just as Firefly was preparing for the return to flight following the FLTA006 failure, the first stage for FLTA007 was lost in an anomaly on the test stand, resulting in a huge fireball. Really unfortunate to see, and hopefully they can recover quickly. 🎥 via @Elevatorcait

We stand at the threshold of a historic milestone in ESA’s cooperation with Australia, whose government announced a mandate to begin negotiations on a Cooperative Agreement with @esa.int, potentially opening up new and exciting opportunities between European and Australian space sectors.

The activities will assess and prepare the requirements, the design and the technologies for both the ground and flight segments required for an upper stage demonstrator that in the future could return to Earth and be reused on another flight. 🚀

Contract for a reuseable upper stage demonstration mission signed at IAC ✍️ @esa.int and Avio signed a contract for 24-months of development activities aiming at the in-flight demonstration of a reusable upper stage.

Italy’s crossroads: build its own satellites or lean on Starlink while waiting for IRIS² MILAN - A report from Italy’s space policy office questioned whether the country is underrepresented in the IRIS² program, the European Union’s planned public-private communication constellation for low and…