A National Academies report requested by NASA names four lunar sites beyond the South Pole worth human exploration, ranked as Bhabha Crater, Mons Hadley, Orientale Basin and Aristarchus Plateau. NASA still plans a South Pole base with landings starting in 2028, and its safety panel has raised concerns about Artemis IV.
— via SpacePolicyOnline, Marcia Smith
Reflect Orbital, the startup building satellites to beam sunlight to spots on Earth after dark, has picked AnySignal to supply its flight radios and ground connectivity software for its first satellite and two more missions. One USX transceiver handles both high-rate payload downlinks and command and telemetry, so the spacecraft skips separate radios for each frequency band.
— via SpaceNews, AnySignal
Japan launched a spacecraft to fetch rock from Mars's moon Phobos, the first sample return from any moon other than Earth's. It won't reach Mars until August 2027 and won't bring the samples home until 2031, but the haul could settle whether Phobos is a captured asteroid or a chunk blasted off Mars.
— via SpacePolicyOnline, Marcia Smith
A Spanish startup's first orbital transfer vehicle went silent right after launch because of a configuration error in its ground station service. UARX sent a backup deploy command blind two days in, and telemetry now shows the payloads were released.
— via SpaceNews, Debra Werner
Crew-12 splashed down on October 8 after 237 days in space, and their mission ran a few weeks long because a Crew Dragon oxidizer leak had to be fixed before Crew-13 could launch. The crew recaps the mission Thursday, in a week when Congress is in recess and NASA gets ready for a Cargo Dragon launch carrying the last set of ISS roll-out solar arrays.
— via SpacePolicyOnline, Marcia Smith
Japan's MMX probe launches Monday afternoon EDT to study Mars's moons and bring back samples from Phobos, but they won't reach Earth until 2031. Meanwhile NASA's Artemis III, now said to be about 90 days behind, gets a Friday status briefing.
— via SpacePolicyOnline, Marcia Smith
Japan's MMX mission launches next week to land on Phobos, grab samples in seconds using a pneumatic collector, and haul them back to Earth by 2031. NASA is chipping in two instruments and $87 million to help settle whether Mars's moons are captured asteroids or collision debris.
— via SpacePolicyOnline, Marcia Smith
A propulsion company best known for its Colorado base is planting flags in Seattle's backyard, opening a 5,470-square-foot Bellevue office that starts with 7 employees but could grow to 30. Its chief technology officer is relocating there to lead the push.
— via SpaceNews, Agile Space Industries
Space Inventor builds satellite buses backward: instead of forcing payloads to fit a fixed design, it reshapes the bus as customer requirements change, even mid-construction. Making nearly everything in-house lets it swap components in about a week, versus six weeks for outside suppliers.
— via SpaceNews, Space Inventor
MDA Space will fly Jena-Optronik's new ASTRO HP star sensor on a low Earth orbit mission, pairing a radiation-hard detector with fast optics in a compact package built for small and medium satellites. It borrows proven parts from two earlier sensors and adds software for specialized space situational awareness tracking, with the first flight-ready unit built for this program.
— via SpaceNews, Jena-Optronik
Four astronauts landed off California this morning after 237 days in orbit, and one of them just became the first person to fly on a Crew Dragon twice. The station's traffic jam continues: a trash-filled Cygnus departs tomorrow, a cargo Dragon launches next week with the final two solar arrays needed to boost the ISS's power supply.
— via SpacePolicyOnline, Marcia Smith
SpaceNews has released its 2026 Icon Awards shortlist, naming finalists from satellite broadband pioneer Mark Dankberg to the newly launched Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Winners get announced Dec. 1 in Washington, with early-bird tickets available through Oct. 31.
— via SpaceNews, SpaceNews Editor
Satellite companies are quietly downgrading parts and accepting year-long waits on valves just to keep megaconstellation plans alive. A 54-page industry analysis names nine bottlenecked components, and China's near-total grip on gallium and germanium could make things much worse.
— via SpaceNews, Hope Hodge Seck
Congress is out, but space isn't: Sputnik turns 69, the Outer Space Treaty marks 58 years, and the IAC convenes in Türkiye with a NASA session airing at 3 a.m. ET. Meanwhile Crew-12 undocks Wednesday, and NASA drops all of Artemis II's lunar science data on the anniversary of Luna 3's farside photos.
— via SpacePolicyOnline, Marcia Smith
Last year's World Space Week drew 50,000 events across 102 countries. This year's edition, starting October 4 in 100 nations, pairs ESA with Pokémon GO, puts Space Shuttle Atlantis on display at Kennedy, and has students launching Vulcan model rockets to mark falling launch costs.
— via SpaceNews, World Space Week Association
The White House has tapped Lt. Gen. David Miller, Jr. to lead U.S. Space Command, but the Senate is about to leave town for weeks, leaving a tight window before Whiting's term ends in January. Miller would also inherit the contentious headquarters move from Colorado Springs to Huntsville.
— via SpacePolicyOnline, Marcia Smith
A satellite just calculated its own position to within 5.2 centimeters, using only the GPS receiver it already had onboard. No new hardware, no ground team crunching the numbers afterward: an Italian startup's software ran the math in real time, in orbit, without a single glitch.
— via SpaceNews, NaviGate
Defense satellite demand is set to blow past 7.5 Tbps by 2035, with NGSO constellations growing revenues to $21.3 billion on a 34% CAGR even as GEO income shrinks. The US and China will dominate the buildout, together driving most of the world's military Satcom spending.
— via SpaceNews, Novaspace
Terran Orbital just hired a Lockheed Martin missile defense executive to run its factory floor. Jamin Brown, who led THAAD and hypersonic weapons programs, takes over as COO tasked with speeding up satellite production to meet rising customer demand.
— via SpaceNews, Terran Orbital
Starliner won't carry astronauts again until 2028, NASA and Boeing confirmed, four years after propulsion failures stranded Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on the ISS for over nine months. An uncrewed test flight is planned for December, but officials want a full year to review results before risking a crew.
— via SpacePolicyOnline, Marcia Smith
