SpaceX will try to put Starship in orbit for the first time on September 22

Elon Musk’s company will also attempt to deploy the first V3 Starlink satellites into its orbital internet constellation.

US military confirms it launched space weapons into Earth’s orbit

This is the first public acknowledgement that the U.S. military put a space weapon in Earth’s orbit.

Open Cosmos raises €300M to scale satellite manufacturing across four European factories
Open Cosmos raises €300M to scale satellite manufacturing across four European factories

UK – Open Cosmos has raised €300M to expand satellite mass manufacturing and build out the connectivity and data services it runs on top of its own constellations, in a round led by European investors. The round was led by Lightrock with ETF Partners, …

Loft Orbital and Marlan Space plan $1bn AI satellite fleet with Mistral
Loft Orbital and Marlan Space plan $1bn AI satellite fleet with Mistral

Loft Orbital and Marlan Space have announced a $1bn programme to grow their AI-equipped satellite constellation from 10 satellites to 50, with Mistral supplying the AI models on board. The two companies set out the plan in a press release on 9 Septembe…

Macron’s Paris space summit ends with €20bn in commitments and 51 signed deals
Macron’s Paris space summit ends with €20bn in commitments and 51 signed deals

The first International Space Summit closed at the Grand Palais in Paris on Thursday with about €20bn in announced investment and 51 deals signed, after two days in which European governments tried to convert a long-running argument about dependence on…

Greece picks its first astronaut for a 2027 Vast mission to the ISS
Greece picks its first astronaut for a 2027 Vast mission to the ISS

Adrianos Golemis is set to become Greece’s first astronaut, subject to approval by the space station partners. The European Space Agency has signed an agreement on behalf of Greece with the US company Vast. Vast plans the mission to the International S…

UK space strategy puts £7.8bn behind defence, satellites and ESA to 2030
UK space strategy puts £7.8bn behind defence, satellites and ESA to 2030

The UK government has published a new space strategy, backed by £7.8bn to 2030. It brings the government’s civil and military space spending under one plan. The government’s announcement on 8 September named national security and defence as its key pil…

NASA and IBM Launch Open-Source AI Model for Future Moon Explorations

One small step for AI, one giant leap for mankind.

IBM and NASA release an open-source lunar foundation model
IBM and NASA release an open-source lunar foundation model

IBM and NASA are releasing an AI model trained on decades of observations of the Moon, and making it available openly. The NASA-IBM Lunar Foundation Model is arriving on Hugging Face alongside what its creators describe as the first unified, machine-le…

Besxar is building an orbital semiconductor factory, one SpaceX rocket at a time

If you want to manufacture in space—and bring the products back again—there’s a limited set of options: Wait to go to the International Space Station, or partner with a handful of start-ups launching spacecraft that spend time in orbit before the…