SpaceNews.com
• Jeff Foust
Rocket Lab added eight Neutron missions during a record third quarter, bringing the rocket’s manifest to 16 flights and more than $515 million in contracts, including missions for the U.S. Space Force and ICEYE. Some launches carry a base price of $70 million; the inaugural flight is now expected in 2027.
Satellite
Latest source-backed stories
High activity
Rocket Lab added eight Neutron missions during a record third quarter, bringing the rocket’s manifest to 16 flights and more than $515 million in contracts, including missions for the U.S. Space Force and ICEYE. Some launches carry a base price of $70 million; the inaugural flight is now expected in 2027.
Orbital Eye will use imagery from its COSMIC-EYE satellite system to track construction of TenneT’s 380-kilovolt Rilland–Tilburg power line in the Netherlands. The application puts commercial Earth-observation data to work monitoring an electricity-transmission project; the report provides no details on coverage, schedule or contract value.
High activity
The French Defence Procurement Agency has selected Airbus Defence and Space and Thales Alenia Space to jointly develop IRIS, a new ultra-high-resolution optical Earth-observation system for the French Armed Forces. The contract covers two satellites and is valued at more than €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion).
Application programming interfaces connect software systems and enable users to authenticate across them, making APIs a critical link in space-system cybersecurity. The article characterizes them as an “Achilles heel” that can be easy to hack, underscoring the exposure created at software interfaces.
EUSPA estimates the global downstream Earth-observation market generated €3.5 billion in 2024. Separately, Gogo reported 297 aircraft using its Galileo connectivity service at Sept. 30, 2026, after shipping 172 units in the third quarter, up 95% year over year; GomSpace forecast average annual revenue growth of 30% through 2030.
Rakuten and AST SpaceMobile plan to establish Rakuten AST to procure and operate satellites providing direct-to-device service in Japan. Rakuten will hold 51% of voting rights and AST SpaceMobile’s Japanese subsidiary 49%; the venture is backed by up to ¥148 billion in Japanese funding.
A comment describing the US military as “notionally interested” in a lunar satellite constellation signals preliminary interest, not a confirmed program or procurement decision. The available report provides no details on mission, scale, timing or responsible service, leaving the scope of that interest unclear.
Create a free account to see more recent Satellite stories and keep bookmarks in one place.
