Payload
• Jacqueline Feldscher
Astranis is expanding beyond communications satellites with Perceptor, a spacecraft designed to monitor and maneuver around other objects in geostationary orbit. The company says the system addresses shortcomings it encountered with existing space-domain-awareness technology, targeting surveillance of an increasingly contested orbital environment.
Space Debris & Traffic Management
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Astranis is expanding beyond communications satellites with Perceptor, a spacecraft designed to monitor and maneuver around other objects in geostationary orbit. The company says the system addresses shortcomings it encountered with existing space-domain-awareness technology, targeting surveillance of an increasingly contested orbital environment.
SpaceX is maintaining a high-tempo Starlink campaign, including Falcon 9 missions carrying 24 and 29 satellites to low Earth orbit, despite a scrub and rescheduled launch. The company is also targeting Starship’s 14th test flight for late August, with a planned first operational deployment of Starlink V3 satellites.
A proposal to deploy as many as 1 million AI satellites in orbit could sharply increase rocket-launch emissions and produce concentrated toxic ash as spacecraft reenter the atmosphere. The scale of the data-center constellation raises questions about the environmental limits of orbital computing and satellite disposal.
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Portugal-based Neuraspace secured €15.6 million from Lince Capital, Explorer Investments, Armilar Venture Partners and the country’s Recovery and Resilience Plan. The financing will support expansion of its AI-enabled space domain awareness and space traffic management platform for commercial, institutional and defense satellite operators.
With a Falcon 9 upper stage expected to impact the moon this week, NASA and SpaceX are examining ways to prevent similar lunar collisions in the future. The effort highlights the need to account for spent launch hardware beyond Earth orbit and during deep-space missions.
Astronomers at the University of Warwick have detected tiny, previously undocumented debris in geosynchronous orbit—among the faintest ever observed. The observations provide new data for characterizing how these objects behave, strengthening understanding of a difficult-to-monitor hazard in a strategically important orbital regime.
As companies develop plans for data centers in orbit, experts are urging the industry to establish safety practices early. The emerging constellations raise unresolved questions about orbital coordination, traffic management and the long-term effects of adding significant infrastructure to an already contested space environment.
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