SpaceNews.com
• Jeff Foust
The cluster brings together LATAM Airlines’ $505 million aircraft financing and a multi-orbit connectivity agreement covering its Airbus and Embraer fleet, alongside SES–Starlab communications work, Eutelsat’s IRIS² cooperation with Poland and a Thales D-TACAN contract for Spain.
Space Defense & Militarization
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K2 has been selected to test satellite-to-satellite optical communications for the U.S. Space Force, a technology central to planned missile-warning and tracking networks. The capability is also expected to support the Trump administration’s Golden Dome missile-defense architecture.
True Anomaly said it became the first company to conduct an in-space pursuit of an evading target, as part of VICTUS HAZE. The U.S. Space Force mission is intended to demonstrate operational capabilities for tracking and pursuing maneuvering objects in orbit.
The cluster brings together LATAM Airlines’ $505 million aircraft financing and a multi-orbit connectivity agreement covering its Airbus and Embraer fleet, alongside SES–Starlab communications work, Eutelsat’s IRIS² cooperation with Poland and a Thales D-TACAN contract for Spain.
Earth observation companies increasingly present defense and security applications as a second market alongside climate and commercial work. But framing the capability as “dual-use” may leave governments controlling when and how it is deployed—potentially pushing commercial customers behind state priorities when strategic demands intensify.
The U.S. Space Force awarded K2 Space a $22.9 million contract to test optical communications terminals that transmit data directly between satellites in orbit. The demonstration will assess laser-based crosslinks, a technology intended to support faster and more resilient space-based data networks.
Space Force leaders are developing ways to demonstrate the operational realities of conflict in orbit to lawmakers, who can observe exercises involving tanks, warships and combat aircraft but lack an equivalent view of space operations. The challenge reflects the speed, distance and extended timelines that shape satellite encounters.
A Brookings discussion with Gen. Chance Saltzman, then a senior fellow and now chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force, examines how conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are shaping thinking about space warfare, military operations and the future role of the domain.
An Air Force office has assumed responsibility for the sprawling M-Code effort, which aims to equip as many as one million platforms and systems with GPS receivers resistant to jamming and spoofing. Receivers intended for ships and aircraft are expected to complete testing by 2027.
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