SpaceWatch Global
• Torsten Kriening
German startup Isar Aerospace successfully placed six payloads into orbit on 5 September with its Spectrum rocket, launching from Andøya, Norway. The mission makes Isar the first European commercial space company to reach orbit, advancing the continent’s stated goal of sovereign access to space.
Space Defense & Militarization
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Gen. Douglas Schiess became chief of space operations on Sept. 3, succeeding Gen. B. Chance Saltzman after nearly four years at the helm of the almost-seven-year-old service. Schiess assumes command as the Space Force confronts workforce shortages and continues building its institutional foundation.
A war-game scenario challenges the assumption that the United States would be the only nation to deploy a Golden Dome-style system. China’s parallel capability would reshape the strategic balance in space and intensify pressure for competing defensive and counter-space investments.
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German startup Isar Aerospace successfully placed six payloads into orbit on 5 September with its Spectrum rocket, launching from Andøya, Norway. The mission makes Isar the first European commercial space company to reach orbit, advancing the continent’s stated goal of sovereign access to space.
The U.S. Space Force is investing $50 million in a startup developing a new method to dispatch small spacecraft from a larger vehicle in orbit. The effort could introduce another approach to moving and deploying satellites after launch, with potential implications for future military space operations.
A U.S. military program has demonstrated an aircraft navigation system that uses Earth’s magnetic field rather than GPS signals or satellites. The technology could reduce military reliance on vulnerable space-based positioning infrastructure while preserving highly accurate navigation in contested or degraded environments.
A Rocket Lab spacecraft carrying an optical payload developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory tracked another satellite during a U.S. Space Force “cat-and-mouse” exercise. The demonstration highlights efforts to improve space-domain awareness and the ability to monitor maneuvering objects in orbit.
The U.S. Space Force is starting work on a new ground control architecture for the future GPS constellation, using lessons from the $6.27 billion OCX program. The Pentagon canceled OCX earlier this year after 15 years of development, resetting a critical element of GPS modernization.
Chinese reconnaissance satellite Yaogan-50 (02), launched into an unusual retrograde orbit earlier this year, has apparently fragmented, creating a field of orbital debris. The event adds a new object and debris-generation incident to an increasingly complex space environment, although the cause and full extent of the breakup remain unclear.
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