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German startup Orbital Matter says its Replicator-2 satellite used an onboard 3D printer to extrude and UV-cure a half-meter rigid plastic beam while in orbit, a process the company likens to mixing cement and water. The satellite, launched on a SpaceX rideshare this summer, carried four such printers, though one of two units meant to deploy a flexible solar array failed due to an anomaly.
Startup Reflect Orbital is developing a satellite constellation equipped with large reflective mirrors designed to redirect sunlight to specific locations on Earth after dark. The company envisions customers such as solar farms seeking extended power generation and disaster zones needing emergency illumination, with pricing floated around $5,000 per hour of light delivery.
NASA's Swift Gamma-Ray Burst telescope, launched in 2004, is reentering Earth's atmosphere within days after a July mission using a Katalyst Space Technologies spacecraft to boost it into a higher orbit failed when that spacecraft tumbled out of control. NASA says Swift's orbit dropped to about 171 miles by mid-October and is now sinking rapidly due to atmospheric drag, with reentry location still unknown.
Google has put its first satellite designed to host data center-style compute into orbit, according to reports. The spacecraft is reportedly operational and has been used to run basic AI workloads, including generating text output as a demonstration.
NASA released a Request For Information on Thursday seeking commercial ideas for extending Hubble's life, including capturing the telescope to boost it above 373 miles, servicing its systems, or guiding it to a controlled reentry. Companies have until November 30 to respond, and any mission would need to happen by 2032 without damaging the observatory. NASA says it is not yet committing to purchase such a mission but wants to gauge industry interest and cost.
Satlyt, a startup building software to turn satellites into distributed data-processing networks, completed a test this month in partnership with the University of Houston on a NASA-funded research project. The test simulated four computers, four users and eight services, with one physical satellite computer running the software to allocate tasks based on available compute and communication, then sending results to Earth. Satlyt's software is already installed on three orbiting satellites, though NASA has not selected the company for any specific mission.
Reflect Orbital, developer of a planned satellite system to reflect sunlight onto Earth at night, ran an unannounced ground test earlier this month near Lone Pine, California, using powerful spotlights on a mountainside to simulate the effect. The resulting light exceeded full-moon brightness, and local officials and county government say they were not informed beforehand, raising questions about what permissions, if any, were obtained.
Tracking data and LeoLabs analysis indicate Russia's Kosmos 2612 conducted a close rendezvous with ICEYE's X36 commercial radar imaging satellite, with estimates ranging from roughly 85 feet to about 500 meters of separation. LeoLabs says the maneuver involved a controlled approach, position shifts, loitering near the satellite, and a controlled departure, rather than a routine orbital pass.
Thirteen years after Orbital Sciences' Antares first flew, four new American medium-lift rockets are in development, each built with domestically manufactured engines rather than relying on foreign hardware as Antares did. The push comes as SpaceX reportedly plans to stop selling Falcon 9 launches commercially as soon as 2028, leaving a gap in the 2-to-20-metric-ton launch class.
California startup Reflect Orbital has purchased two launches from India's Skyroot Aerospace, using the Vikram-1 and an upgraded Vikram-1U rocket, according to Payload Space. Reflect Orbital plans to deploy a constellation of roughly 50,000 orbital mirrors that reflect sunlight to the ground for power and illumination, with its first satellite set to fly on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare next year.
New research models how the Sun's eventual transformation into a red giant and loss of mass will loosen its gravitational grip, potentially destabilizing the orbits of outer solar system bodies much sooner than previous estimates suggested. The findings indicate that as the Sun sheds mass, gravitational interactions between surviving planets could trigger chaotic orbital shifts.
Satlyt, a startup founded by former Google and SpaceX engineer Rama Afullo, has raised an $8 million seed round and is launching its satellite-based AI software on a SpaceX rocket this Thursday. The same launch carries the first prototype for Google's Project Suncatcher, its own orbital data center initiative. Satlyt doesn't build its own satellites; instead it makes software that lets AI models run across other companies' spacecraft, using fewer ground-based flight controllers.