Top Stories

SpaceX plans to start testing the direct-to-device spectrum it acquired from EchoStar by the end of next year. Speaking at World Space Business Week on Tuesday, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said the company hopes to start testing services to phones late next year. That will come ahead of deployment of new satellites in two years with payloads compatible with the new spectrum. She said the company is in talks with companies to produce chips for devices that can use the spectrum and with mobile phone network operators on new partnerships. While SpaceX offers direct-to-device services today with operators, using their terrestrial spectrum, she called that patchwork approach "very clunky" compared to EchoStar's global spectrum allocation. [SpaceNews]

Viasat and Space42 will pool their spectrum for their own direct-to-device (D2D) services. The GEO operators said this week their Equatys joint venture involves well over 100 megahertz of L- and S-band spectrum already allocated across more than 160 countries. Equatys will leverage their existing GEO fleets in addition to new LEO satellites. The companies said Equatys will adopt an investment model similar to the one used by cell tower companies, pooling spectrum and satellite assets under a neutral entity to lower unit costs. Equatys is positioning itself as a sovereignty-friendly D2D alternative, committing to work within existing national spectrum allocations and closely with countries to give them access to a coordinated global system. [SpaceNews]

Amazon expects to begin providing broadband services through Project Kuiper in five countries by next March. Ricky Freeman, president of the constellation's Kuiper Government Solutions division, said at World Space Business Week that the company expected to have enough satellites in orbit to provide service in Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States in the first quarter of next year. Amazon expects to have Kuiper services in 26 countries by the end of 2026. There are about 100 Kuiper satellites in orbit now, but that total will double by the end of the year with three upcoming launches. Amazon, though, is far short of meeting a July 2026 FCC deadline of having half its 3,200-satellite constellation in orbit, and Freeman said access to launch was the project's biggest issue. [SpaceNews]

SES announced plans Tuesday to work with startup satellite manufacturer K2 Space on medium Earth orbit satellites. SES CEO Adel Al-Saleh said his company's new meoSphere concept will use an iterative design approach that evolves in shorter innovation cycles rather than large, one-off deployments. The plan is to develop and deploy new MEO satellites each year, linking investments and scaling of the network directly to market demand and customer needs. That will start with a satellite co-developed with K2 Space launching next year to test the concept. [SpaceNews]

BlackSky said Tuesday it won a second contract from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) under the Luno A program. Under the new contract, BlackSky will fuse data from its Gen-3 and Gen-2 imaging satellites with other commercial sources to detect areas of the Earth undergoing human-caused change. That includes shifts in natural resources, climate effects, infrastructure growth, and both economic and military activity. The award, confirmed by NGA to be worth $24.4 million, brings BlackSky's total orders under Luno A to nearly $50 million in three months. Luno A is specifically focused on commercial analytic services powered by machine learning and computer vision, while a companion Luno B program examines directly integrating commercial AI tools into NGA's own analytic processes. [SpaceNews]

Mynaric has made key deliveries of laser terminals to satellite manufacturers as it recovers from business setbacks. Mynaric provided 84 of its terminals to Northrop Grumman and York Space Systems for use on spacecraft those companies are building for the Space Development Agency. That includes 42 satellites on satellites built by York and launched last week for the SDA's Transport Layer Tranche 1. The shipments reflect momentum for Mynaric after a difficult 2024, when supplier shortages of critical components stalled production and required the company to slash its financial guidance. Mynaric was forced to restructure and is now in the process of being acquired by Rocket Lab. [SpaceNews]

Other News

NASA is delaying the arrival of a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft at the International Space Station because of a thruster issue. NASA said late Tuesday that Cygnus will not berth to the station as scheduled Wednesday morning after two thruster burns early Tuesday to raise its orbit were cut short. Neither the agency nor the company disclosed additional details about the problem, but said other systems on the spacecraft are working well. Cygnus was launched Sunday evening and is carrying about 5,000 kilograms of cargo on the NG-23 mission. [SpaceNews]

Finnish satellite manufacturer ReOrbit has raised 45 million euros ($53 million). The company's recent Series A round, backed by Finnish and other Nordic investors, will allow it to expand production of LEO and small GEO satellites. ReOrbit is seeing strong demand for those satellites from governments. The company is moving into a new Helsinki facility that will allow it to work on eight small GEO satellites in parallel. The firm is differentiating itself by bucking the trend for vertical integration, instead taking on more of a systems integration and design role to provide more flexibility in the suppliers it works with. [SpaceNews]

GHGSat raised $34 million in debt and equity to expand its constellation of satellites monitoring greenhouse gases. Yaletown Partners joined previous GHGSat investors Fonds de solidarite FTQ and BDC Capital in the equity portion of the funding round. National Bank of Canada, with support from Export Development Canada, provided debt financing. The company will use the funds to grow its constellation of 13 satellites that track methane and other greenhouse gas emissions. It will also use the funding for developing advanced analytics capabilities. [SpaceNews]

Impulse Space announced an agreement with Anduril to demonstrate autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations in GEO. The companies said Tuesday they will partner on a mission in 2026 using Impulse's Mira spacecraft and Anduril's software-defined payloads. Impulse Space will send Mira to GEO on its Helios tug, and once there Mira will conduct tests such as capturing images of designated objects, analyzing them onboard and autonomously executing maneuvers to observe the targets from different angles. The companies are funding the mission internally, demonstrating capabilities that could be offered to military customers. [SpaceNews]

Axiom Space and Spacebilt will send a data center to the ISS. The Axiom Orbital Data Center Node on ISS, called AxODC Node ISS, is being developed in collaboration with Spacebilt and will feature an optical communications terminal from Skyloom plus hardware from Phison Electronics and Microchip Technology. The device will provide high-performance computing services for research and other activities on the station, working with two other data storage and processing devices there. [SpaceNews]

Satellite manufacturer Astro Digital will purchase and distribute power from Star Catcher's future space-based energy grid. The goal is to enable ESPA-class satellites like Astro Digital's Corvus XL to obtain more power than they could generate on their own. Star Catcher announced plans last year to develop a network of satellites that can beam sunlight to other spacecraft, boosting the amount of power their solar panels can generate. It conducted a terrestrial test of the technology earlier this year with an on-orbit demonstration planned for next year. [SpaceNews]

Bored Livestock

"When we had the first engine tests, the sheep and cows were, first of all, curious. They looked at it. The second time, they didn't care."

– Robin Huber, head of Europe and commercial director of SaxaVord Spaceport in the Shetland Islands, discussing at World Space Business Week Tuesday the limited impact on the area around the spaceport from rocket engine tests there.

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