11/08/2025

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By Dan Robitzski

Welcome back to our weekly newsletter highlighting the opinions and perspectives of the SpaceNews community.

Why high-resolution satellite imagery must power our planet's future

Imaging satellites in space can spot incredibly small objects on Earth. So what are humans doing with the power to watch our planet in high-definition, especially at a time when deforestation and wildfires hurt the planet? That's the question posed in an opinion article by remote sensing expert Kateryna Sergieieva, senior scientist at EOS Data Analytics.

"We finally have the power to witness our planet as it truly is: scarred, altering and astonishingly interconnected," Sergieieva wrote. "It's a turning point in how we see, understand and ultimately protect our planet."

She added: "Every pixel now carries a moral weight. If we can see the problem, we can no longer claim ignorance, whether it be deforestation in the Amazon, floods or wildfires in California."

In Sergieieva's article, she called for "real change" in the form of leaders using this unprecedented wave of information about Earth to solve the major environmental problems that are too big to ignore. AI, she argued, must play a critical role in organizing all of this environmental intelligence, making it usable and widely accessible to those who need it.

See the full article here.

Europe's lead in hyperspectral Earth observation depends on public–private partnerships

Europe has a rare and fragile lead in one aspect of the space industry: hyperspectral imaging. And if it wants to hold that position against gains in the United States and China, it has to rethink how it funds and develops programs and embrace public-private partnerships, wrote Kuva Space CEO Jarkko Antila.

This hybrid model is essential, Antila argued, because "hyperspectral imaging is too data-heavy, too complex and too strategically important to be left solely to government programs with decade-long timelines."

Instead, European governments can align incentives with commercial partners: "Governments get access to validated, sovereign data and maintain control over environmental and security-critical intelligence. Private companies, in turn, gain stable demand, data-sharing frameworks and anchor customers to accelerate scale."

Ultimately, Antila wrote, Europe has a narrow window but a real opportunity "to build satellites, infrastructure and standards that make Europe the place where new, trusted information about the health and safety of the planet itself is produced."

See the whole article here.

A hyperspectral image of the Richat Structure, a geological feature in northwestern Mauritania also known as the Eye of the Sahara, taken by Wyvern's Dragonette-001 satellite on July 23, 2024. Credit: Wyvern

Why the U.S. shouldn't simply race to Lagrange points

One aspect of this latest, ongoing space race between the United States and China may turn out to be completely pointless: In 2024, the U.S. House Select Committee on China adopted the stance that the U.S. should ensure it becomes the first country to permanently station assets at all Lagrange points. But as far as finish lines go, Lagrange points are a poor choice, argued former Space Force consultant Maxwell Zhu, a graduate student at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs specializing in space policy.

Lagrange points are regions in space where the gravitational pull of two bodies, such as the Earth and the moon or the Earth and the sun, balance out, allowing spacecraft to maintain their position without using fuel. As Zhu wrote, these regions in space "lack the strategic first-mover advantage of terrestrial 'high ground.' There are no dramatic landings or above-the-fold photographs for these invisible points in the vacuum of space, nor can states meaningfully deny access or monopolize resources by arriving first. Because the operational zones for Lagrange points are so astoundingly large, Lagrange points are better understood as open commons rather than contested terrain, which means that the U.S. is unlikely to exclude other actors by arriving first, and vice versa."

SpaceNews is committed to publishing our community's diverse perspectives. Whether you're an academic, executive, engineer or even just a concerned citizen of the cosmos, send your arguments and viewpoints to opinion@spacenews.com to be considered for publication online or in our next magazine. The perspectives shared in these opinion articles are solely those of the authors.

FROM SPACENEWS

Register for our Nov. 12 conversation about space-based inceptors in Golden Dome

Register to join our next conversation on Golden Dome: As the U.S. military develops the Golden Dome missile defense architecture, one controversial idea is back on the table: interceptors in space. Join us on Wednesday, Nov. 12 as we examine the promise and pitfalls of the technology and the strategic benefits and consequences of putting such defenses in orbit. Register now, and catch up on our latest Golden Dome coverage.

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