Plus: A new on UK launch liability
| By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: funding rounds for thermal imaging and launch companies, SpaceX SSA system attracts praise, a new cap on U.K. launch liability and more.
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| | | | | | Top Stories
Earth observation startup SatVu has raised 30 million British pounds ($41 million) in a funding round supported by a NATO fund. The funding will support the British venture's push back to orbit after its initial demonstrator failed in 2023. Two follow-on satellites are slated for launch this year as the company works toward a constellation of nine spacecraft to deliver 10-20 daily revisits. Among the investors participating in the round is the NATO Innovation Fund, or NIF, a venture capital fund backed by NATO member nations to invest in emerging technologies with defense and security applications. Investor interest in commercial thermal satellite imagery has been rising, with German startup constellr announcing a 37 million euro ($44 million) funding round last week to expand its own thermal imaging constellation. [SpaceNews]
Chinese launch startup Space Epoch has raised a new funding round. The company said last week it secured a Series B round, but did not announce the amount it raised. Space Epoch says the funding allows it to enter a stage of large-scale development, with three of its Yuanxingzhe-1 rockets already in production. The company is planning a first launch by the end of the year. Yuanxingzhe-1 (YXZ-1) is a methane-liquid oxygen medium-lift rocket designed for reusability, with Space Epoch performing a vertical takeoff and splashdown test last May. [SpaceNews]
A long-awaited cap on liability for U.K. launch operators came into force Wednesday. The U.K. Space Industry (Indemnities) Act 2025 amends the Space Industry Act 2018, which until now exposed operators to unlimited liability for damage or loss caused by spaceflight activities from the country. The new law requires launch licenses to have a cap on liability, currently set at 60 million euros ($71 million). The U.K. was previously one of the few spacefaring nations without a statutory liability limit covering all spaceflight activities, putting companies there at a disadvantage. [SpaceNews]
A SpaceX space situational awareness (SSA) system is attracting attention for its scale as well as requirements for operators to use it. SpaceX announced late last month Stargaze, an SSA system that collects data from star trackers on its Starlink satellites. SpaceX says it can make 30 million observations each day, making it possible to rapidly detect changes in orbits of any satellites. SpaceX has been testing a space traffic management platform using Stargaze data with a set of beta users, and plans to open it up to all satellite operators for free in the spring. One condition for satellite operators to participate is that they will have to share their satellite ephemeris, or information on the orbits of their satellites and planned maneuvers. Satellite operators and others in the SSA field say they are impressed with the scale of Stargaze and support ephemeris sharing, but noted that having another source of SSA data and conjunction predictions could be confusing to operators, particularly if it differs from other sources. [SpaceNews]
After attracting cubesat customers, Belgium-based Simera Sense is developing higher-resolution optical payloads for larger satellites. Simera Sense is developing standardized optical payloads to provide imagery with a resolution of less than one meter, with first deliveries planned for 2028. Simera Sense also announced last week a memorandum of understanding with Florida-based Sidus Space, which will integrate its FeatherEdge hardware and Cielo AI software with Simera Sense hyperspectral payloads. [SpaceNews]
| | | | | | Other News
Chinese company Landspace is planning a second launch and recovery attempt of its Zhuque-3 rocket in the spring. The attempt follows Landspace's successful first orbital launch of the Zhuque-3 stainless steel, methane-liquid oxygen rocket in early December 2025, although an attempt to land the booster failed. Landspace said in a presentation at a UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space meeting earlier this month that, if does successfully land the booster on its upcoming launch, it will attempt a reflight of the booster in the fourth quarter. [SpaceNews]
A Falcon 9 scheduled for Wednesday will feature a booster landing in The Bahamas. The Falcon 9 launch of Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral, scheduled for 5 p.m. Eastern, will fly on a trajectory that will see the booster land in Exuma Sound in The Bahamas. SpaceX flew a similar launch a year ago after winning approval from the Bahamian government, opening up new trajectories for launches from the Cape. The government put those launches on hold after a Starship launch failure last March scattered debris in the region. The Civil Aviation Authority of The Bahamas announced Tuesday it granted permission to SpaceX to resume Falcon 9 landings. [Jamaica Observer]
Firefly Aerospace is pushing back the return to flight of its Alpha rocket. An Alpha launch was scheduled from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California as soon as Wednesday on the vehicle's first flight since a failure last April. Firefly said Tuesday it was delaying the launch to no earlier than Feb. 27, citing poor weather at the launch site this week and "taking an abundance of caution for this test flight." [X @FireflySpace]
Space is now classified as a "sovereign capability" by the Canadian military. In a new Defence Industrial Strategy released Tuesday, space was one of 10 such capabilities identified as important to the country's military, giving domestic companies in the sector priority in a new procurement system. The document states that, for space, the military is interested in launch, communications, space domain awareness and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Canadian firms with those capabilities will be given preference in future procurements. [SpaceQ]
The UAE Space Agency is extending the mission of its Hope Mars orbiter. The agency said it will extend the Hope spacecraft, formally known as Emirates Mars Mission, through 2028. Hope launched in 2020 and has been orbiting Mars since February 2021 for what was originally a two-year mission to study Martian weather and climate. Extending the mission will continue those science operations and gives the UAE more experience in deep-space missions ahead of an asteroid mission set to launch in 2028. [Middle East Online]
| | | | | | | FROM SPACENEWS |  | | Join Leidos and SpaceNews on Thursday, Feb. 19 at 2 p.m. ET to hear how the U.S. Space Force is partnering with industry to accelerate new approaches for collapsing space kill chains through rapid commercial integration and unclassified technology cohorts. In this virtual event, experts from the Space Force and industry will explore how advanced sensors, analytics and workflow automation can deliver faster decision advantage and operational impact. Register now. | | | | | | Poetic About Bacteria
| "Bacteria and fungi are all so diverse, one to each other, and the space condition is so complex that, at present, you cannot give a single answer. So maybe we need to dig more. I don't mean to be too poetic, but to me, this is a little bit the beauty of that. It's very complex. And I like it."
| | – Rosa Santomartino, assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell University, discussing research recently conducted on the International Space Station to see how microorganisms could be used to extract metals from asteroids.
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