10/20/2026

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A Russian military satellite maneuvered extremely close to a commercial radar imaging satellite. Russia's Cosmos 2612 maneuvered to within roughly 500 meters of Iceye X36 in recent days, according to data from commercial space tracking company LeoLabs. Cosmos 2612 spent several days maneuvering around Iceye X36, at times moving ahead of and behind the satellite rather than simply passing it, before moving away. LeoLabs said the behavior was consistent with deliberate rendezvous and proximity operations, though the Russian spacecraft's intentions remain unclear. Iceye said it was "aware of the situation and tracking it closely." [SpaceNews]

Japan launched a mission to return samples from the Martian moon Phobos. An H3 rocket lifted off Monday at 3:41 p.m. Eastern from the Tanegashima Space Center, deploying the Martian Moons Exploration, or MMX, spacecraft 71 minutes later. MMX will enter orbit around Mars next August, approaching and eventually landing on Phobos, the larger of the planet's two small moons. MMX will attempt to collect at least 10 grams of material from Phobos that it will return to Earth in 2031. Scientists said the mission will help them understand if Phobos, along with the smaller moon Deimos, are captured asteroids or material from Mars ejected in giant impacts. The mission is led by JAXA with participation from several other agencies, including NASA, which provided a spectrometer and equipment to gather samples. [SpaceNews]

The U.S. Space Force's Middle East command could expand fivefold over the next several years. At a webinar Monday, Brig. Gen. Todd Benson, commander of U.S. Space Forces-Central, said his organization needs more personnel to carry out military operations and support U.S. Central Command. He said the organization would need to grow fivefold to meet those requirements, but did not disclose the current size of the unit. U.S. Space Forces-Central began with 28 personnel when it was established in 2022 and grew to more than 60 by early 2025. Some of those personnel, he said, are on the "very front of the front lines" supporting military operations. [SpaceNews]

The European mobile phone operators seeking to join forces for direct-to-device services need to find a satellite partner. Germany's Deutsche Telekom, France's Orange, Spain's Telefónica and Vodafone of the United Kingdom plan to contribute ground infrastructure and other resources the European D2D network would require, without directly investing in a satellite constellation. The operators said that their proposed D2D joint venture would not replace existing satellite partnerships; several of them are using or plan to use Starlink. The consortium also paints a complicated picture for U.S.-based D2D challenger AST SpaceMobile, which announced a joint venture with Vodafone last year to bid for European S-band spectrum. [SpaceNews]

EraDrive won a Space Force contract to develop hardware for satellite autonomy applications. The $13 million award was made through the Pentagon's Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT) program, an initiative to speed up adoption of technologies with military utility. EraDrive, a spinoff of the Stanford University Space Rendezvous Laboratory, is developing hardware to enable spacecraft to navigate on their own. The contract covers work on Era-Node, a hosted payload that helps satellites determine position, navigation and timing without relying on global navigation satellite systems and also handles autonomous maneuver planning. [SpaceNews]

Uzbekistan is the latest country to sign the Artemis Accords. The Central Asian country's foreign minister signed the accords Monday during a visit to the country by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Uzbekistan, the 77th country to sign the accords, said it did so to create new opportunities to cooperate with NASA and gain access to space expertise and technology. NASA has offered Artemis Accords signatories the opportunity to contribute to the agency's planned lunar base. [SpaceNews]

Other News

SpaceX launched a rideshare mission this morning that included the company's second Starfall reentry vehicle. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 7:04 a.m. Eastern on the Bandwagon-5 mission. The mid-inclination rideshare mission included 32 payloads, many from companies that have flown satellites on previous rideshare missions. The launch also carried Starfall, SpaceX's own reentry vehicle. The company first flew Starfall in June and is offering it to customers interested in microgravity research and manufacturing. [SpaceNews]

An orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) launched on another SpaceX rideshare mission is recovering from problems. Spanish company UARX Space launched its first OTV, called OSSIE-D, on the Transporter-18 rideshare mission early this month. UARX said it lost communications with OSSIE-D immediately after launch, making it unclear if some payloads had been deployed. The company blamed the communications outage on a ground station issue that has since been corrected, restoring contact with the OTV. Telemetry shows the OTV did receive commands to deploy some payloads, and customers said they have made contact with their satellites. Other spacecraft were planned to be released later but UARX did not provide details on those payloads. [SpaceNews]

Polish satellite manufacturer Creotech Instruments wants to increase production by a factor of 10. The company plans to open a new factory by 2029 that will be able to produce up to 100 satellites a year versus the 10 per year it can currently manufacture. While Creotech sees strong demand for its satellites, it warned that it and other European manufacturers remain dependent on American companies for launching those satellites. [Reuters]

The governor of Texas says there are no current plans to sell a state park adjacent to SpaceX's Starbase facility to the company. Reports last week noted that a potential sale of Boca Chica State Park to SpaceX was being considered by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, with a meeting to discuss the proposed sale planned for early November. Gov. Greg Abbott said Monday that any sale of the park to SpaceX is "not coming up for a vote anytime soon." He said he knew little about the potential sale or what SpaceX would do with the land if the deal went through. [Texas Tribune]

The Israeli military plans to add a dedicated space unit. The Israel Defense Forces will establish a Space Brigade responsible for space systems including spacecraft and related technologies, and also prepare for any future space conflict. The new unit will consolidate space-related work in the Israeli military, although officials disclosed few details about plans for the brigade or funding. [Ynet]

Part of a Chinese rocket fell on a Minnesota farm. A farmer in west-central Minnesota discovered a circular metallic object 3.35 meters across in a corn field. Local law enforcement officials said the item was "presumably a space object" and that they were working with state and federal officials to remove it. The object appears to be part of an upper stage of a Chinese Zhuque-2E rocket that launched in mid-September and reentered over the upper Midwest. The rocket's upper stage has a diameter that matches that of the object found in Minnesota. [Ars Technica]

MoonFall

"What is MoonFall? My project manager tells me it's a spectacularly crappy sci-fi movie. That was not the origin of the name."

– Ian Clark, chief engineer for the MoonFall mission at JPL, during a talk at the fall meeting of the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium last week. MoonFall, a set of hopper spacecraft, took its name instead from the SkyFall helicopters being developed for Mars.

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