Cosmoleap secures $73 million for reusable rocket with tower catch recovery
Thursday, 30 April 2026 09:57
Chinese launch startup Cosmoleap has secured significant funding for its reusable rocket plans as it works towards a debut launch in 2027.
Baking a parachute for Mars
Thursday, 30 April 2026 08:29
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Watch ESA’s Mars chief engineer Albert Haldemann explain the sterilisation process of one of the parachutes of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission and why it matters.
Carefully wrapped inside a donut-shaped bag is a 35-m diameter parachute, about to be baked inside a specialised dry-heat steriliser oven. The parachute needs to be at least 10 000 times cleaner than your smartphone.
To get rid of any microbes it might have picked up during its time on Earth, the parachute was heated up in a specialised oven at the European Space Agency’s Life Support and Physical Sciences Laboratory at ESTEC, the agency’s technical centre in the Netherlands. All air inside the cleanroom continuously passes through a two-stage
Starry spiral in a familiar neighbourhood
Thursday, 30 April 2026 07:00
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Starry spiral in a familiar neighbourhood What would happen without satellite communications?
Thursday, 30 April 2026 06:22
The sudden loss of satellite communications would lead to widespread disruption, affecting vital services such as air travel, maritime logistics and emergency response with an estimated economic impact of up to €20 billion. To highlight the economic importance of satellite-enabled connectivity, London Economics prepared a report for the European Space Agency (ESA), examining the effects of a hypothetical week-long outage of satellite communications across ESA Member States and Canada.
Canadian Space Agency cancels Spire satellite contract
Wednesday, 29 April 2026 23:43
The Canadian Space Agency has canceled a contract it awarded last year to Spire Global to construct a fleet of wildfire-monitoring smallsats.
ISS module cracking still unresolved despite stopping air leaks
Wednesday, 29 April 2026 21:09
While leaks in a Russian section of the International Space Station have stopped, engineers still don’t understand how the cracks formed.
May 13: Software Integration and Strategic Missile Defense
Wednesday, 29 April 2026 21:06
Space Force selects firms to build counter-surveillance payloads for satellites
Wednesday, 29 April 2026 20:21
Falcon 9 rocket stage projected to impact moon’s near side in August
Wednesday, 29 April 2026 14:27
A spent Falcon 9 stage used to launch a pair of commercial lunar landers is projected to impact the moon Aug.
Falcon Heavy launches final ViaSat-3 terabit-class satellite
Wednesday, 29 April 2026 14:13
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy launched the third and final terabit-class ViaSat-3 broadband satellite toward geostationary orbit April 29, putting Viasat on course to finish a constellation more than a decade in the making.
When the Wire Beats the Wave: How Tethered Drones Defeat Modern Air Defence Architecture
Wednesday, 29 April 2026 12:36
A spool of fibre optic cable has done what years of attrition could not: it has exposed a structural blind spot in one of the most heavily instrumented air defence networks on Earth. Hezbollah’s deployment of wire-guided first-person view drones across southern Lebanon has forced Israeli ground troops to defend themselves with assault rifles and […]
The post When the Wire Beats the Wave: How Tethered Drones Defeat Modern Air Defence Architecture appeared first on Space Daily.
Stunning images from Biomass mark its one year in orbit
Wednesday, 29 April 2026 11:40
To mark the first anniversary of the European Space Agency’s Biomass satellite, we present a selection of striking images captured over the past 12 months, revealing Earth’s forests, and much more, in new detail. In just one year, this pioneering mission has begun transforming our understanding of forest dynamics and advancing how scientists monitor the critical role forests play in regulating the global carbon cycle.
Space Force awards BAE Systems $11.8 million to demo satellite communications for Golden Dome
Wednesday, 29 April 2026 10:58
BAE to demonstrate inter-satellite Link-182 radios for Golden Dome missile defense architecture

