Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Dec 03, 2025
The China National Space Administration has set up a Commercial Space Department to serve as a dedicated regulator for the country's expanding private space sector. The new office is responsible for overseeing commercial launches, satellite operations, and related services while coordinating policy and planning for non-state space activities. Officials have tied the move to the Action Plan

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 03, 2025
Leaf Space is providing ground segment services for 31 satellites on a single upcoming SpaceX rideshare mission, the largest number of spacecraft it has supported on one launch to date and representing about 30 percent of all payloads on the flight. These newly supported spacecraft join 140 satellites already operating through the company's Leaf Line ground station network, used by commerc

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 03, 2025
Every rocket launch discards large amounts of material and releases substantial greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances into the atmosphere, prompting researchers to examine how circular economy principles could be built into space activities from the outset. In a commentary published December 1 in the Cell Press journal Chem Circularity, sustainability specialists and space scient

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 03, 2025
The European Investment Bank (EIB) has launched Space TechEU, its first financing programme dedicated to companies in Europe's space sector, under its wider TechEU initiative. The bank presented the facility at the European Space Agency (ESA) Council of Ministers meeting in Bremen. Space TechEU will provide up to 500 million euro in EIB financing to companies across the space value chain, from upstream manufacturing and launch activities to downstream applications

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 03, 2025
Orbit Fab has secured up to $3.8 million in funding through the UK Space Agency and the European Space Agency's Directorate of Connectivity and Secure Communications to lead a European consortium that will advance satellite refuelling technology. The Advancing Satcom Technology with Refuelling and Logistics (ASTRAL) project will receive total UK funding of up to $3.8 million (3.3 million euros),

Paris, France (SPX) Dec 03, 2025
Planetek Italia has placed the AI eXpress 1 Plus (AIX-1+) satellite in orbit, completing the first generation of its AI eXpress constellation for in-orbit artificial intelligence processing of Earth observation data. AIX-1+ launched on November 28, 2025, at 10:44 a.m. PT (7:44 p.m. GMT+1) on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare mission (Transporter 15) from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg

Tucson AZ (SPX) Dec 03, 2025
Seventy light-years from Earth, astronomers studying the star Kappa Tucanae A have identified dust heated to more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit orbiting very close to the star, where such material should either vaporize or be blown out of the system. The team has now detected a companion star moving through this same inner region, offering a new way to investigate how this hot exozodiacal dust f

Southampton, UK (SPX) Dec 03, 2025
A University of Southampton team has identified a distinct low frequency radio signature that appears when small-scale auroral structures known as auroral beads emerge, providing a new clue to how intense auroral substorms are triggered. Magnetospheric substorms are bursts of activity in Earth's aurora that can rapidly transform faint arcs into bright, dynamic displays stretching across th

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 03, 2025
Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have produced the first detailed calculation of how fast time passes on Mars compared with Earth, providing a parameter that future human and robotic missions will need for navigation and communications. They determine that clocks on the Martian surface run on average 477 microseconds faster per Earth day than clocks on Earth, with

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 03, 2025
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has established the Nebular Origins of the Universe Research (NOUR) Laboratory to investigate how the chemistry of interstellar material leads to the formation of planetary systems. The lab, located within SwRI's Space Science Division and led by Senior Research Scientist Dr. Danna Qasim, is designed to connect pre-planetary chemical evolution with the later s