For decades, military forces have relied on space to provide intelligence, navigation, communications, and missile warning. As those capabilities have become more sophisticated and more integrated into operations on Earth, so have efforts to interfere with them. This shift came into sharp focus on September 23, when the United Kingdom activated its No. III Space Effects Squadron, the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) first unit dedicated to operations in support of the U.K.’s Control of Space mission. The RAF says the squadron will use electronic warfare and other means to “disrupt, degrade, and deny” hostile activity while supporting offensive and defensive…
Apogee
The mission of one expanding Japanese satellite system can be described simply: strengthen the vital GPS navigation constellation operated by the United States. But there’s nothing simple about the sweeping changes the QZSS system promises to deliver in day-to-day life for mobile phone users from Japan to New Zealand. QZSS, or the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System, provides reliable positioning information down to a centimeter and, in combination with a mobile mapping system, enables a host of new and improved businesses and services, Mitsubishi Electric said on its website. Examples include automated driving, disaster prevention and infrastructure maintenance. These satellites hover nearly…
U.S. space defense leaders follow a precise set of priorities in pursuing their goal of space superiority: develop next-generation missile defense technologies, counter threats from all orbits, create a responsive and adaptive space architecture, and strengthen ally and partner contributions to collective space security. Achieving these benchmarks, spelled out in a December 2025 White House executive order, is a big ask for the Department of War (DOW). But when it comes to finding the right path toward success, one U.S. Space Force officer charged with helping get there just reaches for the “easy button.” The easy button, popularized in an…
For decades, U.S. space strategy rested on a foundational assumption: that satellites, once launched into precise orbits, could remain there, static, predictable, and largely unthreatened. That assumption no longer holds. What Apollo Maneuvers 2026 and the subsequent confirmation of U.S. on-orbit weapons represent is not simply a pair of headline-grabbing announcements. They are the clearest operational signal yet that U.S. Space Command is moving from planning a new doctrine to executing one. As adversary counterspace capabilities have advanced, from China’s demonstrated direct-ascent anti-satellite capability to Russia’s electronic warfare systems and maneuvering spacecraft, the logic of keeping U.S. space assets in…
For years, military leaders warned that space was becoming a contested domain. In the spring of 2026, U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM) began preparing for what that reality might look like. In March, the command assembled more than 170 representatives from government agencies, allied nations, and 62 commercial space companies for the inaugural Apollo Insight Commercial Integration exercise, a classified tabletop war game designed to examine one of the most alarming scenarios facing national security planners: a nuclear weapon detonated in orbit. The exercise, held in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the home of USSPACECOM, brought together military officers, intelligence officials, industry executives…
Peru has been tracking satellites from the ground for more than 50 years. In September 2026, it marked a decade of operating one in orbit. Now, with PeruSAT-1 approaching the end of its original mission and planning underway for its successor, Peru is seeking a new partner for the next phase of its space program. On September 10, the U.S. Department of State formally launched the Space Catalyst Partnership (SCP) in Lima, a global initiative to deepen both commercial and civil space cooperation with the 73 countries that have signed the Artemis Accords. The SCP is one of the State…
The United States and Japan have taken another step toward closer cooperation in space defense, launching a U.S. Space Force sensor aboard a Japanese navigation satellite and rocket in a mission officials say will strengthen surveillance of an increasingly contested Indo-Pacific region. The Quasi-Zenith Satellite-7, or QZS-7, lifted off August 10 aboard Japan’s H-3 launch vehicle from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan. The satellite carries a U.S. space domain awareness (SDA) payload designed to provide near-real-time information about objects operating in geosynchronous orbit above the Indo-Pacific. The launch completed the two-satellite Quasi-Zenith Satellite System-Hosted Payload, or QZSS-HP, program.…
New leaders are taking charge at two government agencies that spend tens of billions of dollars a year building and operating infrastructure to ensure continued U.S. superiority in space. Erich D. Hernandez-Baquero, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, will oversee acquisition for the U.S. Space Force as an assistant secretary of the Air Force, and L. Roger Mason Jr., a defense industry and intelligence executive, will guide the nation’s intelligence satellite programs as director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). During Senate hearings in July, Hernandez-Baquero and Mason expressed support for closer coordination between the Space Force and intelligence agencies,…
Rocket Lab Corp. has secured a $266 million United States Space Force contract to conduct up to 18 suborbital missions over the next three years from a new launch site in Alaska, a move that underscores the Pentagon’s emphasis on rapid, frequent launch for missile defense testing and national security. The contract, awarded through the Space Force’s Rocket Systems Launch Program, includes 12 guaranteed suborbital launches with options for six additional missions through 2028. Most of the launches will take place from a new Rocket Lab center at the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska, expanding the company’s launch…
Aging, expensive satellites in distant orbit may get a new lease on life with the deployment of demonstration technologies aboard a rocket launched July 21 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The SpaceX Falcon 9 carried a payload decades in the making — a Swiss Army knife of a servicing tool whose first job may be to attach auxiliary “jet packs” of fuel to keep satellites flying after their built-in supply runs out. Three of these mission extension pods (MEPs) were part of the Falcon 9 payload, though the satellites getting them haven’t been identified. One thing for sure…