Japan has taken a step toward joining the small group of nations that can reuse rockets after the nation launched and landed its RV-X vehicle in a closely watched test flight. Officials with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said the experiment could eventually reduce launch costs, strengthen access to space and enhance competitiveness in the global launch market. In a flight that lasted about 40 seconds, the JAXA prototype rocket lifted off from the Noshiro Testing Center in northeastern Japan, climbed about 11 meters, hovered, moved horizontally approximately 16 meters and landed upright. Although modest in altitude and duration,…
Apogee
Ukraine is taking out high-value Russian military targets with behind-the-lines drone attacks, shifting the direction of their 4-year-old war and forcing Russia to develop new satellite-jamming techniques. The drones can strike 30 to 100 kilometers behind front lines, expanding the Ukrainian kill zone and requiring Russia to divert resources to protect its supply lines and infrastructure, according to a June 2026 article in Foreign Affairs magazine by two former Pentagon officials. “This reverses a trend of Russian gains throughout 2025 that had many analysts worried about Ukraine’s capacity to continue fighting,” the article said. In response, Russian forces are protecting…
The U.S. Space Force has completed the first operational phase of its Victus Haze mission, demonstrating the military’s ability to rapidly launch, locate and inspect a newly deployed satellite in orbit within days instead of months — a milestone officials say could reshape how the United States responds to emerging threats in space. The demonstration combined a record-setting responsive launch by California-based Rocket Lab with an autonomous orbital intercept conducted by defense startup True Anomaly of Colorado. Together, the companies completed a series of rendezvous and proximity operations designed to simulate how U.S. forces could quickly characterize an unfamiliar spacecraft…
The Chinese Communist Party is abandoning spent rocket bodies in orbit at an unprecedented pace, increasing the potential for explosions and collisions and creating risk for all commercial, civil and military space operators, according to a new report. The findings come despite Beijing’s agreement to follow international guidelines that call for deorbiting rocket bodies after they deploy their payloads and as observers continue to fault the nation for a lack of transparency in its space operations. The report from LeoLabs of California said that in the first five months of 2026, the CCP has abandoned 11 rocket bodies with a…
A rising Russian rocket sloughs off what appear, at first, to be the usual pieces of second-stage debris. One Chinese satellite docks with another and rips it into graveyard orbit. A cat-and-mouse game of satellites takes a turn when one somehow cuts its speed. Militaries don’t like surprises in any domain. These episodes on orbit during the past few years point to why U.S. space defense leaders emphasize space situational awareness as a priority, the need to pinpoint quickly where things are, where they’re going, and more importantly, why? Why did that debris start acting like a satellite? Could that Chinese…
Early on February 24, 2022, before Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, a different kind of assault occurred thousands of kilometers above Earth. Satellite modems that powered communications across Ukraine and Europe fell silent, wind farms lost telemetry, emergency services went dark and military units were cut off from command networks. The culprit was not a missile or laser but malicious code embedded deep within the ground network of the Viasat KA-SAT satellite system, an attack meticulously prepared to coincide with the outbreak of war on the ground. That event, now etched into cyber and space warfare history, marked a turning…
It’s about 9 meters long, looks like a miniature space shuttle and stayed in space for 2½ years during one of its eight missions. The stated purpose of the X-37B spaceplane is conducting tests and experiments to advance reusable space capabilities. The work of the autonomous spacecraft, full name X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), has remained largely classified since its first deployment in 2010. But details emerging from the U.S. Space Force have provoked widespread interest and speculation, especially after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) followed 10 years later by orbiting its own spaceplane, the Shenlong. United States Space Force…
For decades, United States officials spoke about space in careful, almost antiseptic language. Satellites were “assets.” Orbit was a “domain.” Even as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Russia tested anti-satellite weapons, U.S. leaders preferred phrases like “space control” and “space superiority,” terms that suggested stewardship rather than conflict. That rhetorical restraint is disappearing. At the Space Foundation’s 40th annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in April 2025, Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, commander of U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM), dispensed with euphemisms. The U.S., he said, needs “orbital interceptors” if it hopes to deter conflict — and, if necessary, win…
U.S. forces and military partners from across the Indo-Pacific have launched Valiant Shield 2026, a multinational exercise that tests allied cooperation from the ocean depths to outer space amid rising regional security challenges. The biennial exercise, which runs June 21-July 1, spans Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Japan and surrounding Pacific waters. It brings together forces from the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in what has evolved from a U.S.-only event into one of the region’s premier demonstrations of joint and allied military integration. Space operations play a growing role in Valiant Shield. This year’s exercise includes…