On a cloudy September evening in 2023, a small-lift orbital rocket launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California carrying a satellite into low Earth orbit. The launch itself was not unusual. What made it extraordinary was the clock. The United States Space Force had given the final order to launch just 27 hours earlier. For decades, launching a military satellite required months or years of planning. But the 2023 mission, known as Victus Nox, was designed to prove something new: that the U.S. could put a satellite into space almost on demand. To military planners increasingly worried about conflict…
Apogee
Singapore will partner with a national space-tech startup to develop, test and evaluate software applications for satellite monitoring. The partnership between Singapore’s Defence Science and Technology Agency and Bengaluru, India-based Digantara was announced at the inaugural Singapore Space Summit in February 2026. The move answers a growing need to track satellites in congested orbits, the magazine Analytics India reported. The partners aim to provide Singapore with a clearer, more complete view of its satellites and provide for their safety and long-term operability. The partnership will support the new National Space Agency of Singapore (NSAS), which made its debut in April…
Germany has announced plans to invest $41 billion in space defense capabilities to protect its assets on orbit against the growing militarization of space. The announcement came as German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned that satellite networks are the “Achilles’ heel of modern societies,” noting that an attack on the systems could paralyze nations by taking out GPS, banking and secure military communications. The German investment will focus on sovereign military capability, according to a November 2025 report from the Rand Corp. research group. The goal is security of supply and fielding solutions faster than multinational European Space Agency or…
Cutting the Russian military’s access to Starlink satellite-internet terminals paid immediate dividends for Ukraine as it defends against invasion: Ukraine recaptured roughly 200 square kilometers in the country’s southeast. A journalism partnership revealed the development, citing calculations by Agence France-Presse based on data from the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War. U.S.-based SpaceX decided to shut down access to its Starlink terminals after Russian forces grew increasingly reliant upon them. The result was chaos, according to global radio transmissions intercepted by a Ukrainian reconnaissance unit and shared with another news group, the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network. Starlink terminals…
A Finnish group planning the launch of an experimental wooden satellite hopes to learn from the experience of Japanese researchers, whose wooden CubeSat survived the rigors of space before burning up as planned in Earth’s atmosphere. Project partner Huld, a technology and design company, prefers birch plywood to the magnolia used in the Japanese LignoSat, which was flown to the International Space Station (ISS) in November 2024 and deployed the following month, according to The Economist magazine. Communication was lost once LignoSat, a little bigger than a Rubik’s cube, left the ISS. But space trackers confirmed its wooden panels held…
Counterspace capabilities that can degrade, destroy or disrupt other systems once were the province of only the largest space superpowers: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Russia and the United States. But as space has become more essential for both military operations and daily life on Earth, the collection of militaries protecting assets in the highest domain is growing. Just five years ago, the nonprofit Secure World Foundation’s (SWF) annual Counterspace Capabilities Report examined eight spacefaring militaries that were deploying counterspace assets. By 2025, the SWF report had grown to 12 nations, with the rapidly developing space programs of Australia, France…
The latest space race is measured by a new yardstick: Scaling up military capability on orbit by expanding constellations and launch capacity. By these metrics, the United States is widening its lead over potential adversaries. Over the past two years, the U.S. deployed more military satellites than any other nation, outpacing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Russia. Much of this growth has been driven by new government-focused constellations. These include the tracking and transport satellites of the U.S. Space Force’s Space Development Agency (SDA) and the National Reconnaissance Office’s (NRO) proliferated architecture. The shift goes beyond launch totals. For…
Taiwan is joining democracies across the globe in accelerating its space capabilities, bolstered by a history of NASA cooperation and new moves to strengthen the island’s relationship with the United States in the domain. Taiwan has long been a U.S. partner in space, contributing to experiments on the International Space Station and moon science programs. U.S. rockets have placed a series of Taiwanese-made satellites in space. One focus of the island’s space efforts today is the Formosat-8 program — eight optical, remote-sensing satellites developed by the Taiwan Space Agency to provide images of the Taiwan region up to three times…
Over just four days in May, SpaceX secured two of the most consequential military space contracts awarded in recent years, bolstering the company’s position as a launch provider and architect of the United States’ space-based warfighting network. In May, the U.S. Space Force announced contracts worth a combined $6.45 billion for two programs: a constellation of satellites designed to track aircraft and missiles from orbit, and a communications network intended to move military data around the globe at unprecedented speed. Together, the awards underscore a shift in how the Pentagon intends to fight future wars — and how deeply it…
From its launch center in New Zealand, a United States company has orbited a Japanese satellite that will expand the reach of an Earth observation constellation providing data at all hours and in all weather for both civil and military use. The Electron launch vehicle from Rocket Lab Corp. blasted off May 22 carrying a StriX satellite from Synspective Inc. on a mission called “Viva La StriX.” Strix is an ancient Greek and Latin word for some of nature’s best night watchers — a genus of forest-dwelling owls. The mission is the ninth in a Synspective constellation that is delivering…