llamacoffeeUS Space Command: Russia is now operationalizing co-orbital ASAT weapons
threelonmusketeers[Jason Rainbow] NordSpace nets Canadian defense funding for VLEO satellite development
[Jason Rainbow] NordSpace nets Canadian defense funding for VLEO satellite development - sh.itjust.works
::: spoiler Article contents Jason Rainbow 5–6 minutes [https://i0.wp.com/spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/vleo-satellite.png] NordSpace says its very low Earth orbit satellite platform is foundational for a future constellation combining low-latency connectivity with ultra-high-resolution Earth observation. Credit: NordSpace TAMPA, Fla. — NordSpace has secured early defense funding to develop a very low Earth orbit (VLEO) satellite, further broadening the Canadian startup’s push to build sovereign space capabilities beyond launch. The company announced a one-year contract April 21 worth around $183,000 from Canada’s Department of National Defence to advance conceptual technologies toward hardware tests. A NordSpace spokesperson said the technologies are critical for a proposed VLEO constellation called Kestrel that it aims to begin deploying from 2028 to provide low-latency, 10-centimeter spatial resolution imaging. “This is enabled by the much lower orbital altitudes and would be a game changer for defense and civilian applications,” the spokesperson said via email. “No commercial product offers this resolution today,” the spokesperson added, as U.S.-based Albedo and Redwire pursue similar VLEO capabilities. Key hurdles for VLEO include maintaining orbit against atmospheric drag and building an architecture that can support rapid satellite replenishment for sustainable operations. Initial Kestrel designs have a lifespan of around three years before burning up in the atmosphere, compared with about five years typically for satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). The NordSpace spokesperson said future versions with improved propulsion and station-keeping could remain operational for much longer. The startup plans to lean on the launch capability it is developing to help replenish VLEO satellites, along with its dedicated spaceport in eastern Canada. NordSpace’s Tundra orbital rocket is slated to fly for the first time in 2028, while the maiden flight of its suborbital Taiga rocket is due in the coming months. Entering another orbital regime Founded in 2022, NordSpace is also preparing to deploy its self-built Terra Nova LEO imaging pathfinder this fall via a SpaceX rideshare mission. “Terra Nova is testing some of the key technologies we would deploy in our various orbital environments of interest, including VLEO,” the Nordspace spokesperson said. “It is launching with our own proprietary NVIDIA powered imaging system called Chronos with edge-AI image processing to reduce downlinked data by 100x, and our Zephyr in-space thruster to test station keeping.” [https://i0.wp.com/spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/nordspace-terra-nova-satellit.jpeg] NordSpace’s LEO pathfinder is slated to launch this fall to test technologies for future constellations, including systems to support VLEO spacecraft. Credit: NordSpace Plans to follow up the pathfinder with a Terra Nova constellation remain under wraps. Bolstering Canadian sovereignty Owning orbital launch capability would support broader efforts to strengthen Canada’s sovereign access to space, while reducing NordSpace’s reliance on third-party rideshare missions for constellation replenishment. “Those same rideshare opportunities, however, are what allow NordSpace to fly and validate its space systems today while we develop our own orbital launch systems,” NordSpace founder and CEO Rahul Goel told SpaceNews. “This brings our two divisions together in a way that simply wasn’t available to launch startups until very recently, and we’re taking full advantage of building a resilient space missions company today versus 10 or 20 years ago.” The VLEO funding comes through the Department of National Defence’s Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program. The venture has received more than 10 million Canadian dollars ($7.3 million) in grants so far, mostly from Launch the North, a Canadian defense initiative to boost sovereign launch-related capabilities. “Larger private capital investments in the company have been contributed by the founder and CEO, as a goal of the company is to achieve orbital flight with minimal dilutive financing,” the spokesperson added. NordSpace recently also created a venture capital arm to back domestic space companies, including Earth observation operator Wyvern. :::
[Stephen Clark] Pentagon pulls the plug on one of the military's most troubled space programs
[Sandra Erwin] Space Force sets up ‘cislunar coordination’ office to focus beyond Earth orbit
[Sandra Erwin] Space Force sets up ‘cislunar coordination’ office to focus beyond Earth orbit - sh.itjust.works
::: spoiler Article text Sandra Erwin 4–5 minutes WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force is setting up a dedicated acquisition office focused on cislunar space, the region between Earth and the moon, as it begins to more formally assess requirements beyond traditional Earth orbit. “We’re going to stand up a cislunar coordination office on the Space Force acquisition side to focus exactly on that,” Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, senior advisor to the secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition, said at the Space Symposium last week. The move follows the Trump administration’s December 2025 executive order, Ensuring American Space Superiority, which has begun to translate broad policy direction into acquisition priorities. The guidance is pushing cislunar space from an abstract concept into what officials increasingly describe as a future operating environment for national security. “We need to begin integrating cislunar capability into the Space Force,” Purdy said. “Certainly NASA’s Artemis 2 mission has captured our imagination, but we also need to understand the importance of the cislunar region for warfighting and national security.” The office will be led by Jaime Stearns, a veteran program manager with experience at the Space Rapid Capabilities Office and the Air Force Research Laboratory. Its mandate is expected to mirror earlier Space Force efforts to stand up new mission areas, combining engineering and program management expertise to map existing activity across government and industry and identify where to direct funding. “We built roadmaps, we built technology plans, we built schedules by documenting what everyone was doing in the government and in industry, and then figuring out where to apply dollars for maximum benefit,” Purdy said, describing the approach. The effort will rely heavily on collaboration, particularly with NASA, which leads U.S. civil exploration beyond Earth orbit. Purdy said NASA would be the “biggest partner,” alongside organizations such as the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Defense Innovation Unit. Senior military leadership has framed the initiative as a natural extension of U.S. activity in space. “Wherever U.S. interests go, so will go the US Space Force,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman told reporters last week. Saltzman said the service’s role would center on enabling access and sustaining operations rather than deploying forces in the traditional sense. “If our interests go to a lunar base, the Space Force will have to make sure that it’s safe to get out there … And once they’re there, that it’s sustainable,” he said. The executive order itself does not call for a military presence in cislunar space but directs the development of a sustained U.S. architecture beyond Earth orbit — transportation, communications and navigation systems — that inherently carries security implications. Those assets, once deployed, would require protection and continuous monitoring. The policy also reflects broader geopolitical considerations, with China’s lunar ambitions as a factor shaping planning assumptions. The U.S. military’s space tracking network is concentrated in low Earth orbit and geosynchronous orbit, leaving limited visibility farther out. Cislunar space presents a more complex tracking problem, with less predictable orbital dynamics and far greater distances, complicating what operators refer to as custody, or maintaining continuous awareness of objects over time. Objects operating in cislunar space could approach Earth orbit along trajectories that are difficult to detect with existing sensors, raising concerns about blind spots in space domain awareness. :::
[Jack Congram] Iran Allegedly Using Chinese Satellite Images, Surprising U.S. Space Force
Ars Technica NewsSpace Force looks at moving "significant number" of launches from ULA to SpaceX https://arstechni.ca/UkTT #unitedlaunchalliance #militaryspace #Science #launch #vulcan #Space
Analyst207Pentagon's Space Ambitions Hinge on Fiscal Maneuvers
The Pentagon's ambitious space plans are hitting a fiscal roadblock, as trillion-dollar defense budgets become the new norm, but the usual budgeting tools that make them possible are no longer reliable. Can planners find a way to reconcile ambitious new programs with an uncertain budgeting process?
#DefenseBudget #FiscalPolicy #MilitarySpace #NationalSecurity #UsDefense
[Jason Rainbow] Astroscale passes key design milestone for UK military space-tracking cubesats
[Jason Rainbow] Astroscale passes key design milestone for UK military space-tracking cubesats - sh.itjust.works
::: spoiler Article text Jason Rainbow 3–4 minutes [https://i0.wp.com/spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Orpheus_satellites_graphic_Apr26-scaled.png] An illustration of the two Orpheus cubesats that Astroscale plans to operate in low Earth orbit. Credit: Astroscale TAMPA, Fla. — Astroscale has completed the critical design review for two cubesats slated to launch next year to help the British military monitor space weather and track objects in low Earth orbit (LEO). The U.K. subsidiary of the Japanese on-orbit servicing venture announced the milestone April 8 for the Orpheus mission, which was fully funded last year under a 5.15 million British pound ($7 million) contract from the U.K.’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl). The mission involves flying a pair of near-identical 12U spacecraft from British small satellite specialist Open Cosmos in close formation for a year in LEO, where onboard hyperspectral imaging sensors would detect and identify targets of interest. International partners, including the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and Defence Research and Development Canada, are also providing payloads enabling the satellites to study geophysical activity that can disrupt navigation systems and communications. Astroscale would operate the spacecraft, drawing on rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) expertise demonstrated during a 2021 satellite capture test and a more recent mission that carried out a close inspection of space debris. Andrew Robinson, Dstl space systems program manager, said Orpheus will deliver vital research for the agency while playing a “key role in advancing the U.K.’s ability to design, build and deliver space systems for the future.” Alex Godfrey, head of defense for Astroscale’s British subsidiary, said the U.K. and its allies will be able to draw upon data collected by the Orpheus spacecraft to improve their space domain awareness (SDA) capabilities. “This includes accurate characterization of the dynamic ionosphere, informing ionospheric models to improve our ability to specify the impact of space weather, in addition to spectral sensing for Earth observation and SDA applications,” Godfrey said. “To ensure that data is useful to international collaborators, a lot of effort is placed on working towards a joint space architecture, which aims to enable more collaborative mission planning, satellite tasking and data dissemination across international partners.” Astroscale said it expects Orpheus to reach its next milestone in the third quarter of 2026, marking where the build of both satellites are complete and the mission is ready to begin the testing phase, ahead of launch in the first half of 2027. :::
[Jason Rainbow] Aspect Aerospace secures early funding to advance swarm-deployable VLEO satellites
[Jason Rainbow] Aspect Aerospace secures early funding to advance swarm-deployable VLEO satellites - sh.itjust.works
::: spoiler Article text Jason Rainbow 6–7 minutes TAMPA, Fla. — Aspect Aerospace, a University of South Alabama spin-off, has secured $2.4 million to develop circuit-board-sized spacecraft that could be deployed from space into very low Earth orbit (VLEO) in swarms to monitor the space environment. The funding includes a $1.9 million U.S. Space Force grant to build a space-ready Single-Board Satellite (SBS) prototype within 18 months, the startup announced April 1, and a $500,000 pre-seed investment from venture capital firm SOSV. The SBS would integrate sensing, communications and power systems onto a single printed circuit board, with units designed to last about six months in VLEO. According to Aspect Aerospace, a host spacecraft about the size of a dorm fridge could carry up to 100 of them for individual or batch deployment from a more stable orbit just above VLEO, at roughly the cost of a single conventional ESPA-class satellite. “The ability of Aspect Aerospace’s SBS to remain stored on orbit in large numbers and be deployed in response to events is unprecedented,” said cofounder and CEO Drew Russ. “By implementing a satellite on a single printed-circuit board, size, weight, and cost are minimized and the satellite can be manufactured cost-effectively in high volume.” Improving space-weather visibility Aspect Aerospace’s initial focus is on monitoring plasma in VLEO, where space weather and atmospheric drag can significantly affect satellite operations. Today, plasma is primarily measured using radio occultation. “This is a coarse measurement,” Russ said, “it sums the plasma over a multi-hundred-kilometer path — and provides no insight into the distribution of plasma along the path. In fact, the method is so coarse that plasma is treated as if it exists at a single altitude, in effect a two-dimensional model.” Aspect Aerospace’s system instead uses a proprietary time-domain impedance probe (TDIP) sensor to take near-instantaneous point measurements. As individual SBS units move through orbit, Russ said they would generate high-resolution data that can be combined across a constellation to produce a three-dimensional model of plasma with sub-meter precision. “The high‑fidelity data is a game‑changer for satellite operators,” he told SpaceNews via email, “enhancing communication‑link optimization, delivering accurate space‑weather storm alerts, supporting safe‑mode decisions and powering many other mission‑critical applications.” The SBS builds on earlier work with Jagsat-1, a 2U cubesat deployed from the International Space Station into the low end of low Earth orbit (LEO) in 2022, which Russ said validated its space-weather sensor before de-orbiting. He said additional suborbital tests and independent validation by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory confirmed the sensor’s near-instantaneous measurement capabilities. Beyond plasma monitoring, the data could also be used to map atmospheric drag in VLEO. “This data is valuable across the space industry,” Russ said, “anyone downlinking data from space, sending signals up to satellites, or operating in LEO need to know about this environment.” Every radio signal traveling to or from a satellite passes through the ionosphere, where changing conditions can disrupt communications, particularly during severe space-weather events. “The impact is spacecraft have to re-do downlinks and lose valuable time on orbit waiting to send data down, consuming power and increasing latency,” he added. “Our data enables operators to optimize when and where to downlink, how to tune parameters for optimal uplink for ground stations and let spacecraft operators minimize time in safe mode due to inclement space weather. Providing particle density data to inform spacecraft drag is another use case that provides an additional market opportunity within space operations.” Path to orbit The Space Force’s Direct-to-Phase-2 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award allows Aspect Aerospace to bypass Phase 1 and move directly toward building a flight-ready system. “We’re lucky that our first mission won’t just be a ‘demonstrator,’ but a true science-generating mission, exploring a largely unexplored region of space with unprecedented accuracy and more capable sensing technology,” Russ said. Aspect Aerospace is targeting early 2027 to deploy on orbit, pending negotiations with launch and mission operations partners as it pursues plans for persistent SBS hosting in space. Operating in a harsh orbital regime “VLEO is an extremely harsh environment, and exotic spacecraft architectures are needed to have a persistent presence in the region,” Russ said. “For some, that means extremely expensive, new technologies like air-breathing engines, letting them deploy a small number of large spacecraft into VLEO. Aspect Aerospace has taken the opposite approach. Our spacecraft are extremely small and low cost, letting us put full-scale constellations in a region where others struggle to deploy even a single satellite.” From above VLEO, Russ said a host satellite could last five years in orbit while deploying five to 10 SBS units at a regular cadence. “Other missions might involve having a host dwell for a long time before independently tasking and deploying batches on-demand in response to timing-critical events,” he added. “Other missions may want to immediately deploy all 100 at once.” Aspect Aerospace is also seeking partners to expand beyond plasma monitoring and use the SBS architecture to host magnetometers, infrared spectrometers, radiation and other sensors. “We foresee the potential to create a full constellation of novel sensor types for the cost of a single conventional satellite, expanding the envelope of possibilities for space-based environmental monitoring,” he said. :::
[Stephen Clark] NASA is leading the way to the Moon, but the military won't be far behind
