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Astrostrategy

The strategy of orbits and the moon

Latest News

Could United Launch Alliance's money problems finally force its owners to sell?

ULA is preparing to resume launching the Vulcan rocket in the coming weeks.

Sep 11, 2026
Rocket Report: Europe joins the commercial launch club; a Ravn X sighting?

"We felt like now is the time to pour gas on that fire."

Sep 11, 2026
Scientists discover mysterious new X-ray objects 'unlike any they have seen before'

Faint in X-rays but bright in ultraviolet light, new objects found by NASA's Chandra space...

Sep 11, 2026
Avio Completes Integration of FD1 Rocket Demonstrator

Italian rocket builder Avio has completed integration of its FD1 flight demonstrator, mark...

Sep 11, 2026
A team of teams like never before: rehearsing a unique launch at ESA mission control

On 15 September, two spacecraft will leave Earth together aboard the same launcher from Eu...

Kourou, French Guiana · Sep 11, 2026
Korean Air to offer free Starlink high-speed wifi on board flights from Sept 15

The airline plans to extend the service across most of its fleet by the end of 2027.

South Korea · Sep 11, 2026
European SpaceX Rival Raises $450M to Build Rocket Engine

Helene Huby, The Exploration Company CEO and Founder, talks to Bloomberg's Daybreak Europe...

Sep 11, 2026
International Space Summit Highlights the Strength of Europe’s Space Ecosystem

Efforts by the US government to rain on Europe’s parade this week backfired. The post Inte...

Sep 11, 2026
Rocket Lab launches 31.5%-efficient inverted metamorphic space solar cell

Rocket Lab has released its high-efficiency IMM Apex solar cell, eliminating costly and sc...

Sep 11, 2026
LatConnect 60 Expands India Market Presence for SWIRSAT With NSIL Agreement and GeoSyze Partnership

Australian Earth observation satellite company LatConnect 60 (LC60) has strengthened its p...

Bengaluru, India · Sep 11, 2026
Macron shoots for the moon with pitch to Europe’s struggling space sector

Also in this newsletter: Europe keeps buying more Russian gas

Sep 11, 2026
Rapidus president considering chip plant on moon around 2040

Rapidus Corp. President and CEO Atsuyoshi Koike said Thursday he is seriously considering ...

Sep 11, 2026
Galaxia Raises $4.5M For Intelligent Sat Tech

Galaxia raised $4.5M CAD ($3.25M) to continue its mission to make EO sats that can process...

Canada · Sep 11, 2026
Mercury’s radius has shrunk by over 10 kilometers, Japanese team finds

A spacecraft from the Japan-Europe joint exploration mission BepiColombo is set to arrive ...

Sep 11, 2026
Korean Air takes free, high-speed Wi-Fi to the skies

Korean Air said Friday it will begin offering free high-speed internet via SpaceX's Starli...

Seoul, South Korea · Sep 11, 2026
NASA Invites Governors to Compete to be Home to the New U.S. Space Academy

NASA issued a Request for Information today inviting governors to indicate interest in hos...

United States · Sep 10, 2026
Roman telescope deploys solar array and communication systems, powers on Coronagraph Instrument

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope successfully launched on Sunday, Aug. 30, atop a ...

Cape Canaveral, United States · Sep 10, 2026
SpaceX is inching closer to this lofty $100 billion milestone

SpaceX has set an ambitious revenue target and a newly disclosed computing-power deal coul...

Hawthorne, United States · Sep 10, 2026
Tomorrow.io Unveils Next-Gen Weather Forecasting Instruments

Tomorrow.io announced the five instruments that will fly aboard DeepSky—its next-gen const...

Sep 10, 2026
NASA Invites Media to Djibouti Artemis Accords Signing Ceremony

The Republic of Djibouti will sign the Artemis Accords during a ceremony at 11 a.m. EDT, M...

Djibouti · Sep 10, 2026
Space: Europe urged to find its path, from crewed spaceflight to communications

French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen ca...

Sep 10, 2026
Toyohiro Akiyama, Japan’s Chain-Smoking ‘Space Antihero,’ Dies at 84

A journalist, he was the first Japanese person to enter space, joining a Soviet crew as pa...

Japan · Sep 10, 2026
NASA Answers President’s Call to Establish United States Space Academy

Less than two weeks after an Executive Order was signed to create the first United States ...

Sep 10, 2026
MaiaSpace Wins First Long-Term Asia Customer Deal

Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space (iQPS) has tapped MaiaSpace, the up-and-coming Frenc...

Sep 10, 2026
York Space to Build Tomorrow.io’s Next-Gen DeepSky Constellation 

Tomorrow.io has selected York Space Systems to build the initial phase of its next-generat...

Sep 10, 2026
TrustPoint CEO Previews Constellation Build-Out With EnduroSat Deal 

TrustPoint is moving forward to build out its GPS-independent PNT constellation plans, tap...

Sep 10, 2026
Top Air and Space Force leaders will gather amid unresolved Iran war, budget uncertainty

The Joint Chiefs chairman, Space Force’s new leader, and the NASA administrator are all sc...

Washington, United States · Sep 10, 2026
Eutelsat Taps Airbus and Aerospacelab for OneWeb and IRIS² Satellites

Eutelsat announced major orders of satellites to support service continuity for the OneWeb...

Paris, France · Sep 10, 2026
Europe will go it alone on Venus mission after NASA yanks radar instrument

Europe is looking inward, and perhaps to China, as the White House tries to cancel some NA...

Sep 10, 2026
On this day in space! Sept. 10, 2011: NASA launches GRAIL probes to the moon to map lumpy lunar gravity

On Sept. 10, 2011, NASA's GRAIL spacecraft launched on a mission to the moon! Here's why t...

Sep 10, 2026
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Weekly Analysis

Geopolitical Summary 7 September 2026

AI-prepared Sep 06, 2026 · the week across all seven sites

In the week to 6 September the United States and Iran resumed open exchange of fire around the Strait of Hormuz, and the effects showed up in American diesel prices, world food prices, European gas storage, and the bond markets of every G7 economy. Washington spent the week insisting none of it was a war.

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Active payloads on orbit, by operator country

Every catalogued payload still in orbit and not decayed, grouped by the operator code CelesTrak records.

United States13.8KRussia / CIS1.7KChina1.6KUnited Kingdom724Japan247TBD144France129India122ESA114Germany101Intelsat (ITSO)100Italy94
View as table
Seriespayloads (payloads)
China1,580
ESA114.0
France129.0
Germany101.0
India122.0
Intelsat (ITSO)100.0
Italy94.0
Japan247.0
Russia / CIS1,712
TBD144.0
United Kingdom724.0
United States13,773

Source: CelesTrak · retrieved 17 Sep 2026 · No redistribution restriction found (usage-policy.php governs rate limits only)

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From the Blog

Cislunar Traffic Management Is a Governance Problem First

The volume between GEO and the Moon is filling up faster than the rules for operating in it.

Jul 19, 2026
The Lunar South Pole: Small Craters, Large Stakes

Permanently shadowed regions concentrate the Moon's most useful real estate into a few square kilometres — a recipe for friction.

Jul 08, 2026
Orbital Debris and the Coming Liability Fight

Attribution in orbit is improving faster than the law that would make attribution matter.

Jun 25, 2026
Launch Cadence Is the New Strategic Metric

Payload mass gets the headlines, but the ability to reconstitute a constellation in weeks is what changes military calculations.

Jun 11, 2026

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