Discover the cutting-edge launch systems, orbital infrastructure, and commercial space innovations expanding humanity's footprint and building the new space economy.
What is a drug worth if the crystal it needs cannot form on Earth? Varda Space Industries put a number on that question on 30 September. The company closed a $251 million Series D co-led by Lux Capital and Natural Capital, at a $1.6 billion valuation, bringing total
Patient-derived glioblastoma cultures spent 40 days on the ISS and returned more uniform than the ground controls. The drug that followed, rebecsinib, sits under an active IND. Auxilium printed a kidney and a liver in orbit; Crew-13 delivered tissue hardware on October 1.
MRV-1 made robotic servicing operational in geosynchronous orbit on 21 July 2026. Orbital Robotics has flown six AI-directed arm demos on $310,000 raised, and its CEO quotes GEO customers at $30 million for a life extension. The arm layer is pre-revenue while the layer above it consolidates.
Foundational raised £8.2M — the largest claimed European space-tech pre-seed — to automate satellite laser ranging. The physics is 60 years old, the ground stations cost about 30x less than the legacy ones, and the business only works on spacecraft that carry its own reflectors.
Charter Space raised an oversubscribed $5M seed and already owns its insurance brokerage. Engineering software first, then a product with Munich Re and AXA XL, then the distribution layer. With 97% of operational satellites uninsured, the constraint is no longer demand. It is the cost of the file.
Two astronauts spent 286 days on the ISS because of a helium leak and thrusters that underperformed. On Monday NASA put that capsule back on a flight manifest. The fixes, though, arrive after the next flight rather than before it.
NASA's JPL-led pathfinder will fly the first quantum gravity sensor in space, with Infleqtion building the cold-atom core. It points at groundwater, ice and mineral mapping, with a 2030 launch target.
Launch got cheap; moving things in orbit stayed expensive. Impulse Space's $808M round and its $28M Space Force contract are the market pricing that gap — and betting a $5.4B valuation on mobility becoming the next layer of space infrastructure.