Discover the cutting-edge launch systems, orbital infrastructure, and commercial space innovations expanding humanity's footprint and building the new space economy.
PLD Space's €180M Series C makes it the best-funded contender in Europe's sovereign launch rebuild, ahead of Isar, MaiaSpace and a collapsing Orbex.
Vast's $500M round is the largest vote of confidence yet in the commercial race to replace the ISS — but raising the money and flying the station are different problems, as an August 2026 layoff showed.
The $626B space economy mapped segment by segment: 78% commercial revenue, $132B in government anchor spending, venture capital concentrating into megarounds, GEO operators in decline, and orbital compute still waiting on a 10x launch-cost drop.
The Coimbra startup monitors 600+ satellites and just raised €15.6M (8M) to add radar, build out the NeuraspaceDEF defence platform, and push its AI toward autonomous orbit management. 350%+ revenue growth and a European ministry mandate make the round worth a look.
The two operators pooled the world's largest block of D2D spectrum into a neutral host carriers lease instead of owning. In August it reached initial constellation procurement: 2,800 LEO satellites, $600M in early capital, Rocket Lab as likely bus maker. The tower-company math, in numbers.
A satellite's worst enemy is the air it flies through. Vaxon Space, a nine-person company founded in 2025, is building a bus for the 180-250 km band where satellites are not supposed to survive, powered by air-breathing electric propulsion.
The ISS National Lab chose eight startups for the 2026 Orbital Edge Accelerator, split into a Sentinel Track for dual-use space infrastructure and a Disrupt Track for in-space manufacturing and biology. Each gets up to $750K in private capital and a flight test on the ISS.
SpaceX flew 165 Falcon 9 missions in 2025 and roughly three-quarters were its own Starlink flights. That ratio, and the cost curve behind it, is the only scoreboard that matters for judging who owns access to orbit in 2026.
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