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Space Force may be done with R-GPS, but Congress isn’t

U.S. Space Force Guardians monitor workstations at Vandenberg Space Force Base, home of the Combined Space Operations Center. These operators ensure satellite services, including GPS and missile warning, are accessible by U.S. military forces.

Few modern systems are as consequential — or as exposed — as the Global Positioning System. A temporary loss of access to its positioning, navigation and timing signals would ripple through the global economy and severely impair military operations. Yet despite repeated warnings that GPS signals can be jammed, spoofed or denied — often using […]

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Morpheus raises $15 million in Series A+ round

SAN FRANCISCO — Morpheus Space raised $15 million in a Series A+ funding round announced Feb. 5. “This funding is intended to accelerate our production as we focus on bringing our GO-2 Electric Propulsion System fully to market,” Morpheus CEO Kevin Lausten told SpaceNews. “It’s about getting the product in the hands of our customers.” […]

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Viridian inks cooperative agreement with Air Force Research Laboratory

SAN FRANCISCO — Viridian Space Corp. signed a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with the Air Force Research Laboratory. The five-year CRADA will provide the Southern California startup with access to testing facilities and satellite-operations expertise at AFRL’s Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. “There seems to be a good collaborative opportunity for testing […]

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Space telescopes at light speed

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope completed final assembly in late November 2025. Credit: Jolearra Tshiteya/NASA

Light is the fastest phenomenon in the universe, clocking in at just under 300,000 kilometers per second. The telescopes that observe that light, from radio waves to gamma rays, are built at rather slower speeds. Take, as one example, the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA began feasibility studies for the mission in the mid-1990s and […]

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Silicon as strategy: the hidden battleground of the new space race

Photo of a 200mm silicon wafer. Credit: Goldenvu via Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 4.0

In the consumer electronics playbook, custom silicon is the final step in the marathon: you use off-the-shelf components to prove a product, achieve mass scale and only then invest in proprietary chips to create differentiation, improve operations, and optimize margins. In the modern satellite communications (SATCOM) ecosystem, this script has been flipped. For the industry’s […]

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As satellites become targets, Space Force plans a broader role

Gen. Shawn Bratton spoke with SpaceNews’ Sandra Erwin Jan. 21 at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center. Credit: Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center

Gen. Shawn Bratton, the Space Force’s vice chief of space operations, spoke with SpaceNews’ Sandra Erwin as part of an event focused on the Space Force 2040 at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center on Jan. 21. Here are six takeaways from their conversation: Planning for 2040 means more space superiority A long-range planning initiative […]

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Flight heritage? It isn’t what you think

Falcon 9 launch

In space procurement, there are few phrases that carry more weight than “flight heritage.” Once a supplier claims it, the rest of the room can relax. The hardware has flown, goes the thinking. It worked. The risk of using such hardware is vanishingly small, even absent. This is understandable. Space is famously unforgiving, and if […]

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Starlink and the unravelling of digital sovereignty

Wind sweeps dust across across southeastern Iran in January 2025. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison

In January 2026, Iranian authorities shut down landline and mobile telecommunications infrastructure in the country to clamp down on coordinated protests. Starlink terminals, which were discreetly mounted on rooftops, helped Iranian protesters bypass this internet blackout. The role played by Starlink in the recent Iranian protests challenges the notion of digital sovereignty and promotes corporate […]

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