Space · Tuesday, 6 October 2026

01 Briefing what happened

Satellite makers are running short of parts as AI data centres buy the same equipment in far bigger orders

Companies plan tens of thousands of new satellites, but valves, transformers and solar-cell metals are scarce. AI data centres order the same electrical parts by the thousand, so suppliers fill those orders first and some satellite plans may never be built.

19,000

satellites in low orbit around Earth today

Some estimates add 70,000 more in the next few years. [1]

98%

of the world's gallium nitride, a key solar-cell material, made in China

Space is only a few percent of the demand for it. [1]

parts that suppliers cannot make fast enough, from valves to transformers

Named in a report from the Aerospace Industries Association and PwC in March. [1]

The lead story — what happened

Companies are planning tens of thousands of new satellites in low orbit. Amazon wants more than 5,000, Blue Origin has proposed 5,400, and Elon Musk has talked of one million. [1]
About 19,000 satellites circle Earth in low orbit now, and some estimates add 70,000 more in the next few years. [1]
A report by the Aerospace Industries Association, a US trade group, and the audit firm PwC named nine parts that suppliers cannot make fast enough. They range from valves to transformers, the boxes that change the voltage of electricity. [1]
AI data centres need many of the same electrical parts, and they buy them by the thousand. The report found this has created waiting lists years long for transformers and switchgear, the big switches that control power. [1]
Steve Jordan Tomasweski of the trade group put it as a space company asking for 10 of a part while a data-centre company asks for 10,000. [1]
Some suppliers have walked away. One long-time maker of high-pressure gas tanks for spacecraft did not bid again, because the job would take about a third of its engineers' time for very little money. [1]
Gallium nitride and germanium, two materials in the best solar cells, are a second worry. China makes about 98% of the gallium nitride, and space is only a few percent of the demand for it. [1]
Shipping trouble in the Strait of Hormuz, caused by the conflict between the US and Iran, has also made aluminium and helium scarcer and dearer. [1]
Some satellite makers are willing to wait a year for a valve, or to use parts not built for space. The US Space Development Agency says its suppliers struggle to make laser radios and camera sensor chips in large numbers. [1]
Doug Stroup, president of the Satellite Industry Association, expects some of the networks filed with regulators never to be built, as happened with filings ten years ago. [1]
Other countries keep building their own networks. China's Guowang is planned at about 13,000 satellites, and Russia has launched 16 of the 900 it plans for Rassvet, its own version of Starlink. [3][6]
SpaceX is moving its own Starlink launches to its giant Starship rocket. No more Falcon 9 Starlink flights are planned from Florida, and Falcon 9 shared rides for other companies will likely end within a couple of years. [2][4]

10A space company's order

10,000A data-centre order

The two order sizes Steve Jordan Tomasweski compared, for the same electrical boxes such as transformers.

Who is involved

Aerospace Industries Association

a US trade group for aerospace and defence companies; its report with PwC named the nine parts in short supply
Novaspace

a European space consulting firm; its Carla Filotico warned that gallium and germanium could run short at any time
Space Development Agency

the US military office building a large network of small satellites; its director says suppliers struggle to keep up
Satellite Industry Association

a US group for satellite companies; its president expects some planned networks not to be built
Amazon and Blue Origin

two US companies planning more than 5,000 and 5,400 satellites

How it unfolded

May 2025 RTX, a US defence firm, and Emirates Global Aluminium agree to start making gallium in Abu Dhabi [1]
March 2026 The Aerospace Industries Association and PwC name nine parts in short supply [1]
September The Space Development Agency's director says suppliers struggle with quality and numbers [1]
5 October SpaceNews reports satellite makers losing parts to AI data centres [1]
By 2030 The planned peak of new satellite launches, when Novaspace expects the squeeze to be worst [1]

Where this points

Watch whether the US government lets space companies go ahead of data centres in the queue for scarce parts, as the trade group proposes. Until then, the squeeze shows up as satellite networks that slip or shrink. [1]

What is pushing on the whole day

The bar and the word are our reading of how hard each one is pushing today. The arrow is where it is heading. The evidence is in the stories below.

Parts going to AI first High↑

Makers of transformers and switchgear sell to AI data centres by the thousand, leaving years-long waiting lists. [1] SpaceX earns money renting computing power to Google and Anthropic, and its shares rose almost 8% on 5 October. [7]

Governments buying space power Building↑

The US Army moved more than 600 soldiers into a new permanent space job on 1 October. [9] Germany's defence ministry plans about €35bn for military space, including more than 100 secure satellites. [10] Mexico's government space programmes are lining up $700m through a New York start-up. [11]

Satellite networks multiplying Building↑

China's Guowang network, planned at about 13,000 satellites, had its 26th batch launched in September. [3] Russia has launched 16 of the 900 satellites it plans for Rassvet, its own version of Starlink. [6] The US military's data network was due to gain 21 more satellites on 6 October. [5]

The rest of the day

13 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

02
US military satellites wait another day

SpaceX stopped the launch of 21 data-relay satellites for the US Space Development Agency in the last minute of the countdown on 5 October. [5] The agency is building a network of small military satellites in low orbit that track missiles and pass messages between forces. [5] Northrop Grumman built this batch, and it is the fourth batch of working satellites the agency has sent up. [2][5] SpaceX gave no reason, said the rocket and satellites were healthy, and set a new try for 08:17 GMT on 6 October from California. [2][5]

Why it matters — The agency's director told an industry meeting in September that suppliers struggle to build its hardware fast and well enough. [1] Each batch that reaches orbit adds to a network meant to serve US forces and their allies worldwide. [5]
03
South Korea's Nuri rocket set to carry 15 satellites

South Korea plans to launch its Nuri rocket, also called KSLV-2, from the Naro Space Center on its south coast at 03:23 GMT on 7 October. [2] It will carry 15 satellites, a record for the rocket. [2] Five are NeonSats, 100kg satellites that watch for disasters around the Korean Peninsula; ten are cubesats, tiny satellites built from 10cm boxes, for universities, companies and local governments. [2][10] Nuri is a three-stage rocket over 47 metres tall, and this is its fifth flight and its only one this year. [2]

5 of 15
satellites on Nuri's fifth flight, five of them NeonSats
The filled ones are the five NeonSat disaster-watch satellites; the other ten are small cubesats.

Why it matters — Each NeonSat can see details down to one metre, so South Korea's own satellites can watch for disasters on land and at sea around it. [2] The next Nuri flight, carrying five more NeonSats, is not due before 2027. [2]
04
SpaceX shares jump, and Musk renames its AI arm

SpaceX shares rose almost 8% on 5 October to $171.09, their highest since mid-June, just after the company first sold shares to the public. [7] The rise followed a note from the bank Morgan Stanley that called the shares cheap. [7] SpaceX rents computing power to Google and Anthropic through the AI business it gained by buying xAI, Musk's AI company. [7] Musk also said the AI division, SpaceXAI, will be renamed SpaceXSI, after US President Donald Trump told federal agencies to say super intelligence instead of artificial intelligence. [8]

Why it matters — SpaceX now earns money from AI customers as well as from rockets and Starlink, and its share price moves with both. [7] Morgan Stanley's note named the next Starship test flight and SpaceX's results, due in late October, as the next events for the shares. [7]
05
US Army makes space work a permanent job

On 1 October more than 600 US Army soldiers moved into a new job, Tactical Space Operations Specialist, known as 40D. [9] Nearly 3,000 soldiers applied. [9] Until now the Army borrowed soldiers from other jobs for space work, and their skills left with them when they went back. [9] The new specialists train in Colorado Springs to block an enemy's satellite communications and navigation signals, among other tasks. [9] The Army plans about 1,000 of them at first and up to 1,500 by 2032. [9]

Why it matters — Army units from the 1st Space Brigade to commands in the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa and Europe will have their own space soldiers. [9] Army space officers have existed since 1999, and now they have a permanent team of enlisted soldiers under them. [9]
06
Glasgow's satellite makers face Europe's big spenders

Glasgow builds more small satellites than anywhere else in Europe, the Scottish government says. [10] Scotland's space industry earned £335m in 2022-23, up 69% in five years. [10] It grew from firms such as Clyde Space, founded in 2005, working with engineers from the University of Strathclyde. [10] Now Germany's defence ministry plans about €35bn for military space, while UK public space funding is well behind France's and Germany's. [10] Alba Orbital has moved its headquarters to the US, and Spire, a US satellite company, has expanded into Munich. [10]

Why it matters — Gabriele Piazza, an economist at the London School of Economics, says firms with a large customer at home gain an advantage that lasts. [10] Simera Sense, a satellite camera maker, is opening a Glasgow site with 20 skilled jobs. [10]
07
Mexico's space money gets a middleman

Nebex, a New York start-up founded in 2025 by two former Axiom Space executives, says it will help arrange $700m for Mexico's government space programmes. [11] It is working with Thrusters Unlimited, a Mexican maker of satellites and equipment that photographs the Earth. [11] Nebex passes money between a government buyer and its suppliers, insures that the payments arrive, and earns fees on the deals. [11] In August it set up a similar €100m scheme in France. [11]

Why it matters — The money is meant for Earth-watching satellites, telecoms and other systems for Mexico's own government programmes. [11] Payload, a space industry newsletter, reports that many space deals fall through over the difficulty of moving money between buyers and suppliers, not over the hardware. [11]
08
Two dwarf stars caught feeding on their companions

Two studies published on 5 October in Nature Astronomy describe small stars eating the objects that circle them. [12] In one, a white dwarf, the dead core of a burnt-out star, shows zinc, copper and niobium and dims at regular intervals. [12] Jamie Williams of the University of Warwick says a planet formed after the star died, and its air is now falling onto the star. [12] In the other, an MIT team saw a red dwarf slowly pulling gas from a brown dwarf, a failed star, which could go on for millions of years. [12]

Why it matters — Williams says the first system shows planets can form a second time after their star dies. [12] Aaron Householder, who led the second study, says the Sun may one day slowly strip away Earth's air rather than swallow Earth in one go. [12]
09
Space radiation harm spreads from cell to cell

Researchers at Oklahoma State University and the University of Texas Health Science Center fired iron nuclei, the most damaging part of cosmic radiation in deep space, at human blood-vessel cells. [13] On a three-year Mars trip, only about 3% of an astronaut's cells would take a direct hit like this. [13] But the hit cells sent out an inflammation signal called TNF-alpha, and nearby cells that were never hit suffered breaks in their DNA. [13] Those untouched cells grew tumours when placed in mice. [13]

3 of 100
cells hit directly by an iron nucleus on a three-year Mars trip
About 3 in every 100 cells take a direct hit. The study found the harm then spreads to cells that were never hit.

Why it matters — Blood from the private Inspiration4 crew, who flew in 2021, showed raised levels of the same signal. [13] Blocking the signal's receptor stopped the chain in the lab, which the researchers say gives a way to protect crews besides thicker walls. [13]
10
X-rays watch heat shields burn

Researchers used the Advanced Light Source, an X-ray machine at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, to film heat-shield material breaking down at up to 900 degrees Celsius. [14] A heat shield protects a capsule coming back through the air by slowly burning away, which carries the heat off with it. [14] Until now engineers mostly saw only before and after pictures. [14] An AI program turned fast, lower-detail X-ray scans into sharp 3D images, showing cork in one NASA material leaving holes and another forming branching channels. [14]

Why it matters — NASA's uncrewed Artemis I capsule came back with charring that computer models had not predicted. [14] The team has not yet fed its results into the models engineers use to design heat shields. [14]
11
Chandra maps an old explosion near the galaxy's centre

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory released a new picture of Sagittarius A East, the remains of a star that exploded about 10,000 years ago near the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. [15] A team led by Mayura Balakrishnan of McGill University in Canada separated its X-rays from the other sources crowded around it. [15] They mapped iron, sulphur, argon and calcium thrown out by the explosion. [15] They also found its blast has pushed into and heated the surrounding gas. [15]

Why it matters — Chandra launched in 1999 and could work into the 2030s, but the Trump administration's proposed budget cuts have put its future in doubt. [15] The US Congress kept NASA's budget flat on 1 September and must act again by 11 December. [15]
12
A way to pull energy from a spinning black hole

A new paper on arXiv, a site where scientists post work before review, asks whether astronomers could spot the Penrose process near Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the Milky Way's centre. [16] The process, proposed by Roger Penrose in 1969, takes energy from a spinning black hole, which then loses mass. [16] The authors calculate that a neutron breaking apart close to the black hole could fling out a proton with about a thousand times the energy of the strongest protons in the Large Hadron Collider. [16]

Why it matters — Those protons would leave gamma rays and tiny particles called neutrinos as a sign. [16] Today's instruments cannot see the signal, but upgrades to the HAWC gamma-ray observatory and the IceCube neutrino detector in Antarctica should. [16]
13
Saturn at its closest, Jupiter behind the Moon

Saturn reached opposition on 4 October, when Earth passes almost directly between it and the Sun. [17] That puts it at about its closest for the year and up all night, a steady creamy-white light below the Great Square of Pegasus. [17] Early on 6 October, a thin crescent Moon is due to pass in front of Jupiter and hide it for up to about an hour, seen before dawn from much of the eastern and central US, Canada and the Caribbean. [18] Parts of Africa get the same event in daylight. [18]

Why it matters — Neither needs a telescope, though Saturn's rings need a small one. [17][18] The next time the Moon hides Jupiter for viewers in North America is 27 November 2037. [18]
14
Bristol honours the man behind Beagle 2

A plaque was unveiled at the M Shed museum in Bristol on 5 October for Colin Pillinger, the Bristol-born scientist who led Beagle 2. [19] Beagle 2 was the first British and European craft to land on another planet, reaching Mars on Christmas Day 2003, but it never called home. [19] Pillinger died in 2014, before pictures of the landing site showed it had not crashed. [19] Twelve more plaques are planned at places linked to the mission. [19]

Why it matters — Mark Sims, who managed Beagle 2, says it started the UK on planetary missions. [19] The next is Rosalind Franklin, a European rover built in Stevenage, due to launch in 2028 and land on Mars around 2030. [19]

02 Lesson why it matters

Why a company that needs ten of a part waits behind one that buys ten thousand

A factory with a long waiting list fills the biggest orders first, so satellite makers, who buy a few parts built to strict rules, are served last.

The twist

Needing a part badly does not move a buyer up the queue. The supplier compares whole orders, and one data-centre order for 10,000 boxes is as big as a thousand space orders for 10.

The picture

33 of 100

share of one supplier's engineering time a space gas-tank job would have taken

About a third of the engineers' time, for a job that brought in very little money. The supplier did not bid for it again.

How it works

A factory can make only so many transformers or valves a year
AI data centres order the same parts by the thousand
A satellite maker orders ten, built to stricter space rules
The factory earns more, for less work, from the big order
So the big order goes first, and the satellite maker waits or uses a lesser part

The same force, elsewhere today

Where this chain is also running, in today's other stories.

Glasgow's satellite makers

Germany's €35bn military space plan makes it a far bigger buyer, and Spire has expanded into Munich while Alba Orbital moved its headquarters to the US.
SpaceX's AI business

SpaceX puts its own computing power where the AI companies pay, renting it to Google and Anthropic, and that business helped lift its shares by almost 8%.
Mexico's $700m with Nebex

A government buyer pays a middleman to guarantee that suppliers get paid, a way for a buyer to look safer to suppliers who have other customers.

Where you've seen this

Graphics chips

When AI companies bought most of the top chips, game players and small university labs waited months for theirs.

Shipping containers

In a shipping crunch, carriers give space to the biggest importers on contract first, and small firms pay more or wait.

Rare medicines

A drug few patients need, made by a factory with bigger customers, is often the first to run short.

The catch

It changes when a government steps in. The US trade group wants a rule letting space companies go ahead of data centres in the queue for scarce parts, and no such rule exists yet.

And the whole of it

The factory sees two orders, the satellite maker sees a late valve, and the data-centre builder sees nothing at all. Anyone who will rely on satellites for internet, weather forecasts or navigation in the 2030s is somewhere in that same queue.

03 Truth what's really going on

What is really going on

Companies have announced plans for tens of thousands of new satellites, but the valves, transformers and solar-cell materials needed to build them are scarce. AI data centres buy many of the same parts in far bigger orders, and China makes most of the key solar-cell material, so some of the announced networks will arrive late, smaller, or not at all. [1]

Why it works on us — A huge round number like one million satellites sounds like a plan, though nobody has shown where the parts for it would come from. [1]

Who gains

Companies building AI data centres — They buy transformers and switchgear by the thousand, so suppliers with waiting lists fill their orders first. [1]
China's makers of gallium nitride — China makes about 98% of it, and the best satellite solar cells need it. [1]
SpaceX's shareholders — The shares rose almost 8% on 5 October after Morgan Stanley pointed to its AI computing deals and Starship. [7]
Nebex — It earns fees on the money it passes between Mexico's government programmes and their suppliers. [11]
Satellite firms in Germany — Germany's defence ministry plans about €35bn for military space, a big customer at home. [10]

Who pays

Smaller satellite makers — They wait for parts, or switch to parts not built for space, and take on more risk. [1]
Ukraine — Its embassy says a working Rassvet would let Russia aim at Ukrainian targets in real time. [6]
Glasgow's small-satellite industry — UK public space funding is behind France's and Germany's, and Alba Orbital moved its headquarters to the US. [10]
Astronauts on long trips — Iron nuclei in deep space harm cells near the ones they hit, which raises cancer risk on a Mars trip. [13]
Scientists who use Chandra — The Trump administration's proposed budget cuts have put the X-ray telescope's future in doubt. [15]

What nobody knows yet

Open questions from across today’s stories — ours included.

01

Which planned satellite networks will be cut or delayed.

Analysts would not speak on the record about any company's plans, and no company has said it is scaling back. [1]
02

Whether the nine parts named in March are still the scarcest.

The trade group says there is no regular way to measure the shortage, so nobody can update the list easily. [1]
03

Whether China will limit exports of gallium.

Novaspace says a limit could cause a shortage for space at any time, and nothing in today's reporting says whether one is planned. [1]
04

Why SpaceX stopped the military launch in the last minute.

SpaceX gave no reason, and said only that the rocket and the 21 satellites were healthy. [2][5]
05

How soon Russia's Rassvet network will work.

Its operator says service starts in 2027 and plans 900 satellites over several years, but only 16 had been launched by March, and no newer count was given. [6]
06

Whether blocking TNF-alpha would protect a living astronaut.

The chain was stopped in lab cells, and the human evidence so far is blood from one private flight in 2021. [13]
07

Whether the Penrose signal near the galaxy's centre exists.

It is one team's calculation in a paper not yet reviewed, and no instrument working today can see the signal. [16]
08

Whether Glasgow keeps its lead in small satellites.

The Scottish government says it still builds more than anywhere in Europe, while firms have moved work to Munich and the US. [10]

04 Hope carry this

In a lab, scientists stopped the harm from space radiation spreading from cell to cell by blocking one signal that the damaged cells send out.

Also true today

Scientists can now watch heat-shield material burn away in 3D as it happens, where before they saw only the before and after.
Simera Sense, a maker of satellite cameras, is opening a site in Glasgow with 20 skilled jobs.
A plaque in Bristol now honours Colin Pillinger, who led Beagle 2. Pictures taken after his death showed that the lander did not crash on Mars in 2003.