Space, in brief

The European Space Agency signed its first three European Launcher Challenge contracts on 27 August. [1][2]

Rocket Factory Augsburg gets 186.9 million euros, Isar Aerospace 197.8 million, and PLD Space 158.9 million. [1]

That is 543.6 million euros in total. None of the three rockets has ever reached orbit. [1][2]

ESA said the money depends on each company reaching orbit before the end of next year. [2]

The funds unlock in stages, as each company meets a milestone. [1]

Each award is paid mainly by the winner's own government: Germany for the two German firms, Spain for the Spanish one. [1]

Smaller shares came from the UK, Austria and Norway, and from Germany into the Spanish award. [1]

ESA's space transportation director Geraldine Naja said the contracts encourage competition among European launch providers. [2]

Isar's Spectrum flew for 30 seconds in 2025. RFA One has never launched. Miura 5 has not flown. [1][2]

A fourth challenger, ArianeGroup's MaiaSpace, is still in contract talks. [1][2]

Sending a kilogram to orbit costs about $9,897 from Europe and $3,225 from the United States. [3]

ESA has also stopped work on the Ariane 6 Block 3 upgrade, after member states did not back it. [3]

Why it matters. Watch whether Isar's second Spectrum reaches orbit from Andoya, the first real test of money that only arrives afterwards. [1][2]

An Ariane 62 launched the MTG-I2 weather satellite from Kourou on 27 August. It was the rocket's first flight to geostationary transfer orbit. [4][5]

Why it matters. Europe's new rocket finally did the job its predecessor was built for.

MTG-I2 will photograph Europe and North Africa every 2.5 minutes. Its sister satellite takes a full-Earth picture every 10 minutes. [4]

Why it matters. Faster pictures mean earlier warnings of fast-forming storms and floods.

NASA's next flagship observatory lifts off on 30 August on a Falcon Heavy. It cost about $4.3 billion and took nearly two decades. [6][7][8]

Why it matters. Its Hubble-sized mirror came from American spy-satellite hardware. [7][9]

Roman's 2.4-metre mirror is Hubble-sized, but it captures about 100 times more sky in a single exposure. NASA picked 118 research programmes for it. [7][38]

Why it matters. Its project scientist says the survey data could fill a 4K screen the size of dozens of city blocks. [39]

On 3 September the module that pushed BepiColombo for eight years separates. The two science orbiters then enter Mercury orbit in November. [10]

Why it matters. It is the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury since 2015.

The EU General Court annulled the European Defence Agency's award to Telespazio France, saying its bid should have been rejected. The contract itself remains in force. [11]

Why it matters. The losing bidders got 4.32m euros in damages instead of the work.

A government audit published 27 August found the US Space Force spent $123.9m through its Global Data Marketplace between January 2023 and September 2025. [12]

Why it matters. Auditors said the Pentagon has yet to fully organise how it buys, shares and reuses that data. [12]

The Space Force awarded SpaceX a fleet-wide Starshield service contract for military aircraft, at 500 megabits per second down. The value was redacted. [13]

Why it matters. Cargo planes and fighters are being wired into one company's satellite network.

Anil Menon and Sophie Adenot spent six and a half hours outside the station on 25 August and installed a high-speed antenna. [14][15][16]

Why it matters. It was Adenot's second spacewalk, a week after her first on 18 August. [40]

Jessica Meir and Sophie Adenot will replace a docking reflector on the Harmony module, fit data cables and swap a camera. [17]

Why it matters. August already held three station spacewalks; this would be the next. [15][17]

Singapore's Astrum Space agreed on 27 August to merge with a listed shell company, valuing it at about $1 billion. [18]

Why it matters. Its satellite is meant to send signals straight to ordinary phones across Asia.

A NASA-led study modelled five fungi and bacteria in three polar sites. Some could last weeks to months; the fungus Aspergillus niger was toughest. [19][20]

Why it matters. Landers could carry life to the exact place we plan to look for it. [20]

Grains returned from asteroid Bennu are missing the specks of stardust older than the Sun. A cold alkaline brine slowly dissolved them. [21]

Why it matters. The water that makes an asteroid interesting also destroys its oldest record.

Astronomers used Webb to study 72 young sun-like stars. The gas and dust that builds planets is blown away while planets are still forming. [22]

Why it matters. Giant planets have to finish before their own building site empties.

HD 176071 b sits 335 light-years away and never passes in front of its star from here. Astronomers found it by its reflected light. [23]

Why it matters. Most planets never line up for the usual method, so this one reaches the invisible majority.

A study says each sunlight-reflecting satellite planned by Reflect Orbital would appear 40 times brighter than a full moon to anyone in its beam. [24]

Why it matters. Princeton's Gaspar Bakos said nobody standing in it would see any stars. [24]

ESA has stopped work on a lighter carbon-fibre upper stage for Ariane 6 after member states did not fund it. A kick stage is still planned for 2029. [3]

Why it matters. One proposed European science mission had already assumed the upgrade would exist. [3]

TraCSS now has more than 70 satellite operators and 10 governments using it, but no date to leave its pilot phase. [25]

Why it matters. Two White House budget requests proposed ending its funding. [25]

LeoLabs won a $20.68m award for its mobile Scout radar. The first one was deployed in the Indo-Pacific in June. [26]

Why it matters. Within hours it was tracking Chinese satellites and a spaceplane. [26]

On 26 August the Curiosity rover marked one kilometre of height gained since it started up Mount Sharp in 2014. [27]

Why it matters. Every metre of that climb is a step further up through Mars's layered past.

Astronomers traced a merger about 12 billion years ago using clusters of ancient stars. It is 1.8 billion years older than the previous record. [28]

Why it matters. Our galaxy grew by eating smaller ones, and this is the earliest bite yet seen.

Comet 220P/McNaught has had two outbursts this year and is now visible through binoculars. In October it passes about one Sun-Earth distance from us, then fades. [29]

Why it matters. Nobody knows the cause; trapped gas or a quake in the ice are the guesses. [29]

An astronomer scrolling a paper on a train spotted a thin ribbon of stars trailing a faint galaxy 115 million light-years away. [30]

Why it matters. Streams like it are one of the few ways to test what dark matter is made of.

NASA gave Infleqtion a $20 million follow-on contract for a space-based quantum gravity sensor, bringing its total to $40 million. [31]

Why it matters. Gravity from orbit is mostly a map of where Earth's water has moved.

Shield AI's Hivemind ran 189 commands aboard a satellite over 24 hours, each checked by other software first. Five of its six satellites were simulated. [32]

Why it matters. Handing a satellite to software raises the question of who checks the order.

Technicians began installing four RS-25 engines in the Artemis III core stage on 24 August. All four flew on space shuttle missions. [33]

Why it matters. The engines that will carry the next Moon crew are decades old and already flight-proven.

NASA Langley started a new round of tests inside a 60-foot vacuum chamber, measuring what a lander's exhaust throws up off the surface. [41]

Why it matters. Blasted grit is a hazard to the lander and to everything parked nearby.

Sarmony agreed to fly its first disc-shaped radar satellite on Space One's Kairos rocket in 2028, backed by a $75m Japanese government award. [34]

Why it matters. It will fly at 350km, low enough to hear a much clearer radar echo. [34]

CesiumAstro bought mission-software firm 1Aardvark on 25 August while raising a new funding round it says is oversubscribed. [35]

Why it matters. A parts supplier is turning itself into a satellite operator.

CAPSTONE 02 passed its critical design review this month. Two small spacecraft will practise meeting each other in lunar orbit in late 2027. [37]

Why it matters. Meeting another craft near the Moon is harder than near Earth, because two gravities pull at once.

Kim's last day was 27 August, after an eight-month station expedition in which he orbited Earth 3,920 times. He returns to the US Navy. [36]

Why it matters. NASA loses a flown astronaut as its Moon programme heads for a crewed flight.

Consultancy Novaspace expects more than 6,500 Earth-observation satellites to launch by 2035, driven by defence buyers wanting their own. [42]

Why it matters. Defence buyers increasingly want access they control, the consultancy says. [42]

A leaked White House budget proposal last year raised fears that the Roman telescope would be cancelled while it was being built. [6]

Why it matters. The team worked weekends knowing the whole thing might be cut. [6]