Space, in brief

Google's first test satellite for running AI in space reached orbit on 1 October, on a SpaceX flight from California called Transporter-18. [1][7][4]

The fridge-sized satellite, built with Planet Labs, carries four of Google's own AI chips, called TPUs, about one server's worth of computing. [3][5]

It runs on about 1 kilowatt of solar power and answers questions with Gemini, Google's AI model, in short bursts. [3][2]

Every 15 to 20 minutes the chips must switch off to cool down, because in space there is no air to carry the heat away. [3][1]

Google says a solar panel in the right orbit makes five to eight times the power that the same panel makes on the ground. [5][2]

That matters because data centres may use about 3% of the world's electricity by 2030, roughly double their share today, the International Energy Agency projects. [2]

Data centres on the ground also face growing opposition from the people who live near them, and orbit puts them far from anyone's home. [2][1]

In ground tests the chips survived radiation equal to five years in orbit, but still made about one silent error in every three million answers. [3][1]

Every answer still has to come back down by radio, which is hard and costly at large scale. A University of Pittsburgh professor puts it this way: "the best data compression is answers." [2]

The same flight carried two tests of beaming power. [3] Cowboy Space's Reason-1 may send power to the ground by laser from late October, and Star Catcher's Protostar will beam power to a small satellite. [3][6]

Transporter-18 carried 130 payloads in all, including NASA's SPRITE telescope, Starfish Space's first Otter inspector and two Varda capsules that make medicines in orbit. [4][6]

Google estimates that by the mid-2030s, power in orbit could cost about what US data centres pay for electricity. [3] That needs launches to fall to $200 a kilogram, and Starship to fly about 180 times a year. [3]

Why it matters. Watch for Google's first report on how the four chips cope with radiation and heat, and whether Cowboy Space's laser reaches the ground in late October. [1][3]

Four astronauts docked at the International Space Station on 1 October, 7 hours and 55 minutes after launching from Florida. [11] That is the fastest trip a US spacecraft has made there; the old record, set by Crew-11, was just under 15 hours. [9][11] Commander Jessica Watkins, a geologist, became the first Black woman to command a spacecraft. [10] Before launch, SpaceX cut a leaking valve out of the fuelled capsule and welded in a new one, a repair it had never done before. [10]

Why it matters. The trip is short when the station is close to the capsule at launch, and long when it is far away. [11] The crew they replace can now come home, with undocking planned for 5 October. [8]

NATO's members have long promised the alliance aircraft, tanks and troops, in a plan that is updated every four years. [14] For the first time that plan will include targets for space, Johnny Stringer, a senior NATO commander, told a conference in Britain this week. [14] He wants members to promise results rather than hand over their secret satellites. [14] Members with no satellites of their own could pay for commercial pictures or communications instead. [14] Separately, European governments are preparing up to 24 billion euros for SPACE, a joint military project for satellite communications, surveillance and missile warning. [15]

Why it matters. Space would join aircraft and tanks on the list of things NATO counts when it plans for war. [14] The targets are not due for two years, and Stringer says that is too slow. [14]

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy, three Falcon 9 boosters joined side by side, launched a secret satellite called NROL-97 from Florida at 03:54 GMT on 2 October. [12][13] It was the first time the US National Reconnaissance Office, which runs the country's spy satellites, used the Falcon Heavy. [12] It has flown 22 times on the smaller Falcon 9. [12] The payload was heavy, so the centre booster was thrown away while the two side boosters landed back at Cape Canaveral. [13][12]

Why it matters. It was SpaceX's third launch in one day, and the first day it landed four boosters. [12] The high orbit it aimed for could point to a satellite that watches one region all the time, NASASpaceflight says, and the spy agency is unlikely to say what it is. [13]

Canada Rocket Company, a Toronto start-up of about 30 people, will build a $30 million engine test site at the airport in London, Ontario. [20][19] It is named after Jeremy Hansen, the Canadian astronaut who flew around the Moon, and should be fully working by 2028. [19] The company skipped small rockets to design a reusable medium-sized one, and hopes to launch it by 2032. [20] Canada's government started paying for home-grown rockets this spring, after US tariffs and talk of making Canada a US state. [20]

Why it matters. Canada's satellites usually fly on American rockets. [20] The company's chief executive says Canada's government might one day put up to half a billion dollars into a launch capability of its own. [20]

China launched two rockets in under a day on 23 and 24 September, carrying satellites for its Guowang internet network and its Yaogan series. [22] That took China to 70 launch attempts in 2026, SpaceNews counts. [22] To pass 100 in a year for the first time, it needs at least 31 more before January. [22] Guowang is run by a state company and is planned to reach about 13,000 satellites. [22]

Why it matters. The busiest months are still ahead, including Shenzhou-24, China's next crewed flight, likely around November. [22] Its crew may include a Pakistani pilot, who would be the first foreign astronaut to visit Tiangong, China's space station. [22]

The US Space Force has retired the Defense Support Program, a family of satellites that watched for missile launches for more than five decades. [16] They were among the first satellites to warn the US military of missile attacks from space. [16] Before retiring them, the Space Force flew the last of these Cold War satellites through one final exercise of moves in orbit. [17]

Why it matters. Missile warning from space is also one of the three jobs in the joint military project European governments are now planning. [15]

Iceye, a Finnish company that flies radar satellites, is working with Nokia to build secure broadband satellite networks for governments. [18] The first satellites are due to launch in 2028. [18] The two say each country would own and control its satellites, ground stations and terminals. [18] Four new Iceye satellites reached orbit on SpaceX's Transporter-18 flight on 1 October. [4]

Why it matters. It takes Iceye beyond pictures of the ground and into carrying governments' communications. [18]

A yellowish haze low in Venus's clouds is made of dust from meteors, scientists at Tohoku University in Japan report. [21] The Venera and Pioneer Venus probes first saw it in the 1970s. [21] Meteors burn up in the air and leave tiny particles, and sulfuric acid then gathers around them. [21] The team, led by Hiroki Karyu, built a computer model of the process and published it in Nature Astronomy. [21] The model ruled out volcanic ash and surface dust. [21]

Why it matters. The same work explains iron sulfate in Venus's air, which had been soaking up ultraviolet light for reasons nobody could pin down. [21] Karyu says dust from space is likely to matter for the air of planets around other stars too. [21]

Rocket Lab announced on 30 September a 20-launch deal with Synspective, a Japanese company. [23] It is the largest commercial contract its small Electron rocket has won. [23] Synspective builds Strix radar satellites, which can see the ground through cloud and in the dark. [24] Rocket Lab's flight from New Zealand on 25 September was set to carry the 13th of them, and Synspective wants 30 in orbit by the end of the decade. [24]

Why it matters. Electron lifts at most about 300 kilograms, and each Strix satellite weighs about 100, so a buyer of small satellites is the customer it is built for. [24]

Satlyt, a start-up based in Nairobi, Kenya, and Sunnyvale, California, raised $8 million on 1 October. [25] Satellites collect far more data than they can send down cheaply, so Satlyt puts AI software on board to sort it in orbit. [25] Only the most needed results then come down. [25] In May it ran Google's Gemma AI model in space, and it aims to be on 30% of all satellites outside Starlink by the end of the decade. [25]

Why it matters. Its founder, Rama Afullo, says he pitched data centres in orbit to Google and to SpaceX years ago and was turned down both times. [25]

Foundational, a London start-up, came out of secrecy on 1 October with 8.2 million pounds, which it calls Europe's largest earliest-stage funding round for a space company. [26] It fires laser pulses at small mirrors on satellites and times the light's return to measure exactly where they are. [26] Sixteen satellites already carry its mirrors, and about 60 more are waiting to launch. [26] It plans 10 to 20 automated ground stations, with service from early 2027. [26]

Why it matters. Without exact positions, operators end up treating a small satellite as if it were the size of a football field, the company says. [26] Its mirrors keep working after a satellite dies, so dead ones can still be tracked. [26]

Charter Space, a company in California, raised $5 million to sell insurance for spacecraft. [27] Its chief executive estimated this year that about 97% of spacecraft in orbit fly uninsured. [27] Insurers used to judge the risk of hundreds of parts by hand, which kept cover out of reach for most missions. [27] Charter says its tools cut the time to get a policy from months to about two weeks. [27]

Why it matters. It has helped insure more than 50 companies and wants to cover new kinds of mission, such as nuclear-powered spacecraft and Moon landers. [27]

NaviGate, a start-up from Sapienza University of Rome, ran its software on a satellite already in orbit, D-Orbit's ION carrier, and let it work out its own position. [28] It used only the raw readings from the GPS receiver the satellite already carried. [28] Its best result was accurate to about 5 centimetres. [28] Usually ground teams work out a satellite's exact path from repeated radio contacts. [28]

Why it matters. As fleets grow to thousands of satellites, doing this on the ground costs more money, staff and time, NaviGate says. [28]

Honda announced on 1 October that it will work with Redwire to develop robots that help crews on commercial space stations. [29] They are looking at putting Honda's many-fingered robot hand on Redwire's Staark robotic arm. [29] The pair would handle experiments and other jobs in orbit. [29]

Why it matters. The robots are meant to take routine experiment work off the crews of commercial space stations. [29]

Astronomers using ALMA, a ground-based telescope in northern Chile, found neutral gas, the raw fuel for stars, in four galaxies from 700 to 850 million years after the Big Bang. [30] This gas gives off no visible or infrared light, so the Webb and Hubble space telescopes cannot see it. [30] The galaxies' stars were packed far more tightly than in galaxies today. [30] The study, led by Yoshinobu Fudamoto of Chiba University in Japan, is in The Astronomical Journal. [30]

Why it matters. Neutral gas is what stars form from, and these galaxies existed when the universe was only 5 to 6% of its current age. [30] The team plans a bigger sample, combining ALMA with Webb. [30]

Saturn is at its brightest for the year around 4 October, with its rings tilted open by 12 degrees. [31] On 6 October, before dawn, the Moon will pass in front of Jupiter for viewers in eastern North America. [31] The Orionid meteor shower, dust left by Halley's Comet, runs from 2 October to 7 November. [32] It peaks overnight on 21 to 22 October. [32]

Why it matters. The Orionids are best seen between midnight and dawn, and Saturn's rings show in even a small telescope. [32][31]