OuterspaceToday — Space Business, Technology & Defense Intelligence

Institutional-grade space intelligence. Launches, defense contracts, venture rounds, and market coverage for the orbital economy.

• Japanese Probe Sets Record With 400-Meter Asteroid Flyby

  August 1, 2026

  A Japanese space agency probe passed just 400 meters, roughly 1,312 feet, from a near-Earth asteroid this month, the closest approach ever recorded for an asteroid flyby mission. The Japanese space agency confirmed the milestone, which places Japan again at the front of close-proximity asteroid operations. The maneuver marks the second time Japan has set the record in this category. The agency previously executed the Hayabusa missions, establishing a track record of close asteroid encounters.

• Tesla Weighs China Business Sale as Possible Prelude to SpaceX Merger

  August 1, 2026

  Tesla is weighing a sale or spinoff of its China business, its second-largest market, over geopolitical concerns, according to a report that surfaced this week. The move is described as a potential step toward clearing the way for a possible merger with SpaceX. The reported rationale centers on geopolitical concerns rather than financial ones. The story is framed not as a standalone divestiture but as Tesla positioning itself for a combination with SpaceX, suggesting the geopolitical entangleme

• NASA Opens First Major New Wind Tunnel in More Than 40 Years at Langley

  July 31, 2026

  NASA opened its Flight Dynamics Research Facility at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, on Friday, marking the agency's first major new wind tunnel in more than four decades. The facility will test the safety and performance of future aircraft, rockets, and space exploration vehicles for NASA and its partners. The new facility combines and improves upon the capabilities of two historic NASA Langley wind tunnels, the 20-Foot Vertical Spin Tunnel and the 12-Foot Low-Speed Tunnel. It wa

• SpaceX Reaches 90th Orbital Launch of 2026 With Latest Starlink Mission

  July 31, 2026

  SpaceX launched its 90th orbital mission of 2026 on Friday night, sending another 24 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit aboard a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The milestone came just seven months into the year, with liftoff set for 7:59 p.m. PDT from Space Launch Complex 4 East. The Starlink 17-52 mission lifted off four days later than originally planned. As is usual, SpaceX did not disclose why the flight was repeatedly delayed from its original launch date of M

• Space Force Opens $981M Contract Pool to Fix Simulator Shortfall

  July 31, 2026

  The Space Force has established a $981 million contract pool to buy training capabilities after senior leaders acknowledged that Guardians across several key mission areas lack the simulators needed to practice their jobs. The move amounts to building the service's training infrastructure largely from scratch, nearly seven years after the branch was created. The Space Force was stood up in December 2019. Despite that span of time, the people responsible for operating U.S. military space systems

• K2 Space Raises $500 Million in Series D, Valuation Approaches $7 Billion

  July 31, 2026

  K2 Space has closed a $500 million Series D funding round that values the company at close to $7 billion. The financing brings the satellite manufacturer's cumulative capital raised to more than $1 billion and comes as it prepares to scale production of large, high-power spacecraft. The company announced the round on July 30. K2 has positioned itself around a strategy of building bigger satellites for both commercial and defense customers. Its Torrance, California facility is designed for indus

• NASA Backs Concept to Release 10,000 Tiny Probes Directly Into Saturn's Rings

  July 31, 2026

  NASA has selected an early-stage concept study proposing to release 10,000 femtosatellites directly into Saturn's rings to gather in-situ data. The concept, funded through NASA's NIAC program, would trade a single expensive instrument for a massive distributed sensor network, targeting one of the least directly sampled structures in the solar system. Saturn's rings remain poorly understood despite decades of observation from a distance. NASA's last Saturn mission, Cassini, was unable to directl

• Blue Origin Rebuilds LC-36 Around New Operations Concept, Turns to Stennis for Second-Stage Testing

  July 31, 2026

  Two months after a New Glenn first stage exploded during a hotfire test at Launch Complex 36, Blue Origin is rebuilding its Florida launch site around an entirely new concept of operations while pursuing testing alternatives for the rocket's second stage. CEO Dave Limp continues to post construction updates as the company races toward a self-imposed end-of-2026 return-to-flight target. The May 28 anomaly destroyed the New Glenn first stage and heavily damaged LC-36 ahead of the vehicle's fourth

• K2 Space Raises $500 Million, Sets Sights on Building 100 Large Satellites a Year

  July 30, 2026

  K2 Space has raised $500 million in a Series D round that values the satellite manufacturer at $6.8 billion, more than doubling its valuation in seven months. The Torrance, California, company said July 30 that the funding will support a move from orbital demonstrations to large commercial and military production. K2 was valued at $3 billion in December, when it closed a $250 million Series C and reported $500 million in signed government and commercial contracts. It now puts that contract figu

• ArianeGroup Restarts Themis Test Campaign With Cryogenic Rehearsal in Sweden

  July 30, 2026

  ArianeGroup has completed a wet dress rehearsal of its Themis reusable booster demonstrator at the Esrange Space Centre in Sweden, the first substantive update on the vehicle's test campaign in more than ten months. The rehearsal, conducted on 23 July, moves the program toward its first low-altitude hop test. The test was carried out by teams from ArianeGroup and SSC Space, the commercial entity that manages the Esrange Space Centre. ArianeGroup announced the milestone on 30 July, a full week a

• Spent Falcon 9 Stage Set to Strike the Moon on August 5, Offering a Live Test for Impact Science

  July 30, 2026

  A discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage is on course to slam into the lunar surface on August 5, near the Einstein and Bell craters on the western lunar limb. Researchers say the high-speed collision could produce an ejecta plume briefly bright enough to be seen from Earth through sensitive telescopes, and they are preparing to use the event to calibrate models of how human-made objects disturb the moon. The stage is a leftover from the launch that carried Firefly's Blue Ghost-1 lander to the m

• Rocket Lab Books Three More Electron Launches for Japan's iQPS, Third Deal in Under a Year

  July 30, 2026

  Rocket Lab has signed a multi-launch contract with the Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space (iQPS) for three new dedicated Electron missions, the company announced July 30. The agreement marks the third multi-launch booking on Electron by iQPS in less than a year and brings the total number of launches booked by the Japanese operator to 18. The contract continues iQPS' build out of its Earth-imaging constellation using synthetic aperture radar, a technology that creates images from radio wave

• Sophia Space and Caltech Win Patent for Modular Space-Based Data Centers

  July 30, 2026

  Sophia Space announced July 30 that it has been granted a patent, shared with the California Institute of Technology, covering large, modular space-based data centers. The patent, issued July 14, establishes an intellectual property claim at the center of the emerging orbital computing field. The patent covers the architecture for a modular, scalable, passively cooled computing and data storage unit designed for assembly into large computing data centers powered by solar energy. Its roots lie i

• Space Force Awards All Points Logistics $250 Million for New Vandenberg Satellite Processing Center

  July 29, 2026

  The U.S. Space Force awarded All Points Logistics a $250 million contract to expand satellite processing capacity at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Announced July 29, the award calls for additional spacecraft processing facilities, where satellites are prepared for launch, to be available by 2029. It is the largest award issued so far under a program to expand processing capacity across the launch ranges. The Space Force is investing in additional capacity as the Pentagon prepares to

• Boeing Says Starliner Redesign Progressing, Cargo Flight Possible This Year

  July 29, 2026

  Boeing Chief Executive Officer Kelly Ortberg said the redesign of Starliner's deficiencies is "going quite well," raising the prospect that the troubled spacecraft could return to flight before the end of 2026. The comments mark the most optimistic public signal on the program since NASA classified Starliner's 2024 crewed test as a serious failure. In February, NASA formally designated the 2024 crewed flight a "Type A" mishap, an acknowledgement of a serious failure. NASA Administrator Jared Is