Real-Time Satellite Tracking
It's never been so easy to launch into space.
Deep Space Missions
Follow humanity’s return to the Moon with real-time tracking of Artemis II and future deep space missions.
Quality Space Data & Analysis
Sensor management, break-up analysis, and mission planning.
Education & Outreach
Explore orbits, constellations, and satellite systems hands-on.
Expert analysis, technical guides, and the latest developments in space domain awareness
Twenty-two years after SpaceShipOne, the two companies that defined suborbital tourism are both sitting on the ground. Blue Origin parked New Shepard in January, Virgin Galactic has not flown a customer since 2024, and the math behind the whole business is finally getting an honest look.
In 2010 a wounded Japanese probe limped home with a few specks of asteroid dust. Sixteen years later China's Tianwen-2 is reaching for a chunk of a rock that orbits alongside Earth, and the technique that once seemed impossible has become something close to routine.
The volume of space between Earth and the Moon is roughly a thousand times larger than the orbit we actually watch, and almost none of it is under surveillance. As the U.S. and China race to build lunar outposts, the Space Force is scrambling to put eyes on a region it has been effectively blind to.
Starlink satellites fired their thrusters to dodge a collision roughly 300,000 times in 2025, about 822 times a day. Behind that number is a fragile, half-automated system of warnings, probabilities, and judgment calls that decides which close approaches are worth a maneuver and which are just noise.
In-depth technical analysis and comprehensive guides for space professionals
Russia's Volna Kupol Garant electronic warfare system was purpose-built to jam Starlink. It costs around $1.5 million per unit, covers just 20 square kilometers, and can only target one satellite at a time. Ukraine has been finding and destroying them within days of deployment.
The satellite industry's biggest operators are betting on multi-orbit architectures that combine LEO, MEO, and GEO into unified networks. A San Francisco startup called Contrivian thinks they've overcomplicated the problem, and the physics might be on its side.
On April 21, 2026, the tenth and final GPS Block III satellite reached medium Earth orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9. Named for Hedy Lamarr, the actress whose 1942 frequency-hopping patent underpins modern GPS, SV10 closes a procurement that took eight years to deliver hardware and opens the optical-crosslink era that will define the constellation's next decade.
Russia launched its first 16 operational Rassvet broadband satellites on March 23, 2026, beginning a long climb toward a 900-satellite LEO constellation. Built by Bureau 1440 and funded by billions in government and private capital, Rassvet is a technological sovereignty project driven by a hard lesson from the war in Ukraine. When your military depends on someone else's satellites, they can turn them off.
Community resources, mission coverage, and satellite tracking developments
On 29 June 1965, a young Air Force test pilot rode a rocket-powered airplane to 280,600 feet above the California desert. He landed ten minutes later as the youngest person ever to earn astronaut wings.
On 25 June 1997, a seven-ton cargo ship under hand control drifted into Mir's Spektr module, breached the hull, and left three crew members listening to their air hiss into space. It remains the worst collision in the history of human spaceflight.
On 22 June 1978, an astronomer at the U.S. Naval Observatory looked at photographic plates that had been stamped 'image defective' and noticed a small bump on the side of Pluto. The bump was a moon, and finding it finally let astronomers weigh a planet that had fooled them for half a century.
On 21 June 2004, a 63-year-old test pilot rode a homebuilt rocket plane to 100,124 meters above the Mojave Desert, clearing the edge of space by about the length of a city block. He came down the first private astronaut in history, holding a sign that read 'SpaceShipOne, GovernmentZero.'
Concise updates on launches, orbital events, and breaking space news
Rocket Lab announced an $8B deal to acquire Iridium's 66-satellite LEO network, directly challenging SpaceX's Starlink with 10,706 working satellites.
Rocket Lab to acquire Iridium's 66-satellite LEO constellation for end-to-end vertical integration. Deal includes spacecraft manufacturing, launch, and on-orbit operations control.
SpaceX completed two launches June 28, orbiting the 15,000-lb SXM-11 satellite and 24 Starlink V2 craft from Vandenberg.
China formalized a national VLEO industry alliance with multiple satellites sustaining operations below 300 kilometers altitude. Propulsion startups attracting investment.
SpaceX's Starlink 17-40 mission launches 24 satellites from Vandenberg SFB at 7:36 a.m. PDT, expanding the 10,705-satellite constellation.
Blue Origin aiming for 2nd New Glenn launch by end of 2026 after LC-36 pad explosion at Cape Canaveral. Repair timeline still unclear; mission critical for national security payloads.
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