Top Stories

Artemis II Sets Human Distance Record During Lunar Flyby

Orion spacecraft Integrity completed a lunar flyby on April 6, carrying Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen farther from Earth than any humans have traveled. The crew — three Americans and Canadian Jeremy Hansen — surpassed the distance record set by Apollo 13 in 1970.

The mission is a crewed free-return trajectory, not a landing. The flyby validates Orion’s deep-space systems before Artemis III attempts a lunar surface landing.

Read the full story: NASASpaceFlight

Military Space Programs Face Component-Level Supply Bottlenecks

A new industry report identifies specific hardware categories — optical inter-satellite links, valves, and other specialized components — as potential chokepoints for military space programs. The warning isn’t about prime contractors; it’s about the lower tiers of the supply chain where single-source vendors dominate.

For programs running tight production schedules on LEO constellations or missile warning satellites, a parts shortage at tier 3 can stall an entire manifest. DoD procurement offices have limited visibility into those dependencies.

Read the full story: SpaceNews

Army’s Scarlet Dragon Exercise Tests Commercial Data Integration at the Tactical Edge

The Army’s Scarlet Dragon exercise is stress-testing how commercial satellite data flows into battlefield networks. Chief Warrant Officer 4 Sean Benson described iterating through multiple APIs and cross-domain solutions to find which pathways were reliable enough to scale.

The exercise reflects a broader push to pull commercial ISR and communications data — not just government-owned feeds — into time-sensitive targeting and logistics workflows. The integration challenge isn’t access; it’s latency, reliability, and classification boundary management.

Read the full story: Breaking Defense

DIU Seeking Prototype ‘Moving Map’ Platform for Aircrew Situational Awareness

The Defense Innovation Unit is soliciting a prototype moving-map system aimed at mobility aircrews flying aircraft that lack modern comms and data integration. The platform would aggregate situational awareness data — including airspace, threats, and logistics — into a single display.

Legacy mobility platforms like the C-130 and older C-17 variants were never designed for the data-dense operating environment current missions require. DIU’s prototype path is intended to field a solution faster than traditional acquisition.

Read the full story: Breaking Defense

FOSSA Systems Targets Japanese Defense Market with Larger Smallsats

Spanish startup FOSSA Systems has secured a local Japanese partner and is actively pursuing defense contracts in Japan. The company started with picosatellites for low-power IoT connectivity but is now developing larger, more capable spacecraft suited to government and defense applications.

Japan has been expanding its commercial space partnerships under its national security space strategy. FOSSA is positioning early, before the market consolidates around domestic primes like Mitsubishi and NEC or established Western vendors.

Read the full story: SpaceNews

Artemis II Lunar Flyby Draws Presidential Remarks

President Trump called the Artemis II lunar flyby “really big stuff” during remarks on the evening of April 6. The crew had just completed the closest approach to the lunar surface on the mission.

The political attention comes as NASA’s budget and Artemis program timeline face continued scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Public statements from the White House don’t resolve those funding questions, but they do affect near-term program momentum.

Read the full story: Space.com

Satellite of the Day

O3B FM17

O3B FM17 is a communication satellite operated by O3BS (Bharti Airtel’s satellite communications venture) and manufactured by Thales Alenia Space. Launched on April 4, 2019, from French Guiana aboard a Soyuz-ST-B rocket, this satellite is part of the O3B constellation—a fleet of medium-Earth orbit spacecraft designed to deliver high-speed, low-latency connectivity to maritime, aviation, and remote terrestrial markets. Equipped with 12 Ka-band transponders, O3B FM17 operates in the geostationary transfer orbit region with an inclination of just 0.036°, allowing it to serve equatorial and tropical regions with exceptional efficiency.

Built on Thales’ ELiTeBus-1000 platform, FM17 weighs 700 kilograms at launch and spans up to 12 meters when its solar arrays are fully deployed. The satellite’s 10-year mission design makes it a reliable backbone for global connectivity in regions underserved by traditional geostationary networks. O3B’s constellation approach offers a unique middle ground between LEO mega-constellations and traditional GEO satellites, providing lower latency than GEO while maintaining broader coverage than LEO alternatives—a compelling architecture for time-sensitive applications like financial transactions and remote operations.

Track this satellite in real-time: Track O3B FM17

Upcoming Space Launches

April 7

• Northrop Grumman Space Systems Minotaur IV:

  • STP-S29A from Vandenberg SFB Space Launch Complex 8, CA, USA (11:30 UTC) STP-S29A is a U.S. Department of Defense Space Test Program mission delivering up to 200 kg of cubesats to low Earth orbit. The primary payload is STPSat-7, an ESPA-class satellite hosting research and technology demonstration payloads for the DoD, including the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory’s LARADO instrument, which uses lasers to detect and characterize lethal non-trackable orbital debris. Watch Live

• China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation Long March 8:

  • Unknown Payload from Wenchang Space Launch Site Commercial LC-1, People’s Republic of China (13:24 UTC) Details TBD.

April 8

• China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation Long March 6A:

  • Unknown Payload from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center Launch Complex 9A, People’s Republic of China (19:30 UTC) Details TBD.

• Isar Aerospace Spectrum:

  • Onward and Upward from Andøya Spaceport Orbital Launch Pad (20:00 UTC) A Spectrum rocket from Isar Aerospace will launch on its second test flight, carrying five CubeSats — CyBEEsat (TU Berlin), TriSat-S (University of Maribor), Platform 6 (EnduroSat), FramSat-1 (NTNU), and SpaceTeamSat1 (TU Wien Space Team) — plus a “Let it Go” experiment from Dcubed. Exolaunch is responsible for payload integration and deployment. Previously delayed from January 21 due to a pressurization valve issue. Watch Live Launch Preview

April 9

• Avio S.p.A Vega-C:

  • Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) from Guiana Space Centre Ariane Launch Area 1 (ELV), French Guiana (06:29 UTC) A joint mission between the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, SMILE will use four science instruments to study how Earth responds to the solar wind, improving our understanding of solar storms, geomagnetic storms, and space weather. The spacecraft will deploy 57 minutes after liftoff into a highly elliptical Earth orbit and has a planned mission life of three years. Watch Live

• SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5:

  • Cygnus CRS-2 NG-24 (S.S. Steven R. Nagel) from Cape Canaveral SFS Space Launch Complex 40, FL, USA (12:26 UTC) A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services program. The spacecraft is named the S.S. Steven R. Nagel in honor of the former NASA astronaut who flew four Space Shuttle missions and logged 723 hours in space. Watch Live

April 10

• China Rocket Co. Ltd. Smart Dragon 3:
  • Unknown Payload from Haiyang Oriental Spaceport, South China Sea (11:00 UTC) Details TBD.

April 11

• SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5:
  • Starlink Group 17-21 from Vandenberg SFB Space Launch Complex 4E, CA, USA (02:39 UTC) A batch of 25 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites launching to low Earth orbit. Watch Live

April 13

• SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5:
  • Starlink Group 10-24 from Cape Canaveral SFS Space Launch Complex 40, FL, USA (06:35 UTC) A batch of 25 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites launching to low Earth orbit. Watch Live

April 14

• SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5:

  • Starlink Group 17-27 from Vandenberg SFB Space Launch Complex 4E, CA, USA (02:00 UTC) A batch of 25 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites launching to low Earth orbit. Watch Live

• Blue Origin New Glenn:

  • BlueBird Block 2 #2 from Cape Canaveral SFS Launch Complex 36A, FL, USA (10:45 UTC) A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket will launch AST SpaceMobile’s second next-generation BlueBird satellite into low Earth orbit. The BlueBird constellation is designed to deliver space-based cellular broadband services for commercial and government customers. This will be the third New Glenn mission overall.

Schedule Changes

• SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-35: Status changed from Go for Launch to Launch Successful. This launch has been removed from the upcoming calendar.
• Isar Aerospace Spectrum | Onward and Upward: Status updated from To Be Determined to To Be Confirmed, indicating the mission is now more firmly scheduled for its April 8 window.

Note: Launch dates and times are subject to change due to technical or weather considerations.