The European Space Agency (ESA) has secured a ride for its solar wind satellite. The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer — or Smile for short — will blast into space aboard a Vega-C rocket. The launch is scheduled for late 2025 from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana. “We are delighted to be launching Smile …
Vega-C rocket to launch Europe and China’s first entirely joint space missionLire plus »
Berlin-based Ecosia, best known as the tree-planting search engine, has teamed up with French startup Kanop to monitor its reforestation efforts from space. With around 20 million users, Ecosia is the world’s largest not-for-profit search engine. It is also one of the biggest tree-planters in the world. The company claims to have planted 200 million …
Tree-planting search engine Ecosia to monitor reforestation from spaceLire plus »
Space nerds delight: you can now play as an astronaut in Fortnite. You can even team up with your buddies to build a lunar habitat based on real future missions of the European Space Agency. Designed by Epic Games, Lunar Horizons is set at the lunar south pole. This is the point on the Moon …
Gamers suit up: You can now build ESA’s future lunar base in FortniteLire plus »
A vertical farming startup from the UK is taking its technology to new heights. The UK Space Agency has awarded Vertical Future £1.5mn to build an autonomous farm in orbit. The high-tech veggie garden will be installed on the world’s first commercial space station. Currently being constructed by US-based Axiom Space, the station is due …
Autonomous vertical farming startup to grow crops in space in 2026Lire plus »
Helsinki-based startup ReOrbit is preparing for the first demonstration of its “software-enabled” satellite. This marks the next phase of the ESA’s UKKO programme, which works with ReOrbit to develop and test next-gen tech for Earth observation satellites. (Fun fact: Ukko is the god of the sky, weather, harvest, and thunder in Finnish mythology). ReOrbit’s first …
Finnish startup to launch ‘software-defined’ satellite with ESALire plus »
A UK startup has claimed a major breakthrough in its plans to beam solar energy from space to Earth. At a lab in Belfast, Oxford-based Space Solar managed to light up an LED sign by wirelessly beaming energy through the air, from all angles. This marks the world’s first 360-degree wireless power transmission, said the …
UK startup achieves major breakthrough in quest for space-based solar powerLire plus »
The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced it will build a ChatGPT-style digital assistant to help humans better decode complex Earth observation data. Led by Φ-lab (Phi-Lab) — the agency’s Earth observation innovation and investment arm — the chatbot will be trained to understand human queries about the Earth and respond with human-like answers. The …
ESA to build ChatGPT-style Earth observation digital assistantLire plus »
UK-based space tech startup Open Cosmos has successfully launched a new AI-powered satellite that can provide near real-time views of Earth. The satellite, HAMMER — short for Hyperspectral AI for Marine Monitoring and Emergency Response — was successfully blasted into orbit Monday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Its mission is to provide high-resolution imaging …
UK startup launches AI satellite to provide near real-time images of EarthLire plus »
The European Space Agency (ESA) has picked Germany’s Exolaunch to provide critical launch services for its Artic Weather Satellite (AWS), as the agency looks to outsource more of its space missions to private companies. Already built and currently undergoing testing in Germany, the AWS is expected to dramatically improve weather forecasts in the Arctic — …
ESA picks Germany’s Exolaunch for arctic weather satellite missionLire plus »
The European Space Agency (ESA) has approved the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission, the first scientific endeavour to detect and study cosmic ripples from space. The launch of LISA is planned for 2035, on an Ariane 6 rocket. The project is expected to be the most expensive and complex the agency has ever undertaken. …
ESA embarks on world-first mission to detect ripples in the fabric of space-timeLire plus »
