The overlooked space race: keeping satellites alive

Illustration of Northrop Grumman’s Geosynchronous Auxiliary Support Tanker (GAS-T) platform designed to fuel and extend the life of in-orbit assets. Credit: Northrop Grumman By Sandra Erwin, Published by Space News, 4 December 2025 China’s lunar ambitions grab attention, but a quieter milestone that the country achieved earlier this year could

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Space Force Plans Surveillance Sats to Complement RG-XX Reconnaissance Fleet

GSSAP space domain awareness satellite (Air Force Space Command archive) By Courtney Albon, Published by Air and Space Forces, 1 December 2025 The Space Force’s strategy to replace its fleet of neighborhood watch satellites in geosynchronous orbit includes plans to field multiple satellite constellations, one focused on reconnaissance and one focused on surveillance

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Next chapter in space defense: Satellites that never stop moving

Rendering of Orbit Fab’s refueling service architecture consists of propellant depots in various orbits, and shuttles that will deliver fuel from those depots to client spacecraft. Credit: Orbit Fab By Sandra Erwin, Published by Space News, 24 September 2025 Concepts like ‘dynamic space operations’ and ‘sustained space maneuver’ refer not

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Space junk cleanup tech that could ‘shepherd’ debris into Earth’s atmosphere gets US patent

Artist's illustration of Astroscale's space debris removal system in action. (Image credit: Astroscale) By Andrew Jones, Published by Space.com, 5 August 2025 "Our distributed architecture solves a key challenge in orbital debris removal by enabling the deorbit and reentry of multiple large debris objects sustainably and economically." The Japanese space-sustainability

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Satellites are polluting Earth’s atmosphere with heavy metals. Could refueling them in orbit help?

An illustration of the Arkisys in-orbit servicing Port module, which could help increase the lifespan of satellites, thus reducing the amount of new orbital debris. (Image credit: Arkisys inc.) By Tereza Pultarova, Published by Space.com, 3 June 2025 "Everything we have ever designed to go into space has been one mission, one

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Space Force to test satellite refueling technologies in orbit

Rendering of Orbit Fab’s refueling service architecture consists of propellant depots in various orbits, and shuttles that will deliver fuel from those depots to client spacecraft. Credit: Orbit Fab By Sandra Erwin, Published by Space News, 31 March 2025 WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force is preparing a series of

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