Top Stories

NGA Establishes Rapid Capabilities Office to Bring In More Commercial Vendors

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has created a Rapid Capabilities Office aimed at accelerating adoption of commercial technology across its programs. The move opens NGA contracts to a broader vendor pool than the agency has historically engaged.

This matters for commercial remote sensing companies that have struggled to break into NGA’s procurement pipeline. Expect increased competition — and opportunity — among imaging and analytics vendors already operating satellites in low Earth orbit.

Read the full story: SpaceNews

NGA Deploying AI to Cut Intelligence Latency, Not Replace Analysts

NGA is integrating AI tools specifically to reduce processing latency and narrow uncertainty in analysis — not as an end goal in itself. The agency’s framing reflects demand from military customers for continuous, “always-on” intelligence coverage that human-only workflows can’t sustain at scale.

The focus on latency reduction has direct implications for how tasking and downlink pipelines from commercial imaging constellations get prioritized. Faster ground processing means faster actionable output from the same orbital assets.

Read the full story: SpaceNews

Falcon 9 Delivers South Korea’s CAS500-2 and 45 Rideshare Payloads to SSO

SpaceX launched CAS500-2, a South Korean optical imaging satellite, alongside 45 secondary payloads on May 3 into sun-synchronous orbit. This was SpaceX’s third rideshare mission of 2026.

Sun-synchronous rideshare slots continue to draw dense manifests. With 46 total objects from a single launch, expect a fresh batch of catalog entries to appear over the coming days. You can monitor newly tracked objects from this mission as they populate in KeepTrack.

Read the full story: NASASpaceFlight

Artemis 3 Schedule Slipping With No Updated Mission Plan From NASA

More than two months after NASA announced revised Artemis 3 plans, the agency still hasn’t released mission details, and schedule indicators are trending later. The lunar landing mission’s configuration — including which crew members fly and what surface activities are planned — remains publicly undefined.

Budget pressure and ongoing hardware questions around the Human Landing System are contributing factors. Until NASA locks a realistic launch window, downstream planning for Artemis 4 and beyond stays unanchored.

Read the full story: SpaceNews

Israel Announcing Purchase of 25 F-35s and 25 F-15IAs

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu announced plans to acquire 25 Lockheed Martin F-35s and 25 F-15IA aircraft — the Israeli-configured variant of Boeing’s F-15EX. Contract details haven’t been published yet.

The procurement signals continued Israeli investment in fifth-generation and advanced fourth-generation airpower. Both platforms rely heavily on space-based positioning, communications, and ISR infrastructure that KeepTrack users in defense contexts track closely.

Read the full story: Breaking Defense

Analysts Skeptical European Automakers Will Sustain Defense Pivot

European car manufacturers have shown interest in defense production as EU funding flows into the sector, but analysts are urging caution. One expert notes the enthusiasm is conditional — lasting “at least as long as substantial funding remains available,” particularly from EU sources.

The concern is industrial depth. Automotive production lines and defense manufacturing have different quality regimes, supply chains, and long-term contract structures. Short-term capacity contributions are plausible; sustained defense industrial roles are a different question.

Read the full story: Breaking Defense

Satellite of the Day

COSMOS 1748

COSMOS 1748 is a Soviet military communication satellite launched on June 6, 1986, from Plesetsk Cosmodrome using a Kosmos 11K65M rocket. Manufactured by NPOPM, this compact satellite—weighing just 60 kilograms—was equipped with the Strela-1M Blok 39 No. 1 payload and designed for a operational lifespan of approximately six months. Its polyhedral shape and modest 0.6743 m² radar cross-section made it a relatively discrete asset in orbit during the final years of the Cold War.

Though relatively small by satellite standards, COSMOS 1748 represented the Soviet Union’s continued investment in military communication infrastructure during a period of heightened space activity. Operating in a high-inclination orbit, it could provide communication coverage across high-latitude regions—a strategic advantage for a nation spanning from Eastern Europe to the Pacific. Decades after its launch, tracking historical Soviet military satellites like this one provides valuable insight into Cold War-era space operations and the evolution of orbital communication systems.

Learn more about this satellite: View COSMOS 1748

Upcoming Space Launches

May 6

• SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5:
  • Starlink Group 17-29 from Space Launch Complex 4E, Vandenberg Space Force Base, CA, USA (02:00 UTC) A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a batch of 25 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites into low Earth orbit. Booster B1081, flying for the 24th time, will land on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean. Watch Live

May 9

• SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5:

  • Starlink Group 17-37 from Space Launch Complex 4E, Vandenberg Space Force Base, CA, USA (14:00 UTC) A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a batch of 25 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites into low Earth orbit. Booster B1081, flying for the 24th time, will land on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean. Watch Live

• China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation Long March 7:

  • Tianzhou-10 from Wenchang Space Launch Site, People’s Republic of China (22:00 UTC) The ninth cargo delivery mission to the Chinese space station, carrying supplies and equipment to support the crew aboard China’s Tiangong station.

May 12

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

  • Unknown Payload from Launch Complex 9A, Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, People’s Republic of China (11:49 UTC) Payload details are not yet available. The Long March 6A is China’s first rocket equipped with solid rocket boosters, developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, and features two YF-100 engines on its first stage.

• SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5:

  • NROL-172 from Space Launch Complex 4E, Vandenberg Space Force Base, CA, USA (22:15 UTC) The thirteenth batch of satellites for a classified reconnaissance constellation built by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman for the National Reconnaissance Office, providing imaging and other intelligence-gathering capabilities.

• SpaceX Starship:

  • Flight 12 from Orbital Launch Pad 2, SpaceX Starbase, TX, USA (22:30 UTC) The 12th integrated test flight of the fully reusable two-stage Starship launch vehicle, and the maiden flight of the Starship V3 configuration. Starship is SpaceX’s super heavy-lift vehicle under development since 2012, designed for long-duration cargo and crewed missions.

• SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5:

  • Dragon CRS-2 SpX-34 from Space Launch Complex 40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, FL, USA (23:16 UTC) A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch NASA’s 34th Commercial Resupply Services mission to the International Space Station. The Dragon spacecraft will deliver thousands of pounds of science experiments and supplies, arriving at the station within two days of liftoff. The first stage booster will land at Landing Zone 40.

May 19

• Avio S.p.A Vega-C:
  • Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) from Ariane Launch Area 1 (ELV), Guiana Space Centre, French Guiana (03:52 UTC) A joint mission between the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, SMILE will study how Earth’s magnetosphere and ionosphere respond to the solar wind using four dedicated science instruments. The spacecraft deploys 57 minutes after liftoff into a highly elliptical Earth orbit, with a planned three-year mission life. The Vega-C rocket stands nearly 35 metres tall, weighs 210 tonnes at liftoff, and uses a P120C solid-propellant first stage shared with the Ariane 6 rocket. Watch Live

May 22

• United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551:

  • Amazon Leo (LA-07) from Space Launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, FL, USA (00:00 UTC) A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch 29 satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband internet constellation into low Earth orbit. This is the penultimate Kuiper mission contracted to fly on the Atlas V, which uses a Russian-built RD-180 engine on its first stage and an RL10-powered Centaur upper stage.

• Rocket Lab Electron:

  • Viva La StriX (StriX Launch 9) from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1, Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand (09:30 UTC) The ninth dedicated Electron launch for Japanese Earth observation company Synspective, delivering a StriX Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite into a 572 km circular orbit at 44.8 degrees inclination. Electron is the first orbital rocket to use electric-pump-fed engines.

May 31

• Rocket Lab Electron:
  • The Grain Goddess Provides (iQPS Launch 7) from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1, Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand (00:00 UTC) A synthetic aperture radar Earth observation satellite for Japanese Earth imaging company iQPS.

Schedule Changes

• Long March 7 | Tianzhou-10 has been newly added to the manifest, currently listed as To Be Confirmed, with a launch window opening 2026-05-09 at 22:00 UTC from Wenchang Space Launch Site, China.
• Long March 6A | Unknown Payload has been newly added to the manifest, currently Go for Launch, with a window of 2026-05-12 at 11:49 UTC from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, China.

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