The first week of September showed once again that private capital keeps pushing the sector forward: a billion-dollar round in the United States, the largest space financing in India's history and a multimillion-euro extension in Spain. Meanwhile, Europe crossed a symbolic threshold with the first privately developed rocket to reach orbit from continental soil, and Argentina reinforced its space agency's budget just as it welcomed new leadership. In science, BepiColombo began its arrival at Mercury and Hubble found a decagon at Saturn's south pole.
Economy, investment and industry
1. Stoke Space closes a US$1 billion Series E as it approaches its first flight
The Washington-based company announced on 8 September the initial closing of a US$1 billion Series E round, co-led by Point72 Ventures and Spark Capital, with participation from General Innovation, Glade Brook Capital, Washington Harbour Partners, Woven Capital and Y Combinator, among others. The deal brings Stoke's total capital raised to US$2.3 billion. The funds will take Nova Pathfinder to flight — its inaugural orbital launch is targeted for early 2027 — accelerate development of the larger 15-tonne-class Nova Block 2 vehicle, whose first flight is aimed at 2029, and build the production capacity needed to sustain a commercial cadence. Stoke is pursuing full vehicle reusability, including the second stage, something no operator has achieved in service to date. Stoke Space press release
2. Pixxel raises US$100 million in India's largest-ever space round
The Indian hyperspectral satellite company closed a US$100 million Series C on 7 September, co-led by Temasek and Seraphim, with new investors 360 ONE Asset and IMM Investment joining existing backers Radical Ventures, growX ventures and M&G Catalyst. It is the single largest funding round raised by an Indian space-technology company and brings Pixxel's total to US$195 million. The money will fund the next-generation Honeybee hyperspectral constellation — adding shortwave infrared (SWIR) capability and, later, synthetic aperture radar and ultra-high-resolution optical imaging — with the first satellite expected to launch in 2027, alongside the Aurora Earth intelligence platform and a line of sovereign satellite systems. The deal confirms that advanced-sensor Earth observation is one of the segments attracting the most capital today. Pixxel press release
3. PLD Space adds €108 million, taking its Series C to €288 million ahead of MIURA 5's debut
Spain's PLD Space announced on 1 September a second tranche of €108 million again led by Mitsubishi Electric, with co-investment from Spanish state vehicle COFIDES and new participation from Endeavor Catalyst and the Spain Oman Private Equity Fund. The Series C now stands at €288 million and the company's aggregate funding reaches roughly €488 million. The money targets industrial scaling of the MIURA 5 orbital launch vehicle, whose first launch operations are planned from Kourou later in 2026, with the ambition of reaching a commercial cadence of 30 launches per year by 2030. The round follows a €158.9 million ESA award secured shortly before. European Spaceflight
4. Isar Aerospace reaches orbit: the first private European rocket to do so from continental soil
On 5 September at 22:12 CEST, Germany's Isar Aerospace launched its Spectrum rocket from Andøya Space in northern Norway, reaching orbit just over seven minutes later and deploying five satellites. It is the company's first successful orbital flight and the first time a privately developed rocket has reached orbit from continental European soil, as well as the first orbital payload deployment carried out from Europe. Spectrum is a two-stage vehicle designed and manufactured in-house, capable of delivering up to 1,000 kg to low Earth orbit and 700 kg to sun-synchronous orbit. The milestone strengthens Europe's push to regain autonomous, economical access to space at a moment when the continent relies heavily on US providers. SatNews
5. Rocket Lab advances on Neutron, but the debut slips toward 2027
Rocket Lab confirmed concrete progress on its medium-lift Neutron launcher: the Hungry Hippo fairing completed its test campaign and integration of key subsystems, and the company has accumulated hundreds of Archimedes engine hot-fires. The schedule, however, has slipped again. In August, CEO Peter Beck was targeting "delivery of Neutron to the pad in Q4 2026," but analyses published this week agree that the window for an inaugural flight within 2026 has effectively closed and that the debut now sits in 2027. For investors, Neutron is the hinge that turns Rocket Lab from a small-launch pioneer into a medium-lift contender, so every delay weighs on revenue projections. NASASpaceflight
6. Satellogic names former NGA director as president, doubling down on defense and intelligence
The Earth observation company founded by Argentine entrepreneur Emiliano Kargieman announced on 8 September the appointment of retired Vice Admiral Frank D. "Trey" Whitworth as president, effective immediately. Whitworth served as the eighth director of the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and had joined Satellogic as a strategic adviser in March 2026. In his new role he will lead the company's internal operations, integrating mission with sales and marketing, and will shape the strategy for its defense and intelligence product suite, reporting directly to Kargieman. The move comes just ahead of World Space Business Week and confirms Satellogic's pivot toward government and national security customers. GlobeNewswire
7. Argentina: CONAE receives 119.29 billion pesos and welcomes new leadership
It was a doubly significant week for Argentina's space agency. First, the government added ARS 119,289.5 million to various CONAE budget lines through Decree 867/2026, published on Friday 4 September. Of that total, ARS 85,499 million corresponds to the agency's main programme, with the single largest allocation — ARS 49,000 million — earmarked for communications and signalling equipment. A further ARS 11,000 million goes to the "Design, Manufacture, Integration and Testing of 4 Satellites (SARE II A)" project, ARS 21,355.5 million to the third stage of the Satellite Missions programme and ARS 1,435 million to Satellite Missions. The reinforcement reverses the direction of cuts applied in May, when more than ARS 4,400 million had been trimmed from available credits. Second, electronics engineer Josefina Pérès took office as Executive and Technical Director: a University of Buenos Aires graduate with more than fifteen years at CONAE, she served as systems engineering lead for the SAOCOM programme, head of SAOCOM 1B and, since 2021, Satellite Projects Manager. Her tenure faces two immediate tests: the launch of SABIA-Mar, planned for the first half of 2027 and now cleared to begin its full environmental test campaign, and the effective revival of SARE, a scheme of small satellites weighing between 100 and 250 kilograms operating as a constellation rather than a single large platform. Espacio Tech
Science, exploration and missions
8. BepiColombo begins its arrival at Mercury after 9.9 billion kilometres
On 3 September at 15:49 CEST, ESA's mission control in Darmstadt confirmed the successful separation of the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) from the joint ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission. The MTM carried the spacecraft for eight years and 9.9 billion kilometres through the inner Solar System, across nine planetary flybys, supplying power and the solar electric propulsion needed for an exceptionally complex trajectory. The separation is the first in a sequence of key manoeuvres: the composite spacecraft will enter Mercury orbit on 21 November 2026, and the two orbiters — ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA's Mio — will separate on 9–10 December. It will be the first mission to place two spacecraft in orbit around the planet simultaneously; the full science phase begins in April 2027. ESA
9. Hubble discovers a giant decagon at Saturn's south pole
Published on 2 September in Science Advances, a study based on Hubble Space Telescope observations revealed a ten-sided atmospheric wave encircling Saturn's south pole. It is the first time a regular polygonal jet pattern has been observed in the planet's southern hemisphere — a southern counterpart to the famous northern hexagon, though different enough to suggest scientists are witnessing a new atmospheric phenomenon take shape. Piecing together several years of Hubble imagery dating back to 2023, the team found subtle hints of the structure before it became clearly defined; the data indicate the decagon only emerged in the past few years and is still strengthening. The leading hypothesis attributes these geometric boundaries to waves generated when fast-moving gas at mid-latitudes interacts with slower gas closer to the pole. NASA
10. Distance record: the most remote galaxy proto-supercluster found, using a telescope in Chile
An international team announced on 8 September the discovery of COSMOS-z3.1-A, the most distant known galaxy proto-supercluster: it is observed as it was just 2.1 billion years after the Big Bang and holds a mass equivalent to roughly 5,000 times the Milky Way. A proto-supercluster is a still-loose grouping of galaxies destined to collapse into a "cluster of clusters"; the authors estimate there is fewer than one such object for every 10,000 galaxy clusters, placing it among the densest regions of the cosmic web ever observed. The finding rests on the ODIN survey, carried out with the Dark Energy Camera mounted on the 4-metre Víctor M. Blanco Telescope at Cerro Tololo, Chile — another reminder of the central role northern Chile's observatories play in frontier astronomy. NOIRLab
11. The largest supernova catalogue ever assembled deepens the cracks in dark energy theory
Researchers led by the University of Queensland's School of Mathematics and Physics headed a global effort to compile the most comprehensive catalogue of exploding white dwarfs ever assembled: 2,884 Type Ia supernova observations, corresponding to 2,742 unique objects, combining the spectroscopic Pantheon+ sample with the photometric five-year Dark Energy Survey sample. Type Ia supernovae serve as "standard candles" for measuring cosmic distances. Cross-referencing this dataset with cosmic microwave background and galaxy-mapping data, the analysis deepens the tensions in the "cosmological constant" model — the idea that the dark energy accelerating cosmic expansion has a fixed strength over time. The accumulated evidence increasingly points to an evolving dark energy, which would force a revision of the standard cosmological model. Phys.org
12. SDSS-V releases DR20: over two million spectra for the most detailed map of the Milky Way
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey V published its twentieth public data release (DR20), with a dramatic expansion of the Milky Way Mapper survey: more than two million spectra revealing the temperatures, ages and chemical compositions of stars across our galaxy and its surroundings. The data come from twin optical spectrographs at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico and Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, giving astronomers, for the first time, a seamless view of stellar populations across both hemispheres with equivalent instruments. DR20 more than doubles the survey's publicly available white dwarfs, adding 49,000 spectra of these objects, and has already enabled concrete results: a parallel study reported the first five carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars identified in the Large Magellanic Cloud. SDSS
Argentina Space 2026
Argentina Space 2026 — Argentina driving the New Space Economy will take place on 11, 12 and 13 November 2026 at the Salta Convention Centre. It will be the first major national gathering of the space, technology and science industry, bringing together government bodies, companies, universities, startups and investors from Argentina and around the world.
Join Argentina Space 2026, on 11, 12 and 13 November at the Salta Convention Centre, and be part of the founding core of New Space in Argentina. You can take part as an exhibitor, sponsor or attendee. Enquiries and proposals: marketing@argentinaspace.com. More information: https://argentinaspace.com
