One figure framed the week: private investment in the space sector more than doubled over twelve months to US$23 billion, with capital shifting away from promise and toward operators that already generate revenue. Meanwhile, the satellite industry began doing the math on the announced retirement of the Falcon 9, Argentina saw the space figures in its 2027 Budget, and on the science front a team led from Chile confirmed the youngest planet ever detected.
Economy, investment and industry
1. Private space investment more than doubled: US$23 billion in twelve months
A joint report by insurer Relm Insurance and British investment firm Seraphim, released on September 23, found that global private investment in space companies climbed to US$23 billion in the year ending June 2026, more than double the US$9.7 billion of the previous period. The report attributes much of the jump to the knock-on effect of SpaceX's June IPO, which reshaped the funding landscape and drew in new investors hunting for the next company capable of a comparable return. The other key takeaway is qualitative: capital is concentrating in companies with operational proof — Earth observation, in-orbit manufacturing and the satellite supply chain — rather than in early-stage bets. The authors sum it up as the sector moving "from hype to commercial reality". The flip side remains geographic concentration: according to the OECD, 67% of recipients of private space investment in 2025 were US-based, against 12.8% in Europe. Read on BNN Bloomberg (Reuters)
2. Hubble Network raises US$200 million and becomes a satellite-Bluetooth unicorn
Seattle-based Hubble Network closed a US$200 million Series C led by Smith Point Capital, with participation from Seraphim, Carthona Capital, Earthshot Ventures, Y Combinator and RPM Ventures. The round takes it to a US$1.6 billion valuation and brings total funding to US$300 million. The announcement coincided with general availability of its service: Hubble connects standard Bluetooth Low Energy chips directly to satellites, with no new hardware, via a software update. It currently operates six satellites in low Earth orbit and plans to grow to a 60-satellite constellation by 2030, built together with Muon Space. The business model aims to displace cellular trackers: chips costing around 50 cents and subscriptions of roughly US$4 a month, backed by a ground network of nearly 90 million scanners. It is one of the clearest cases of convergence between mass IoT and satellite connectivity. Read on SpaceNews
3. China's Space Epoch raises US$343 million for its reusable rocket
Chinese launch startup Space Epoch announced the close of a round that leaves it with more than 2.3 billion yuan (about US$343 million) raised in just six months. The money goes straight into accelerating Yuanxingzhe-1, a reusable stainless-steel vehicle designed for sea recovery, which the company wants ready for its first orbital flight with a recovery attempt before the end of the year. The deal confirms two trends: Chinese capital is still betting heavily on reusable launch — the segment SpaceX defined — and the race for reusability is no longer an exclusively American phenomenon. Read on Caixin Global
4. The satellite industry starts doing the math on the end of Falcon 9
The commercial retirement of the Falcon 9 has stopped being a rumor and become a planning problem. SpaceX is no longer taking reservations for flights beyond 2028 and on September 22 confirmed it will stop offering shared rideshare missions on the vehicle. The company's bet is that by then Starship will be flying routinely and able to absorb — and exceed — the Falcon 9's mission profile. But in between lies an uncomfortable window: satellite operators that today depend on the most reliable and available rocket on the market are struggling to secure launch slots past 2028, against a backdrop of limited global capacity. For the rest of the launch industry — European, Japanese, Indian and Chinese — it is simultaneously a risk and the biggest commercial opportunity of the decade. Read on SpaceNews
5. Europe moves toward sovereign Earth observation: ESA awards EOGS studies
On September 17 the European Space Agency awarded ICEYE and Leonardo contracts for parallel architecture studies of the future Earth Observation Governmental Service (EOGS), funded by the European Commission. The goal is to design a service delivering Earth observation information to authorized government users for security and defense, combining commercial services, national capabilities and European Union-owned capacity, connected to secure ground infrastructure. The studies include an assessment of current capabilities, a gap analysis and an evaluation of different architectural solutions in terms of performance, resilience, responsiveness and affordability. It is the missing piece in Europe's effort to reduce its dependence on third-party imagery in critical scenarios. Read on Armada International
6. Argentina: the 2027 Budget allocates ARS 194.169 billion to CONAE
The 2027 Budget bill allocates ARS 194.169 billion (about US$105 million) to the National Space Activities Commission (CONAE), a 6.6% nominal decrease from 2026. The bulk sits in a single program, "Generation of Complete Space Information Cycles", which receives ARS 163.788 billion to sustain satellite missions, ground stations, technology services and applications. Within that line, ARS 25.801 billion goes to the four SARE II A satellites and just ARS 801 million to the future SAOCOM 2A and 2B. The Tronador launcher program — rocket development, propulsion, control and the infrastructure to build, test and launch from Argentine soil — gets ARS 10.901 billion: access to space takes less than 6% of the agency's total budget. The industry reading is straightforward: operational continuity is secured, but the leap toward sovereign launch capability remains underfunded. Read on Económicas Bariloche
7. In-orbit servicing faces its real test: the Space Force will fly Astroscale and Starfish in 2027
The US Space Force will test two different approaches to in-orbit satellite servicing in 2027, with missions from Astroscale and Starfish Space, while it weighs how much funding to commit to the segment and what standards and operating rules to adopt. It is a turning point for a market that has spent years promising to extend the life of expensive satellites rather than replace them: validation by an institutional customer of that size is, in practice, the demand signal the sector needed. In the same week, ClearSpace signed a contract with ESA to advance Phoenix, its geostationary life-extension mission. Read on SpaceNews
Science, exploration and missions
8. The youngest known planet is confirmed, in research led from Chile
An international team confirmed the existence of Elias 2-24 b, a planet less than one million years old: the youngest ever detected. It is roughly twice the mass of Jupiter, lies about 450 light-years from Earth and is still embedded in the disk of dust and gas surrounding its star, offering an exceptional window into a world literally in the act of forming. The study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on September 16 and based on W. M. Keck Observatory data, was led by Andrea Bernardi, a doctoral candidate at Universidad Diego Portales in Chile — a reminder of the growing weight of Latin American astronomy in first-rate discoveries. The previous record was a four-way tie between planets in the PDS 70 and WISPIT 2 systems, all more than 5 million years old. Read on ScienceDaily
9. An amateur astronomer looking for a campsite found a 390-million-year-old impact crater
While scanning satellite imagery to pick a campsite in Quebec, amateur astronomer Joël Lapointe noticed an odd circular feature near Lake Marsal, in the remote Côte-Nord region. Follow-up research confirmed it is an impact crater about 25 kilometers across, formed roughly 390 million years ago. Scientists found shatter cones and extensive areas of impact melt rock, the unmistakable geological signatures of an asteroid or meteorite collision. The structure was named Uhackatik after consultation with the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit, and NASA Earth Observatory featured it as its Image of the Day. A textbook case of how open availability of Earth observation data enables discoveries outside the formal academic circuit. Read on ScienceDaily
10. Vast creates a lunar division and targets Artemis infrastructure
Commercial space station developer Vast announced the creation of a Lunar Programs Division through which it will pursue NASA contracts for the Artemis lunar base. The strategy is to reuse technology developed for Haven-1 — its single-module station, aiming to be the world's first commercial space station, with launch planned for 2027 — and carry it over to power stations, airlocks and multi-module habitats for long-duration crewed operations on the lunar surface. The company structured its offering along NASA's own logic: infrastructure products first, more complex crewed facilities later. The architecture is designed to complement the Lunar Communications Relay and Navigation Systems (LCRNS) and reduce reliance on constrained shared assets such as the Deep Space Network. Read on SpaceNews
11. Albania signs the Artemis Accords as the 73rd signatory
On September 21, at NASA Headquarters in Washington, Albania became the 73rd country to sign the Artemis Accords. The ceremony was attended by US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Space and Environment Connor Tomlinson, NASA Deputy Administrator Matt Anderson, and Albania's Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Ferit Hoxha, alongside Ambassador Ervin Bushati. The Accords, established in 2020, set common principles for the civil exploration of the Moon, Mars and beyond: peaceful use, transparency, assistance to astronauts in distress, registration of space objects, sharing of scientific data, protection of historic sites and measures against harmful interference and orbital debris. The pace of accessions keeps the Accords as the de facto reference framework for exploration governance. Read on SpaceNews
12. Crew-13: quarantine in Houston and launch rescheduled for October 1
The crew of the NASA and SpaceX Crew-13 mission is already in quarantine at Johnson Space Center in Houston, and travels to Kennedy Space Center on Saturday, September 26. Liftoff is set for October 1 at 11:10 EDT, with arrival at the International Space Station around 8 p.m. the same day. The flight had been delayed by an oxidizer leak in the Dragon capsule's propulsion system, detected during standard prelaunch processing; teams replaced the affected valve and rescheduled the mission for early October. The crew comprises NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins (commander) and Luke Delaney (pilot), together with Canada's Joshua Kutryk (CSA) and Russian cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. Read on Houston Public Media
Argentina Space 2026
Join Argentina Space 2026, on November 11, 12 and 13 at the Salta Convention Center, and be part of the founding core of New Space in Argentina.
Argentina Space 2026 — Argentina driving the New Space Economy is the first major national gathering of the space, technology and science industry: it brings together government bodies, companies, universities, startups and investors from Argentina and around the world in a single space for work, business and strategic agenda-setting.
If your organization wants to join as an exhibitor, sponsor or attendee, write to us at marketing@argentinaspace.com. More information at https://argentinaspace.com
