This week made it clear that institutional capital now moves at New Space speed: a European multilateral bank and a private bank set up a joint €560 million facility, an antenna startup was valued at $2 billion, and the U.S. regulator cleared the largest satellite acquisition of the year. In parallel, science delivered heavyweight headlines: an observatory in Chile found its first dwarf planet candidate, two NASA spacecraft are about to bounce off Earth's gravity on their way to Mars, and a historic telescope bowed out after 22 years in orbit.
Economy, investment and industry
1. FCC approves Amazon Leo's acquisition of Globalstar: USD 11.5 billion
On October 28 the U.S. Federal Communications Commission cleared the acquisition of mobile satellite operator Globalstar by Amazon Leo (the constellation formerly known as Project Kuiper), in a deal valued at $11.5 billion. The regulator held that the transaction is likely to serve the public interest by improving data coverage in underserved areas, and that Globalstar's assets "promise to enhance Amazon Leo's entry into the direct-to-device segment," supporting both fixed and mobile services. The figure that explains its strategic weight: Globalstar is the company providing emergency satellite connectivity for compatible iPhones and Apple Watches, and Apple held a 20% stake before the takeover. As part of the deal, Amazon Leo will power satellite services for those Apple devices. In practice, this consolidates direct-to-cellular connectivity as the new battleground of the space economy.
2. Northwood Space raises USD 375 million at a USD 2 billion valuation
On November 2 Northwood Space announced a $375 million Series C co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and DFJ Growth, at a $2 billion valuation. The company, founded in 2022 and led by Bridgit Mendler, builds antennas, software and ground-segment technologies: the link that lets satellites communicate with Earth. It comes off a $100 million Series B closed in January 2026 — also co-led by a16z — and a contract worth nearly $50 million with the U.S. Space Force to upgrade the country's satellite control network. That adds up to roughly $475 million in capital in under a year. The proceeds, together with a financing agreement with HSBC, will go toward scaling production, hiring, and fulfilling contracts already signed. The underlying read: with tens of thousands of satellites projected, the industry's bottleneck has moved from the launch pad to the ground.
3. EIB and Deutsche Bank launch a EUR 560 million facility for European space
On October 30, ahead of the ESA Space Investor Forum held in Munich, the European Investment Bank and Deutsche Bank announced a partnership to mobilise €560 million of new investment in European space businesses. The agreement is part of Space TechEU, the EIB's dedicated space financing programme, which aims to mobilise an estimated €1.4 billion alongside commercial banks by combining lending, guarantees and technical expertise. The money targets commercially viable companies across the European Union: component manufacturers, launch technology developers, satellite applications and in-orbit service providers, with a focus on reusable launchers and spacecraft, advanced propulsion, satellite manufacturing and Earth observation. Around half of the financing is expected in Germany and the rest elsewhere in the EU. ESA contributes market intelligence and sector expertise to help shape the instruments. "The next step is ensuring they have access to the capital they need to grow," summed up ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher.
4. Google runs AI in orbit: the first response generated by a TPU in space
On October 30 Google announced it had received from space the first response generated by an artificial intelligence model running on a data-center-class TPU (Tensor Processing Unit). The milestone belongs to Project Suncatcher, its space computing initiative: the prototype satellite — launched on October 1 on a SpaceX rideshare mission alongside more than a hundred other spacecraft — ran the open Gemma 4 model onboard, and the response (a haiku about space) reached the ground during a pass over Svalbard, Norway. The prototype carries four TPUs, though it can only use one at a time in windows of about 20 minutes, and generates up to 1 kW of electricity. Google estimates that in certain orbits solar panels can yield up to 8 times more than equivalent panels on Earth. Next steps are measuring thermal stress and radiation on the chips while operating, and in 2027 testing two satellites interconnected by optical links. It is not yet a data center in orbit, but it is the first proof that AI compute can move to space.
5. Satellogic signs a three-year non-Earth imaging deal with HEO
On October 29, during The Economist's Space Economy Summit, Argentine-founded Satellogic (NASDAQ: SATL) announced a three-year agreement with Australia's HEO giving it access to its constellation for non-Earth imaging and space domain awareness through 2029. The contract includes a seven-figure minimum annual commitment for each of the three years and covers the NewSat Mark IV, V and VI satellites, the newest featuring inter-satellite links. HEO says it has access to more Satellogic satellites than from any other provider in its network. The relationship began in September 2020 with a query about imaging the International Space Station: successful captures grew from about 30 in 2021 to more than 1,600 in the most recent year. As a demonstration of capability, HEO used NewSat 46 to image AST's BlueWalker 3 satellite from 17.22 km away at 3 cm per pixel. A concrete sign that a company of Argentine origin is earning revenue in the emerging market of watching space from space.
6. Astroscale wins GBP 15 million from the UK Ministry of Defence for Project LEDA
On October 28, from Harwell (Oxfordshire), Astroscale announced a £15 million contract awarded by the UK Ministry of Defence to lead Project LEDA, with BAE Systems and Open Cosmos as key partners. The programme seeks to understand "orbital warfare": how such spacecraft operate and how they might counter threats arising from rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO). Astroscale backs the proposal with concrete flight heritage: the ELSA-d magnetic capture demonstration and the inspection of the non-cooperative ADRAS-J rocket body from under 15 metres in 2024. The contract sits within the new UK Space Strategy and a Defence Investment Plan allocating £3.2 billion to space through 2030. It is proof that in-orbit servicing — born as a space debris removal business — has found its most solvent customer in defence.
7. ESA orders two more Galileo satellites from Airbus and two from Thales Alenia Space
The European Space Agency this week awarded contracts for two additional second-generation Galileo satellites to Airbus and another two to Thales Alenia Space, taking each manufacturer from six to eight units relative to the 2021 contracts. The G2 constellation total thus rises to 16 satellites, which will join the first-generation Galileo system. The new satellites bring enhanced navigation antennas, fully digital payloads reconfigurable in orbit to enable new signals and services, an enhanced atomic clock configuration, inter-satellite links, and anti-jamming and anti-spoofing capabilities. Each will weigh more than two tonnes and operate for 15 years; Airbus will build them at its sites in Germany, Spain and France. ESA reported that the first 12 G2 satellites are nearing completion and will begin launching in 2028. "The contracts safeguard the continuity of Europe's satellite navigation services and support its strategic autonomy," said Laurent Jaffart, ESA Director of Resilience, Navigation and Connectivity.
Science, exploration and missions
8. An observatory in Chile finds its first dwarf planet candidate beyond Pluto
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, sited on Cerro Pachón, Coquimbo region (Chile), announced on October 29 the discovery of its first dwarf planet candidate: the trans-Neptunian object provisionally designated 2026 ED138, identified on October 13. Estimates put it between 600 and 1,500 kilometres in diameter and place it some 46 astronomical units from the Sun, farther than Pluto (about 40 on average). Its orbit is inclined almost 25 degrees to the plane of the Solar System, placing it among the so-called "hot classicals" and suggesting Neptune's gravity altered its original trajectory. The detection was made by Matthew Holman (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), using code developed with Kevin Napier, and Mario Jurić (University of Washington), Rubin's lead Solar System research scientist; the Minor Planet Center circulated the discovery. If confirmed, it would be the sixth recognised dwarf planet, alongside Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake — infrared observations are still needed to pin down its size. The regional point is unavoidable: the instrument rewriting the Solar System catalogue sits in the Chilean Andes.
9. NASA's twin ESCAPADE spacecraft slingshot past Earth on the way to Mars
NASA reported on November 2 that its two ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft will each perform a powered Earth flyby to begin the final leg toward Mars. Launched in November 2025, when Earth and Mars were on opposite sides of the Sun, they took an indirect route: they looped around the Earth-Sun L2 region and are now returning to use Earth's gravity. The novelty is the manoeuvre: they combine the gravity assist with an engine burn — an Oberth effect — something no Mars-bound spacecraft had done before. The first trans-Mars injection burn, lasting about 9 minutes, is scheduled for 5 a.m. EST on November 7, with the second around 6 a.m. on November 9, with closest approach between 600 and 1,100 miles altitude over southern Australia; speed will rise from about 6.3 to 6.7 miles per second. Each spacecraft is the size of a standard refrigerator. A 10-month cruise then awaits: arrival on September 7 and September 9, 2027. At Mars they will be the first multi-spacecraft mission to fly in formation around the planet, studying how the solar wind erodes its atmosphere.
10. The Swift observatory re-enters the atmosphere after nearly 22 years of service
NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory re-entered Earth's atmosphere on November 4, almost 22 years after its launch. The U.S. Space Force prediction issued on November 2 placed re-entry at around 3:30 a.m. EST with an 11-hour uncertainty. The spacecraft weighs roughly 3,200 pounds; NASA expected most of it to burn up, though some components could survive: because of its low orbital inclination, any surviving fragments could only land between 20.6° south and 20.6° north latitude, with an estimated risk of harm to a person of 1 in 2,100. Launched in 2004 to study gamma-ray bursts — the most powerful explosions in the universe — with a prime mission designed for just two years, Swift operated for more than two decades with three telescopes, slewing within minutes to short-lived events and alerting other observatories for follow-up. Its findings span active galaxies, X-ray flaring stars, supernovae, comets and asteroids. An engineering lesson in how far the useful life of a well-designed science asset can be stretched.
11. Starfish Space's SSPICY mission declared unrecoverable
On November 3 NASA confirmed that the SSPICY (Small Spacecraft Propulsion and Inspection Capability) mission, led by Starfish Space, is not recoverable. It was the first launch and deployment of the company's Otter spacecraft, placed in orbit on October 1, 2026. Starfish made initial contact but lost it during commissioning, the early phase of switching on systems and calibrating instruments, and never re-established two-way communication. The cause identified by NASA and Starfish: a fault protection system — the onboard software that detects and responds to problems — is erroneously keeping the radio switched off. The mission was to navigate toward inoperable U.S.-origin space objects in low Earth orbit to inspect them, testing propulsion, guidance, navigation and control plus an articulating robotic boom, with the broader goal of maturing in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing technologies and gathering orbital debris data. It is funded by NASA's Advanced Research and Technology Division and managed by the Small Spacecraft and Distributed Systems program at Ames Research Center. A reminder that in-space servicing remains frontier technology.
12. India launches NVS-03 and restores standalone positioning to NavIC
ISRO successfully launched the NVS-03 navigation satellite on October 30 at 11:51 p.m. India time aboard GSLV-F18 — the launcher's 20th flight — from the Second Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, bound for geosynchronous transfer orbit. The satellite reinforces NavIC, India's indigenous regional navigation system (formerly IRNSS), which provides positioning, navigation and timing over Indian territory and some 1,500 km beyond its borders, and was built to reduce reliance on foreign networks. The key operational figure: of the seven satellites in the original design only three were operational before this launch, and four are needed to offer standalone positioning, so the service had been limited to timing functions. With NVS-03 the system recovers that minimum threshold. It also adds the L1 signal to the existing L5 and S-band — broadening compatibility with commercial receivers — and carries a domestically developed atomic clock alongside procured units. Applications range from railways and fishing to mobile telephony, transport and disaster management.
Argentina Space 2026: the meeting point is Salta
Argentina Space 2026 — Argentina driving the New Space Economy will take place on November 11, 12 and 13, 2026 at the Salta Convention Center. It is the first major national gathering of the space, technology and science industry, bringing together agencies, companies, universities, startups and investors from Argentina and around the world.
This week's news sets the tempo: institutional capital is already financing space infrastructure, in-orbit services are a real market, and a company of Argentine origin is earning revenue in the global satellite intelligence business. Argentina Space 2026 is where that ecosystem meets, debates and does business.
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. You can take part as an exhibitor, sponsor or attendee.
- Contact: marketing@argentinaspace.com
- More information: https://argentinaspace.com
