Space News for Saturday, September 12, 2026

0:00Thank you for joining us here on the GIST, a Space News Daily Podcast where we take a brief look at some of the top space-related news stories of the day. These are articles taken on Saturday, September 12, 2026, from Sat News. The FCC asked Cowboy Space how big its satellites are. Cowboy Space's latest FCC filing reveals a planned stampede of 20,000 satellites which would amount to roughly 400,000 tons of hardware. That figured dwarfs the current launch year total of just 3,193 tons, highlighting an unprecedented scale. The agency's database however lacks a dedicated field for tracking mass, making it difficult to assess the full impact. This gap underscores the growing challenge regulators face in monitoring the burgeoning satellite industry. From Sat News. K-labs and RBC signals partner to develop global optical ground station network.

1:03On Thursday, September 10, 2026 K-labs, a Photonics Technology Developer and RBC signals a satellite ground infrastructure provider signed a memorandum of understanding in Paris. The agreement brings together the two companies' expertise in Photonics and Satellite Communications. It establishes a framework for collaboration that will combine their technologies and services. The partnership aims to enhance satellite ground infrastructure capabilities. From Sat News. Loft Orbital and Marlin Space Award, $1 billion contract for 50 AI-equipped LEO satellites. On Wednesday, September 9, 2026, Loft Orbital and Abu Dhabi-based Marlin Space see you the $1 billion deal to launch a 50 satellite low-earth orbit constellation. From NASA, help refine data from space telescopes with Artifact Inspector. NASA's new citizen science project Artifact Inspector invites the public to help clean data from the Euclid Telescope and the soon-to-launch Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Volunteers examine real spectra flagging unwanted artifacts caused by light lens, cosmic rays

2:07or camera quarks, and train AI to distinguish them from genuine galaxies. The refined AI will enable scientists to measure galaxy distances more accurately, and probe the mysterious dark energy driving the universe's expansion. From NASA. NASA boosts open science, data sharing with Automus Accords. NASA's newest lunar image highlights the pointing and key recreators side-by-side on the far side, showcasing a smooth, well-defined rim next to a rugged impact-scarred interior. These craters, far-of-the-densely-created highlands, preserve a record of billions of years of impacts that have shaped the moon's surface from payload space. Antares wins $61 AM award for Space Nuclear Power. Antares, a private nuclear microreactor, start-up secured a $61 million Department of Defense contract to advance Space Nuclear Power, marking the largest current DOD award in the field. The company's Martinis Martmio reactor already achieved criticality in June, becoming the first privately-built reactor to do so under the Department of Energy's pilot program.

3:10Antares plans to launch its Mach 1 reactor in 2027, aiming to operate for more than six months in power future spacecraft with steady, old-time energy. This development supports the UNE from space.com. Rocketlab protests NASA's decision to award Blue Origin $700 million Mars Orbiter Contract. Rocketlab has lodged a formal protest with the Government Accountability Office after NASA awarded a $700 million Mars Telecommunications Network Contract to Blue Origin. The company claims the award violates congressional eligibility criteria and that its technical volume was unfairly evaluated from space.com. Rocketlab launches Mystery Satellite to orbit for secret customer photo. Rocketlab's 95th electron launch dubbed Happily Ever Faster, lifted off from New Zealand on September 10, 2026, carrying a single Earth observation satellite into a 500 km low Earth orbit. The company kept the mission's customer a mystery, but the payload was confirmed to be a commercial satellite, sparking speculation that it could be a black-skyed Gen 3 imaging craft.

4:11All 16 of Rocketlab's launches this year have been successful, marking another floor this year for the small satellite launcher. The launch, announced by a X an hour after liftoff, underscores Rocketlab's growing role in delivering private satellites to orbit, from space.com. The Sun may once have swallowed a super-earth planet and could still be hiding the evidence. New research suggests the Sun may have swallowed a super-earth planet billions of years ago, leaving chemical fingerprints inside the star that could explain long-standing discrepancies in solar models. Simulations point to an engulfed planet between five and ten times Earth's mass, which would alter the Sun's convection zone depth and deplete surface lithium. The study, published in the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, proposes that these subtle internal signatures might still be detectable today. If confirmed, this would reveal a dramatic chapter in the Sun's early history, from space.com. On this day and space, set, 11 1985, the International Commentary Explorer makes first comet flyby in history for NASA and Europe.

5:12On September 11, 1985, NASA's International Commentary Explorer, formerly the International Sun Earth Explorer III, made history of the first spacecraft to fly by a comet, passing just 4,885 miles from comet 21p or jacobini's inner. The probe, launched in 1978 to study space weather at the Sun Earth L1 point, was repurposed after its primary mission and renamed ICE to explore cometary tales and the Sun's influence on them. Six months later, ICE also performed a flyby of Halle's comet, adding to its record of pioneering encounters. This milestone marked a turning point in comet science, confirming theories that comets are dirty snowballs and demonstrating the versatility of deep space missions. From space.com, Wavy Alien Doomfield stretch across Mars, space photo of the day for SEPT. 11, 2026. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured a striking purple Doomfield inside an unnamed impact crater on the red planet, revealing Wavy Ripples that scientists hope will show

6:13changes since 2011. The high-rise cameras false-color image highlights the planet's dynamic surface, offering clues about ancient water and possible biosignatures. These observations help scientists piece together Mars' history and guide future exploration missions. The image released September 11, 2026 underscores the ongoing fascination with the red planet. From Mars Technica. Some satellite companies still have an appetite for boutique launch services. Most satellite firms claim launch capacity is still tight, even as launch frequency has surged. SpaceX is scaling back its Falcon 9 schedule and its Starship program remains uncertain, prompting operators to welcome new rivals. SpaceX's Esau Aerospace celebrated its first successful orbit with the Spectrum rocket, dropping CubeSats from an Norwegian spaceport after a last year failure. This milestone signals a shift toward greater competition in the commercial launch market. Thank you for listening to The Space Just for the day. Please rate, review, and subscribe on your podcast tool of choice.

7:14End of podcast.