Latest Trends in Space Technology

China has announced a major breakthrough that could reshape the future of space exploration. According to researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, scientists have developed a method to extract water, oxygen, and even rocket fuel from lunar soil using sunlight. This process relies on photothermal catalysis, where heat from sunlight activates chemical reactions in moon dust, also known as lunar regolith. According to Space dot com, the team tested their method using actual samples collected during China’s Chang’e-5 mission. These samples contain minerals like ilmenite, which hold trace amounts of water. By heating the regolith, the scientists were able to release that water and then split it into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen could be used for breathing, while the hydrogen can be combined with carbon dioxide, exhaled by astronauts, to produce methane, a powerful and efficient rocket fuel. According to the study published in the journal National Science Review, this one-step system could support long-term lunar missions by reducing the need to transport supplies from Earth. It’s a self-sustaining approach that turns the moon’s natural resources into life support and propulsion materials. The researchers believe this technology could be a key part of future lunar bases and deep space travel.

DARPA Advances In-Orbit Space Construction with NOM4D Program A Major Leap Toward Autonomous Space Manufacturing The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has officially entered the testing phase of its NOM4D (Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing, Materials, and Mass-efficient Design) program, marking a significant step toward building large-scale structures in space. This transition from lab-based experiments to small-scale orbital demonstrations signals a breakthrough in autonomous space construction. The NOM4D initiative, launched in 2022, is designed to overcome one of the biggest limitations in space infrastructure development—the size and weight constraints of rocket cargo fairings. Instead of launching pre-assembled or pre-folded structures, the program aims to: • Stow lightweight raw materials aboard rockets. • Assemble structures in space using autonomous robotic systems. • Construct larger, more efficient orbital platforms, beyond what current launch systems allow. A New Era of Space Expansion The NOM4D program is part of a broader shift in space technology, paving the way for: • Frequent orbital launches and lunar missions by 2030. • On-orbit refueling capabilities to extend spacecraft missions. • Autonomous robots assembling space stations and other critical infrastructure. This could radically reduce the cost and complexity of sending large structures into orbit, enabling more ambitious space missions, larger satellites, and permanent deep-space habitats. Why This Matters With private industry and government agencies accelerating space development, in-orbit construction could revolutionize: • Military and defense applications, allowing for rapid deployment of space assets. • Commercial space stations, supporting research, manufacturing, and tourism. • Lunar and Mars colonization, where raw materials could be extracted and assembled into habitable structures. The Future of Space Infrastructure By transitioning to real-world testing, DARPA is bringing us closer to a future where spacecraft, satellites, and even space habitats are built and expanded directly in orbit. The NOM4D program represents a critical step toward making large-scale space manufacturing a reality—one that could reshape how humanity builds in space for decades to come.

🚀 As we all wait for tomorrow's Artemis II splashdown, a few thoughts on how Applied AI will shape the future of SpaceTech. Google's Sundar Pichai has previously discussed extraterrestrial data centers and there's clearly a data center space race to improve efficiency. At Venture Forward Capital, we’ve been tracking how the "space stack" is shifting: The satellite is becoming the hardware; the AI is the product. Key areas ripe for disruption: - Edge AI & On-Orbit Processing: Using CV to process data at the edge reduces bandwidth costs by up to 90% and enables real-time decision-making. - Autonomous Mission Ops (Auto-Ops): With mega-constellations rising, manual piloting is dead. The future belongs to self-healing constellations and AI-driven collision avoidance. - Vertical Earth Observation: Turning raw pixels into proprietary insights for climate tech, maritime logistics, insurance, global supply chains. - Space Cybersecurity: As satellites become software-defined, AI-driven anomaly detection is the primary defense against GPS jamming and ground-station hacking. Tomorrow’s splashdown marks the end of a mission, but only the beginning of an entire sector powered by AI. Good luck to the teams on the ground (and in the water) tomorrow! 💪🏼

🚀 Space Technology & Exploration: The “New Normal” is Incredible (and Fast) Year 2025 continued the trend from the past two years when space has shifted from “ambitious roadmaps” to repeatable execution - driven by a powerful mix of national programs + commercial scale. Major breakthroughs shaping the next decade: 🌕 The Moon is open for business (again) 
Commercial lunar delivery is now real: Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 achieved a successful lunar landing and surface ops, while Intuitive Machines continued pushing south-pole access with IM-2 (hard lessons, real progress). 🇨🇳 China’s far-side lunar sample return changed the game 
Chang’e-6 returned about 1,935 grams of samples from the Moon’s far side scientifically priceless and geopolitically significant. 🇮🇳 India is building core “human-spaceflight-class” capabilities 
ISRO advanced Gaganyaan with key recovery/parachute testing and demonstrated space docking (SPADEX) - a foundational capability for stations, servicing, and exploration logistics. India’s private sector has entered a new phase with companies like #skyroot aerospace demonstrating the capability to develop its own launch vehicle with a mission to democratize the space. 🛰️ On-orbit servicing is moving from concept to demos 
A newly revealed private “Remora” mission demonstrated autonomous rendezvous/proximity operations - critical for future inspection, repair, refueling, and debris mitigation. 📡 Launch + constellations are scaling at industrial speed 
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 cadence remains historically high (including ~160+ launches in 2025), while Rocket Lab’s tempo signals a broader competitive launch market. 🇪🇺 Europe is back in stride with Ariane 6 
Ariane 6 is now flying multiple missions - including Galileo deployments - strengthening European access-to-space resilience. 💰 Funding & resources: strong top-lines, tighter risk capital * According to Space Foundation, the global space economy hit ~$613B (2024), with commercial activity driving most growth. * Governments are spending heavily (including defense), and defense demand is increasingly shaping investment. * Europe just approved record ESA funding (€22.3B) - a clear strategic signal. * At the same time, VC remains more selective than the 2021-era peak (consolidation + “flight-proven” traction matter more than hype). Bottom line: Space has entered a phase where capability compounding is the story - reusable launch, commercial lunar logistics, autonomous rendezvous, mega-constellations, and national strategic funding all reinforcing each other. What development do you think will be the biggest unlock next: in-orbit refueling, commercial stations, lunar surface power, or truly reusable heavy lift? #Space #NewSpace #Aerospace #Satellites #Lunar #SpaceTech #DefenseTech #InOrbitServicing #Exploration #Innovation #skyrootaerospace

I had the privilege of speaking with Via Satellite about the top satellite tech trends for 2026. Here’s what I see coming for our industry: 1) AI will fundamentally change what satellites do. We're moving from collecting data to connecting it. Advances in technology now make real-time fusion of multi-source data a reality, and users expect more than just raw imagery. ➡️ Satellites must not only observe but also interpret to deliver true value to our government and commercial users. 2) Images that satellites take of other satellites or objects in space, also known as non-Earth imaging (NEI), will move from a supporting capability to a strategic requirement. NEI acts as “eyes in space” or as a “neighborhood watch”—giving visibility where radar and traditional sensors can't provide the full picture and strengthening deterrence in a world where proximity operations, maneuvering, and modifications to spacecraft are becoming more common. ️➡️ As government, allied, and commercial operators seek reliable ways to maintain custody of high-interest objects and reduce ambiguity in space, we can expect broader adoption. Both trends point to the same operational reality: space operations now require the same level of real-time awareness and decision support we expect in other domains. Read the full piece here: https://lnkd.in/eMTDC7sq

TL; DR LEO is shifting from deployment to trade, with rising strategic tension. Space is moving toward sustainability. Reusable rockets and satellite, with serviceable architectures and modular builds aiming to reduce replacement cycles. The driver is financial: cut capex, improve margin, scale commercially. This is what allows space to expand beyond government programs into private-sector infrastructure. Defense spending remains the foundation of space development. The internet, GPS, remote sensing, and early semiconductors were all funded by military contracts. Silicon Valley’s tech dominance was shaped by DARPA, NSA, and Air Force grants. Today, that model continues—Anduril raised over $1.5B on defense demand. Palantir’s space contracts with the US Army and Space Force are growing. DIU and SDA fund startups building comms, autonomy, and ISR payloads. The space sector grows because defense puts capital behind the hardware, the supply chains, and the launch cadence. Meanwhile, commercial layers are forming on top. Broadband constellations are expanding (Starlink, Eutelsat OneWeb, Amazon Project Kuiper). Logistics platforms like D-Orbit and Momentus are building in-space transport networks. Varda Space Industries returned the first drugs manufactured in orbit. World View crossed 1,000 paid reservations for stratospheric flights. Brands like adidas and The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. already flew R&D and marketing payloads to the ISS, OrbitsEdge, Inc with Syntilay, are the first to take the approach of making a real product from code originating in space. These are entry points into a real commercial economy in orbit. Space is following a known historical sequence. First comes exploration. Then habitation. Then extraction, trade, and territorial competition. LEO is moving through infrastructure and into trade. We’re already seeing tension over orbital debris and spectrum rights. Traffic management, on-orbit servicing, and counterspace operations are becoming strategic concerns. This has nothing to do with sci-fi. Every domain with resources, infrastructure, and national interest ends up contested. Right now, the tech stack is being built. Launch is solved. Platforms are going up. The next phase is about who controls movement, data, and ownership in orbit. That’s where the real competition begins.

✨ We Are Officially Living in the Era of Geospatial & Space Technology This morning, my Windows 11 background changed and it stopped me in my tracks. A breath-taking, satellite-captured view of Earth… rivers branching like neural networks, cities glowing like constellations, and landscapes painted in colors only space can reveal. And it hit me: This is not just a wallpaper. This is the future unfolding right in front of us. We’ve entered a new era - where space technology and geospatial intelligence are no longer niche tools, but the foundation of how humanity understands, protects, and builds our world. Today, satellites are not just taking pretty pictures. They’re powering: 🛰️ Real-time climate and disaster intelligence 🗺️ Property-level risk scoring & prediction 🌋 Environmental monitoring and early warnings 🏙️ Urban planning and infrastructure resilience 📡 IoT-driven digital twins of entire regions 🤖 GeoAI models that translate raw data into actionable insights And what once required entire nation-states can now be accessed… on a laptop background. By anyone. Anywhere. That alone tells us how fast the future is coming. The convergence of space, geospatial data, and AI will shape the next decade more than any other technological wave - from insurance and climate policy to energy, agriculture, and national security. The Earth is speaking more clearly than ever. For the first time in history, we have the tools to listen. And that is incredibly exciting. The era of Geospatial Technology has begun. The question now is: How will we use it?

This ADF decision seems indicative of several emerging market trends and technology inflections in the satellite sector that I will briefly characterize below: (1) It is vital that we recognize the emerging market demand for simultaneous, multi-network connectivity and the blending of historically independent network ecosystems.   This includes the convergence of:  - space with terrestrial networks  - diverse orbital regimes & infrastructures  - communications with earth observation constellations   - in-space processing with space-based crosslinks   - military with commercial networks to deliver ‘insights-at-the-edge’ that blend C5ISR with EW/IW/Cyber Network Operations in a JADC2 context that elevate coherent, cognitive networking to realize “ONE NETWORK”. (2)  Market leaders must transition from a ‘connectivity’ mindset that is equipment-centric to a ‘network-as-a-software’ mindset that efficiently empowers subscribers with intelligently-defined, tailored services. (3) There may soon be nothing called a “modem”, rather a virtual infrastructure that ‘instantiates’ the functionalities of a modem, specifically tailored for each individual subscriber need & duration ….  in a multi-purpose, multi-waveform, multi-orbit and multi-network context.   And, the infrastructure framework must be holistic, agnostic and independent. (4) New Space is largely LEO-dominate and the relatively short life of LEO satellite constellations will drive fundamental changes in New Space ecosystems, especially the companion ground infrastructures, which will be:  - Architected as software-centric and cloud-native such that capabilities continually evolve in a ‘network-as-a-software’ context   - Procured using ‘as-a-service’ business models that enable more comprehensive value creation than the traditional equipment procurement models of the past  - Established as collaborative partnerships (versus vendor relationships) that will include multi-network orchestration, data collection & analytics, and much more  - Intelligently Exploited to blueprint next generation performance envelops that continually enhance the user/subscriber experience while simultaneously constantly improving network efficiencies to steadily improve the service provider’s financial return. In summary, This is a highly dynamic technology sector and there is much to consider on this topic - and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Everyone’s racing to space. 🪐 But that’s not the real challenge anymore. Getting to orbit is becoming routine. What happens after launch is where things get interesting. Once payloads separate, space turns into something new: not a destination — a place you have to operate in. Things break. Orbits need changing. Satellites run out of fuel. Factories don’t magically run themselves. Welcome to Space Logistics — the invisible layer that decides whether space becomes an economy… or a graveyard of hardware. We looked at the companies building this layer and asked two questions: 🚀 Is this a one-off stunt, or infrastructure that runs all the time? 🌍 Does it live only in orbit — or does it connect space back to Earth? This makes one thing obvious: the real space race isn’t about launch anymore. It’s about: • keeping assets alive • moving them where they’re needed • producing value over years, not minutes The next winners in space won’t be the ones who go up fastest. They’ll be the ones who make orbit actually work. D-Orbit The Exploration Company Momentus Impulse Space Exotrail ATMOS Space Cargo Inversion Space Forge Outpost Vast Axiom Space Voyager Technologies Varda Space Industries Astroscale EPIC AEROSPACE Starfish Space Infinite Orbits Orbit Fab