Category: Satellites

In May 2026, four Russian military satellites came close to ICEYE-X36, a private synthetic aperture radar satellite widely believed to be providing battlefield intelligence for Ukraine, in an apparently aggressive and risky "grey zone" maneuver that spooked many in the space industry.

Close enough to jam or interfere with the satellite's signal, blind it with a laser, fire a metal dart at it or, simply, force it to maneuver and burn fuel, the satellites' seemingly intimidatory behavior has increased the West's desire to develop defensive technology for satellites. In October 2026, it was reported that one of those same four Russian satellites passed within 500 meters (1,650 feet) of the same ICEYE satellite.

Now, U.K. startup Shield Space is racing to apply the lessons of drone warfare in Ukraine to develop swarms of up to 100 very small, low-cost, attritable drone-like autonomous spacecraft called cubesats. Released by a car-sized carrier in Earth orbit, these microwave-sized spacecraft will act as interceptors to protect Western satellites, and their deployment will mark a next step in the evolution of orbital warfare. Shield Space says that these space drones will use "effectors" like lasers or microwaves to defend Western satellites even if controllers lose contact with them.

"We're talking about deploying 100 cubesats on a protect-and-defend mission for less than £100 million [$134 million US], which is how [much] you would pay for one satellite previously," said Graeme Ritchie, co-founder and CEO of Shield Space.

Launched in 2023, NASA's civilian project Starling demonstrated that a swarm of four small satellites can cooperate and operate autonomously in space on a civilian science mission without relying heavily on real-time commands from ground control. But that seems like a far cry from the adversarial or defensive missions Shield Space and its competitors imagine. It is telling that the leading space powers appear not to have demonstrated swarm combat in space — although they tend to be reluctant to reveal their space warfare capabilities.

In the fourth quarter of 2027, Shield Space plans to take this next step in space warfare's evolution by demonstrating rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) with two very small spacecraft. This effort, named Project Broadsword, will launch on SpaceX's Transporter-21 rideshare mission. It will send up an 8U cubesat and a smaller 3U target craft, which Shield Space plans to maneuver from 100 kilometers (62 miles) apart to within 100 meters (330 feet) of each other and, through four stages of autonomy, from human-in-the-loop to "approximately" fully autonomous. (A cubesat unit, or U, is a cube that measures 10 cm, or about 4 inches, on a side.)

The gaps between a true satellite-defense capability and this demonstration appear to be great, in terms of the technological and practical challenges of squeezing propulsion and power systems, AI compute power, sensors, the lasers the swarm needs to communicate and weapon systems onto small, lightweight maneuvering satellites. But it is a gap that Shield Space believes it can bridge through the purchase of relatively cheap off-the-shelf technology rather than more expensive bespoke designs.

"Yes, it's a problem because of size, weight and power," Ritchie told Space.com. "We've had to totally innovate from scratch some elements of the mission… but we have only got roughly 100 cm by 100 cm [40 by 40 inches], so saving space or having systems that are already completely integrated is the main aim."

"We have commissioned EnduroSat to build us an autonomous 8U cubesat that has chemical propulsion and its own imagery-collecting capability, which we will put our software on," said Dan Molland, co-founder and CTO of Shield Space, "and which we will then use to conduct our RPO.

"The good thing about cubesats is they're very standardized and they're very off the shelf," he added. "There's always some level of adjusting you've got to do, but these cubesats are a lot more plug and play than more conventional platforms, which are usually all custom-built."

Yet to focus on the technical issues may be to miss the point. "It takes an extraordinary amount of data to train the models and algorithms to achieve a fully autonomous mission," said Ritchie, "and the problem [unlike in the Ukraine war] is that data is not readily available.

"We can train AI using synthetic data, but it's just not quite good enough for space. It's incredibly important to gather data from missions like this if we really want autonomous missions in the future."

There is also the complexity of the AI needed in a war-fighting system. "Starling is a really great example," Molland told Space.com. "With Starling, you're essentially just asking a guidance system to make sure you stay within a given range of this or that satellite… But if you are controlling a swarm to deliver [a] military mission, you have a much more complex set of questions."

It also comes with the challenge of ensuring that AI complies with any rules of engagement.

But Ritchie and Molland believe these technical challenges can be overcome, and they have an aggressive schedule of demonstrations planned that they think will prove it.

Bleddyn Bowen, associate professor of astropolitics at Durham University in the U.K. and author of the book "War in Space: Strategy, Spacepower, Geopolitics" (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), is more cautious about Shield Space's plans for the evolution of space warfare.

"They remind me of a late Cold War missile-defense scheme called Brilliant Pebbles," he told Space.com. "It was one of the more advanced research and development programs in the Strategic Defense Initiative."

The plan was to defend the U.S. against Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) by using thousands of small autonomous orbiting interceptors to destroy them by collision.

"With enough investment, a lot is feasible," Bowen said.

"But you're looking at many years of development and testing," he added, "and finding someone to buy the system."

It is clear from Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine that the future of warfare includes swarms of low-cost autonomous drones — and Shield Space is already planning an aggressive schedule of missions to prove that this pattern applies to the final frontier as well.

According to Ritchie, the startup hopes to quickly go from the first RPO demonstration to testing two full-sized 16U cubesats. It will then move on to a full carrier of 10 such cubesats, and then to a "super carrier" of 10 carriers, which will be deployed across multiple orbits.

"We then get towards our future vision, which we call space-based carrier strike," said Ritchie. In this scenario, "responsive launch or pre-positioned carriers will give us an ability to protect and defend entire orbits, should you choose."

Editor's note: The original version of this story suggested that Shield Space may be working on "kinetic impact" satellite-defense techniques. The company says it is not doing this, so the story was updated to that effect at 10:45 a.m. ET on Nov. 5.

SpaceX is building and operating two satellite networks at the moment, Starlink and Starshield. What’s the difference between the two, and who uses them?

For more than a week in October 2026, Ukrainian drone operators found their high-speed satellite links shut off. Officials in Kyiv said that terminals for SpaceX’s Starshield network stopped working at speeds of above 160 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour) from Oct. 14, hampering efforts to conduct defensive operations and intercept Russian drones. Full connectivity was restored on Oct. 24, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The arguments over who did what continue, but the affair highlighted how little is publicly understood about Starshield — what it is, how it relates to Starlink, and how it is operated.

What is Starlink?

Starlink is SpaceX’s commercial, mass-market satellite internet service. The company says it now has more than 11,000 Starlink broadband and mobile satellites in orbit, operating approximately 342 miles (550 kilometers) above Earth. This follows years of deployment using the company's Falcon 9 rocket..

The network serves consumers, enterprises and government customers across more than 160 countries. It is owned and operated by SpaceX. Anyone from a rural household to an airline can buy a terminal and a service plan.

Governments are also customers, with public agencies using Starlink for a range of purposes including connectivity, disaster response and national security, notably in the case of Ukraine in the wake of the invasion by Russia, which began in February 2022 and is ongoing.

What is Starshield?

Starshield is SpaceX’s network for serving national security customers. The company announced the program in December 2022, stating it would apply Starlink technology and SpaceX's launch capability to government needs, initially in three areas: Earth observation, communications and hosted payloads.

"They are using the same satellite buses," says Bleddyn Bowen, associate professor of astropolitics at Durham University in the U.K. “They look the same, but they have a lot more kit on them that allows them to do more things. They provide similar broadband internet, but with more secure hardware and software and hardened systems.”

The company says it has won multi-billion-dollar, multiyear contracts from the U.S. military in 2026 for Starshield-related services.

Some Starshield satellites may also carry sensors for intelligence and surveillance. But much about Starshield is secretive, with its finances not revealed and launches often classified.

Starshield makeup

Starshield is made up of a range of different assets, including spy satellites, military data satellites, and secure communications for ground users.

The spy satellites are sent into orbit in launches for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), for a "proliferated architecture" of spy satellites, including electro-optical, radar and relay spacecraft. The NRO does not use the Starshield name, but said earlier this year that it had launched more than 200 satellites in recent years, many of which are for its proliferated architecture.

Then there is the Space Data Network Backbone. The U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX a $2.29 billion fixed-price contract to build the network, previously known as MILNET, using Starshield satellites. It is meant to move data quickly between missile-warning sensors and interceptors as part of the Trump administration's Golden Dome missile defense plan. A prototype is due by the end of 2027. A Space Force official has described MILNET as government-owned and operated by SpaceX as a contractor, under Space Force oversight.

Starshield provides encrypted connectivity for military users through terminals. These can be dedicated Starshield terminals, or Starlink terminals for Starshield services.

Crucially, the networks overlap. "Those Starshield satellites are physically separate from Starlink satellites, but the Starshield satellites can use the Starlink network if they need to," Bowen said. That interoperability is available to U.S. national security users, he added, "but not if you're a commercial user of Starlink."

Use restrictions differ, too. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said that Starlink's terms of service bar its use for offensive drone strikes, while decisions about Starshield use rest with the U.S. government.

Who controls Starshield is a question that entered the public consciousness in the wake of the Ukraine Starshield speed limit affair. The U.S. government is the customer, and also in some cases the owner, but SpaceX builds the satellites, operates the underlying Starlink network on which some Starshield services run and, in some arrangements, operates the Starshield satellites themselves. How this command is divided between the government and SpaceX is unclear.

Bowen compared it to the U.K.’s Skynet military satellite system, in which contractor Babcock operates the satellites. "The actual button punching is done by the contractors, but the military and government are in the room and are calling the shots,” he said.

That question matters, because it determines whether SpaceX can act on its own or only with government oversight and approval.

What’s next?

Starshield appears set to become more central to U.S. military space. The Space Data Network Backbone prototype is expected next year, while NRO launches will continue, according to contracts. With SpaceX now a public company, quarterly reports could provide more insight into the system. For now, however, much remains classified.

Technologies developed and tested in orbit to remove space junk and fix broken satellites can be speedily repurposed to build fleets of bodyguard spacecraft to protect important satellites from adversary attacks, space clean-up company Astroscale thinks.

Astroscale made history with its 2024 up-close in-orbit inspection of a discarded Japanese rocket stage during the pioneering ADRAS-J mission in low Earth orbit (LEO), the region of space below altitudes of 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers).

The firm's ELSA-D mission, which ran from 2021 to 2024, was the first commercial endeavor to demonstrate orbital capture technologies in LEO. Now, this technology can come in handy as Western space assets face increasing threats from Russia.

Speaking on the sidelines of an event in London earlier this month, Alex Godfrey, Astroscale's head of defense, said the company could have a protector spacecraft ready for launch in under three years.

"In in-orbit servicing, we have to achieve very high levels of agility to be able to dock and close to a distance of zero meters to refuel something or remove it from orbit," Godfrey told Space.com. "With space control, you're rarely getting quite as close, so in some ways it's simpler because you are further away."

Space control — a military term for ensuring the space around Earth remains orderly and peaceful — is quickly becoming a hot talking point. Godfrey's remarks came just as the world witnessed in shock as Russia made close-up maneuvers around a radar satellite owned by Finland headquartered Earth-observation company ICEYE. The October incident, described by experts as the first rendezvous of two active satellites in low Earth orbit conducted without the consent of the target, raised concerns Russia may be preparing to damage the satellite, which is part of a fleet providing critical intelligence to Ukraine.

U.S. Under Secretary of State Thomas G. DiNanno described Russia's actions on X as "threatening behavior" and "consistent with on-orbit weapons operations."

The ICEYE incident is only the latest in a long string of activities conducted by Russia in space designed either to eavesdrop on or interfere with the activity of critical Western space assets. The Luch-1 and Luch-2 satellites have been stalking Europe's and America's communications satellites in geostationary orbit — the busy region 22,000 miles (36,000 km) above the planet where satellites have a fixed view of a portion of the globe—since 2014. Germany's military space command chief Major General Michael Traut admitted earlier this year that the Luch spacecraft have been spying on European strategic communications in space for years.

A bodyguard satellite would make sure no such intruder gets dangerously close. Godfrey said that the cost of a bodyguard mission would be on the order of a single percent of the value of a military-grade geostationary communications constellation such as the U.K.'s £8.4-billion Skynet fleet.

"To build a bodyguard satellite is absolutely within the capability and the budget of a single country like the U.K.," said Godfrey. "It would be similar to a carrier strike group where you have a [naval aircraft] carrier, but that carrier never leaves the port on its own. It has an escort of much smaller, lower-cost systems that move around to protect it."

Although Astroscale, headquartered in Japan but with significant presence in the U.K., is a leader in the commercial orbital rendezvous and proximity operations technology, no Western players currently match the deployed capabilities of Russia and China. Europe, in particular, is under-equipped for defense and military operations in space, according to the Secure World Foundation's Global Counterspace Capabilities Report. With Russia's accelerating orbital forays, the clock appears to be ticking.

Godfrey proposes a pan-European fleet of orbital bodyguards patrolling clusters of European assets to ward off future Russian attempts to jam or damage the satellites.

"The UK, for example, has multiple assets in different positions around the geostationary ring," Godfrey said. "That is difficult to protect with a single spacecraft. So what I encourage nations to think about is how to form a geo-patrol force through collaboration. If France has assets in a similar location to the UK and maybe Germany, then it makes sense for one spacecraft to protect two or three allied spacecraft, and then, in another region, another country takes responsibility for the protection."

Nick Shave, the UK managing director at Astroscale, told Space.com that the company sees interest in its technologies and is "in discussions" with "companies and customers across Europe" although it has not signed any contracts to develop bodyguard satellites.

"We have spent a good amount of time talking over the last few years, but now we have to go and really deliver," Shave said. "The UK government is promising funding for space control development from 2030 onwards. So what needs to happen now is really preparing the ground so that we've got the right capabilities, the right investment and the right demonstrator capability, by 2030."

In the meantime, Russia's COSMOS 2612 stalker satellite keeps lingering 298 miles (480 km) from the ICEYE intelligence satellite in LEO, keeping the Western space community on edge.

David Zamora is the chairman of the Space Data Association. He contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The commercialization of space is well underway, and as a result, Earth’s orbit is becoming ever more congested. The current number of active satellites in orbit stands at around 16,000, according to the European Space Agency( ESA), and this number is expected to jump close to 60,000 by 2035, Novaspace projects. While it’s not always given the recognition it deserves, space has fast become a critical infrastructure layer, underpinning nearly all systems that enable modern life as we know it. Therefore, it’s critical that a safe and clean operating landscape is maintained.

Yet this is becoming increasingly challenging, particularly given that, alongside the rapid increase in space traffic, there are also more than 1.2 million pieces of debris over 1 centimeter (0.4 inches) cm in Earth’s orbit, each of which could damage satellites and spacecraft and potentially cause disastrous consequences. With the number of active satellites and debris objects in space continuing to increase, the space environment is under growing pressure.

Balancing expansion with sustainability

Space was once the sole domain of nation states, but this is no longer the case. As technology has advanced, launch costs have decreased, and satellites have become more efficient, smaller and cheaper to build. These changes have democratized space, resulting in a massive increase in space traffic, not least constellations in low Earth orbit (LEO) that comprise thousands of satellites.

Plans are underway to further expand these constellations, and new and even bigger constellations are also expected to launch in the coming years. Added to that, we’re also likely to see the first space-based data centers within the next few years, which may well mark the start of the wholesale shift of data centers from Earth to space, which will further add to the congestion already being felt.

To ensure that space continues to meet our current and future needs, this continued expansion must happen in a sustainable way. Maintaining a safe and clean landscape is more important than ever before, and mitigating the impact of space debris is critical to that effort.

Maintaining a safe environment

Mitigating the impact of debris involves a multipronged approach. Whether intentional or unintentional, the creation of new space debris by future space missions must be minimized as much as possible. This applies during launch, operation, and end of life phases, and satellites and other spacecraft need to be designed with this in mind. Additionally, satellites that are no longer active should not remain in orbit for extended periods, because this only increases the chance of collision events which would create new debris. The standard rule has been 25 years, but there are recommendations now that this should be lowered to five years.

Also critical is the prevention of in-orbit collisions between active satellites and other objects. This is only achievable through effective Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and Space Traffic Coordination (STC) systems. SSA maps out and characterizes objects in space (both satellites and debris), determining their location, trajectory and velocity, while STC actively manages the space traffic identified through SSA to prevent collisions. When a conjunction is probable, SSA/STC service providers alert the operators involved, who then decide whether to undertake a collision-avoidance maneuver.

Extending the operational life of satellites is another important aspect of debris mitigation because it reduces the need for so many new launches, thereby reducing the likelihood of more debris being created. Innovations such as electric propulsion systems that allow for greater maneuverability and extended mission durations are part of the solution, as is in-orbit servicing, maintenance and refuelling.

While these strategies focus on preventing new debris from being created, we also need effective methods for removing existing pieces of debris. This is a rapidly growing sector attracting much investment. Debris-removal technology being developed ranges from physical capture and tethered deorbit to destruction with ground and space-based laser ablation and plasma systems, as well as the emerging concept of mining debris to extract metals and gases for in-orbit processing to feed into the circular space economy.

How stakeholders are responding

The UN views space safety and space sustainability as urgent priorities. Its treaties and agreements focus on preserving the peaceful, safe, and sustainable use of outer space, preventing collisions, managing space debris, and ensuring responsible operations. Governments, space agencies and international organizations are also strengthening their focus on space sustainability.

ESA has launched its Zero Debris strategy, which is aimed at achieving a debris-neutral orbital environment by 2030. As part of this approach, ESA has updated its debris mitigation requirements and standards that will govern how its missions are designed, built, flown and disposed of. It also sets requirements for any company or institution that works with ESA on its missions.

In the U.K., the UK Space Agency is also taking a proactive role in space safety and sustainability through its Active Debris Removal (ADR) program and through the development of space sustainability standards in partnership with industry. It is also in the process of developing a space sustainability strategy to ensure a coordinated approach to sustainable practices in space.

On the other side of the pond, NASA’s Space Sustainability Strategy identifies five key challenges that are felt nationally but also within the wider space community. These include the absence of a single framework for space sustainability that has been accepted by the space community and the fact that space sustainability may be in tension with other mission interests. The strategy defines six goals that are intended to address each of the challenges alongside corresponding objectives to guide NASA’s achievements of the goals.

The U.S. is also building on the National Orbital Debris Mitigation Plan, which was released in 2022, with the Orbital Sustainability (ORBITS) Act. The Act, which has been introduced to the Senate but not yet been enacted into law, seeks to establish a program for the active remediation of orbital debris as well as requiring the development of uniform orbital debris standard practices. The Office of Space Commerce has also developed TraCSS (Traffic Coordination System for Space) to provide basic SSA data and services to civil and private space operators in support of spaceflight safety, although the system is currently in beta mode.

The International Standard Organisation (ISO) is also working on a standard for STC (Space Traffic Coordination) so that SSA activities can be standardized. Titled Space Systems — Space Traffic Coordination (STC), the standard is moving toward final publication, and its core focus is on establishing baseline protocols, data exchange formats and operational requirements for space safety, on-orbit conjunction assessment and collision avoidance.

Beyond today

While these strategies are certainly moving the industry in the right direction, there is a real need to act quickly. Success will rely not only on speed, but also on sustained and collaborative effort, as well as engagement from all space users. The decisions made and actions undertaken over the next decade will shape the space environment for generations to come.

As to whether sustainability becomes a core principle rather than an afterthought, that remains to be seen. There is, however, reason to be optimistic.

Ukraine wants its own satellite-communication system, which shouldn't be surprising given the events of the past week or so.

The Ukrainian military just signed a letter of intent with two Finnish companies — the telecom giant Nokia and satellite maker ICEYE — to look into developing a sovereign satellite-communications network for Ukraine.

"Ukraine needs secure, sovereign and high-performance satellite communications systems that it controls," ICEYE cofounder and CEO Rafal Modrzewski said in a statement today (Oct. 22). "We have a proven track record of delivering sovereign missions at speed to help build that capability. ICEYE has proudly supported Ukraine since 2022, and we remain committed to continuing that support today."

Ukraine relies heavily on satellite-based communications and data to defend itself from Russia, which invaded the nation in February 2022 and continues to attack it with ground troops, missiles and drone strikes.

But Ukraine does not own those satellites. It primarily uses the services provided by SpaceX's Starlink megaconstellation in low Earth orbit (LEO) and Starshield, a military-grade, jamming-resistant version of Starlink employed by the U.S. government and its allies.

Starshield in particular is crucial to Ukraine, as it allows the nation to operate fast-moving drones over large distances in war zones. Ukraine has gotten very good at drone warfare, employing these little robots both in offensive and defensive capacities.

On Oct. 14, however, Ukrainian soldiers and officials reported a severe throttling of their access to Starshield services — a speed limit on terminal-carrying drones, which caused many of them to fall out of the sky.

It's not entirely clear who's behind the throttling. Some U.S. officials have apparently said the order came from Elon Musk, but the billionaire SpaceX founder and CEO put the ultimate responsibility on the Trump administration.

"Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS," Musk said on Oct. 14 via X, the social media platform he owns.

Whoever made the call, it certainly wasn't Ukraine. And the Starshield throttling — which apparently is still in effect — has doubtless reinforced the nation's desire to control its own satellite-communications infrastructure.

"Nations need communications they can rely on in every situation. Satellite networks extend and protect connectivity when networks on the ground are disrupted," Mikko Hautala, Nokia's chief geopolitical and government relations officer and chairman of Nokia Defense, said in the same statement.

"This makes them a key part of any secure communications system," he added. "Through this Letter of Intent, together with Ukraine and ICEYE, we will explore how trusted, sovereign satellite communications can strengthen Ukraine's resilience and give it control over the connectivity it depends on."

Nokia and ICEYE announced on Oct. 1 that they plan to work together to help nations develop such sovereign satcom systems. The partnership with Ukraine follows on from that earlier agreement.

ICEYE has already been aiding the Ukrainian defense effort. The Finnish company and its U.S. subsidiary jointly operate a fleet of Earth-observing satellites in LEO, which study our planet using synthetic aperture radar. Ukraine uses data from the ICEYE constellation for intelligence and planning purposes.

This relationship has put ICEYE — or one of its satellites, at least — in Russia's crosshairs. A Russian inspector satellite called Kosmos 2612 recently made an extremely close approach to ICEYE-X36, which is operated by ICEYE US.

The goal of the unsanctioned rendezvous is unclear. Russia may have wanted to assess the satellite's capabilities or interfere with it in some way. Or perhaps the nation simply wanted to send a message, letting ICEYE (and Ukraine) know that it could mess with satellites if it wanted to.

A Russian satellite just took a very close look at an American spacecraft in low Earth orbit.

A few days ago, the snooping satellite Kosmos 2612 rendezvoused with ICEYE-X36, a commercial craft that observes our planet using synthetic aperture radar (SAR).

The close encounter, which occurred between Oct. 15 and Oct. 19, was reported by Marco Langbroek and other satellite trackers, with Langbroek calling it "a worrisome cat-and-mouse game" in orbit. The rendezvous has garnered a lot of attention in space circles, because it was non-consensual and startlingly close; at one point, the two spacecraft may have been separated by just a few meters. What did Russia hope to gain from it?

Not an isolated incident

Before tackling that question, we need to set the stage a bit. For example, it's important to note that inspections aren't unheard of in the final frontier. Russia, the United States and China have all maneuvered satellites into close proximity of other nations' hardware in recent years.

Most of this activity has taken place in geostationary orbit, which lies 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth. At this altitude, orbital velocity matches our planet's rotational speed, allowing spacecraft to "hover" over one patch of Earth continuously. GEO is therefore a popular destination for spy, communications and weather satellites — and for spacecraft designed to shadow and assess them.

Kosmos 2612 is operating in low Earth orbit (LEO), which is part of the reason its activities have created such a stir. Neither China nor the U.S. has conducted an uncooperative rendezvous in LEO, as far as we know. But Russia has, according to Victoria Samson, chief director of space security and stability for the nonprofit Secure World Foundation.

"They've done a few," she told Space.com. "Kosmos 2543 got within about 30 kilometers [19 miles] of USA 245 in January 2020, and then Kosmos 2558 got within about 70 kilometers [43 miles] of USA 326 in August 2022. And they've done repeated approaches to 326."

Kosmos 2612 got much closer to its target than those other inspectors did, of course. And there's another big difference: USA 245 and USA 326 are classified spy satellites managed by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, while ICEYE-X36 is a private Earth-observing craft.

Eyes in the sky

There are about 80 ICEYE spacecraft in LEO at the moment. They image our planet using SAR, which can peer through clouds and gather data both day and night. Some of these satellites are operated by ICEYE, a company based in Finland, while others are managed by its American subsidiary, ICEYE US. ICEYE-X36 is one of the latter.

At least some ICEYE satellites provide imagery to Ukraine, which Russia invaded in February 2022 and continues to assault with ground troops and missile and drone attacks. Indeed, ICEYE signed a contract this past January firming up this data-sharing relationship with Ukraine.

"The agreement ensures that the Ministry of Defence continues to receive a high volume of high-resolution satellite imagery through ICEYE's world-leading SAR constellation, supporting the Ukrainian Armed Forces with persistent situational awareness on tactical timelines," ICEYE representatives said in a January statement.

That likely explains Russia's interest in ICEYE satellites, which is extensive and longstanding. For example, Kosmos 2612 launched in April of this year with five other spacecraft. In May, four members of this fleet, including Kosmos 2612, conducted maneuvers to get into a co-planar orbit with ICEYE-X36. Such maneuvers use a lot of fuel and are therefore not performed lightly. (It's unclear if ICEYE-X36 is dedicated to capturing imagery of Ukraine or Russia, but Russia certainly seems to think it is.)

However, we still don't know the purpose of Kosmos 2612's close approach (which is apparently over, at least for now), Samson stressed.

There are a few possibilities. For example, Russia may want to get a better idea of ICEYE satellites' capabilities, and/or figure out what exactly they're studying on Earth below. Or maybe Kosmos 2612 was actively interfering with ICEYE-X36 in some way — messing with its sensors, perhaps, or blocking or intercepting its communications with the ground.

However, Samson leans toward another explanation.

"I think they're getting frustrated," she said of the Russians.

"They've been kind of in a stalemate, particularly for the past six months or so. And so I think it's just more a matter of demonstrating military prowess in a manner that the Ukrainians cannot respond to," she added. "The Ukrainians are just as good, perhaps even better than, the Russians on drones. But when it comes to space stuff, they're not peers, and this is just a way to remind everyone that that's the case."

As Kosmos 2612's activities show, space is becoming an increasingly competitive and contested domain. The U.S. has long held the advantage above Earth, fielding the most capable reconnaissance and communications craft, but Russia and China are challenging that dominance.

This drama is unfolding above our heads now, and it affects everyone on the planet. Samson therefore wishes that governments around the world were more forthcoming about their space activities — for example, that we learned about Kosmos 2612's shenanigans from the U.S .Space Force rather than from private companies and civilians who pore over government tracking data.

"I think it just speaks to the importance of transparency, and sharing information about these sort of things," she said. "As much as you may want to, you cannot keep the existence of satellites classified, because people can see them."

The space around Earth is turning into a junkyard. Researchers think a refundable deposit scheme could force satellite operators to clean up their act before a tipping point is reached.

For years, space sustainability experts have warned that the growing number of satellites in orbit and the quantity of dead metal left behind threatens to trigger a dangerous cascade of collisions known as the Kessler Syndrome. Predicted in the 1970s by NASA physicist Donald Kessler, this chain of orbital smashups could make the space around Earth unusable and unsafe.

The dangerous tipping might be nearer than some think. Humankind's utilization of space is at an inflection point, as companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin and Amazon plan to launch constellations of hundreds of thousands of telecommunication satellites and orbiting data centers in the coming years.

"Low Earth orbit looks like lots of other resources that we have trashed as economic actors," Daniel Kaffine, a professor of environmental and resource economics at University of Colorado Boulder, told Space.com.

"Waiting until it gets really, really bad to start implementing any of these types of policy interventions has historically been what we have done," Kaffine added. "But maybe we can think about things we can do right now."

In a paper published last month in the journal Nature Communications, Kaffine and his collaborators propose a scheme that would require satellite operators to post a bond of $200,000 before launch, refundable with interest upon the completion of a successful deorbit. Companies that fail to remove their junk would lose the money, which could go toward a shared pool funding active debris-removal missions, the researchers said.

"You could possibly raise billions of dollars by that," said Kaffine. "We think it's a very neat policy that doesn't require international coordination."

International bodies, such as the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee, ask satellite operators to remove their spacecraft from orbit within 25 years after the mission's end. The American Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposes an even stricter standard — a five-year requirement for satellites in low Earth orbit. Still, a staggering 60% of satellites remain in place when their propellant runs out, the researchers say, as no consequences ensue if they fail to deorbit.

Solving the problem on the international level would be difficult, as international bodies have no powers to enforce compliance. Moreover, the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), which sets down rules for the peaceful exploration of outer space, requires the unanimous support of every member state to pass new regulations, which is nearly impossible to achieve.

"The policy we propose could be implemented on a national level, which is why we think it's interesting," Indigo Brownhall, a space sustainability researcher at University College London and the paper's lead author, told Space.com. "Any country in Europe can request satellites registered with them to follow this bond policy."

To put it simply, no satellite registered in a given country gets to space before putting the money into the kitty. The researchers acknowledge that it might be hard to persuade major players historically averse to regulations, such as the U.S., to roll out such a scheme. But they say a more environmentally conscious block, like the European Union (EU), could enforce compliance by limiting market access to those who observe their rules.

"The consumer market in Europe is massive, like 300 to 400 million people," Brownhall said. "And the EU can request anyone who wants to sell space data or any products in the EU to follow their rules. They did this with GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation]. And you can imagine that somebody like Starlink [SpaceX's satellite-internet subsidiary] surely wants to sell Starlink terminals to Europeans."

The authors estimate that, even if the scheme only covered 20% of global satellite launches, it would reduce the number of derelict satellites careening around the planet by 18%.

Currently, more than 57,000 pieces of space debris larger than 4 inches (10 centimeters) hurtle around Earth completely out of control, according to estimates by the European Space Agency. That's double the figure from less than 10 years ago. Most of these fragments were generated by explosions and orbital collisions that shattered satellites and used rocket stages into clouds of dangerous debris.

"Leaving big satellites that no longer work up there is like a ticking time bomb," Brownhall said. "Active satellites can move out of the way, but when two derelict satellites are going to hit each other, there is nothing you can do but watch it."

Kaffine said the policy could be modelled on U.S. oil operators' bond scheme, in place since the 1960s, which ensures that oil giants plug used oil wells after ceasing extraction.

"If the oil operators clean up after completing the oil production job, they get the money back," said Kaffine. "If they don't, the money goes into a fund, which the government then uses to clean up orphan wells. It's quite an analogous situation to what we see in space."

In the meantime, evidence of the worsening orbital situation is coming thick and fast. Space situational awareness companies such as U.S.-based LeoLabs, which use networks of ground-based radars and telescopes to monitor traffic in space, report increasing numbers of disintegration events — incidents involving either an explosion or a collision between old satellites, fragments and rocket bodies. In the past six months, LeoLabs has reported at least four fragmentation events in space, which together created hundreds of new pieces of space debris.

An old Soviet satellite has fragmented into multiple pieces in low Earth orbit, the latest in a string of recent breakup events that suggest satellites may be facing an increased risk of debris impacts.

The space domain awareness company LeoLabs detected a "debris generating event" in the known orbital location of the Soviet-era Meteor 2-7 weather satellite as it passed over one of their sites in Western Australia. The company said that an estimated "tens of fragments" were detected in the vicinity of the spacecraft, which launched in 1981.

The breakup of Meteor 2-7 follows on the heels of several other satellite fragmentation events in recent months, including that of the U.S. Cold-War-era spy satellite USA 32, which was confirmed to have disintegrated in September 2026. "This is the latest in a series of events we've seen over the last 6 months, LeoLabs wrote on X. "Together, they point to a worrying trend for space safety and security, and underscore the critical need for persistent sensing."

Orbital debris expert Jim Shell pointed out on X that Meteor 2-7 previously broke apart in March 2004. Shell added that the event occurred at an altitude of around 530 miles (855 kilometers), where, he said, "debris spatial density is highest."

Aside from the September breakup of USA 32, a Chinese rocket body also disintegrated in low Earth orbit (LEO) in late August 2026, according to LeoLabs. A SpaceX Starlink satellite experienced a fragmentation event just over four months earlier.

And in January 2026, a Russian "inspector" satellite disintegrated, although in a much higher geostationary orbit.

For years, experts have been warning that the ever-increasing numbers of satellites being placed into orbit are raising the risk of collisions and fragmentation events, which could have a cascading effect; as more satellites break up, they create more pieces of debris, which can then put other spacecraft at risk.

And data support those warnings. In 2005, the European Space Agency (ESA) reported it was tracking about 16,000 pieces of debris in Earth's orbit. By the time it reported the same data in 2026, ESA was tracking more than 44,000, an increase of about 180%. Even though the majority of those fragments are tiny, the high velocities at which they orbit mean they carry a lot of energy, making them capable of causing serious damage if and when they impact spacecraft.

It's not only debris that poses a risk, however. Satellites frequently have to dodge other satellites, particularly as LEO becomes ever more crowded. According to disclosures made by SpaceX in a semiannual report to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission earlier this year, each Starlink satellite performed over 40 avoidance maneuvers per year between June 1, 2025 and May 31, 2026 to get out of the way of debris or other spacecraft.

And some experts say it's only a matter of time before one of those maneuvers is unsuccessful. "I think we're heading towards a situation where there will be a collision involving an operational satellite in the constellation," Hugh Lewis, a space sustainability expert and professor of astronautics at the University of Birmingham in the U.K., previously told Space.com. "And it will not be for the lack of trying to avoid those things. It will be in spite of all those maneuvers."

Despite the increasingly worrying data and warnings from experts, however, private companies and governments worldwide continue planning to launch tens of thousands of more satellites each year in vast megaconstellations. SpaceX has repeatedly said it wants to put 1 million data center satellites in orbit, for example.

And we've already seen that the increasing amount of orbital space debris is putting astronauts at risk.

In February 2026, China experienced a brief emergency aboard its Tiangong space station when the "lifeboat" spacecraft for three of its astronauts was damaged by a piece of debris, rendering it unsafe for a return voyage. Three of the nation's astronauts (or taikonauts) were left without a lifeboat for 10 days.

The U.S. Space Force is opening up about its operation of orbital weapons, but not much beyond admitting that they exist.

During a "State of the Space Force" address at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, on Tuesday (Sept. 15), Chief of Space Operations Gen. Douglas Schiess stated unequivocally that the Space Force uses active space-based weaponry to support United States national defense.

“Let me be crystal clear: Today, Guardians operate on-orbit weapons that can defend the joint force against space-enabled attacks,” Schiess said, referring to the official name for Space Force personnel.

Space is central to national security infrastructure and warfighting efforts, and serves a critical role in how the military communicates, navigates, conducts operations and tracks threats globally. It’s become an increasingly contested domain, with adversaries developing technologies designed to disrupt or destroy satellites in orbit as well as hypersonic weapons that challenge ground-based-only defenses.

Schiess didn’t specify what kind of weapons the U.S. operates in orbit, how many there are, or what exactly they do. But the revelation that the Space Force is operating those kinds of assets is by itself a pretty hefty admission. The news expands the known scope of U.S. military activity in the final frontier, which already included the use of satellites for GPS, communications, missile warnings and other targeting and intelligence operations.

“Space is both a battlefield and the backbone of our joint force,” Schiess said. “We face determined and credible adversaries who are building counter-space systems at incredible speeds to target directly the United States’ space advantage.”

The chief adversaries are China and Russia, experts have said. Both nations have developed a range of counterspace capabilities intended to threaten or interfere with other satellites, including through electronic warfare and anti-satellite (ASAT) systems. Russia demonstrated as much in 2021, when it destroyed one of its own spacecraft with an ASAT missile, which created a cloud of more than 1,500 pieces of orbital debris.

The U.S. has been rapidly expanding its own military presence in orbit over the past decade or so, and is ramping up those efforts even more with plans for the implementation of President Trump’s Golden Dome missile interception system. In the last year alone, the Space Force has awarded more than $12 billion in major contracts to companies like SpaceX, Rocket Lab, L3Harris and Boeing for a wide range of services, including national security launches, space-based tracking satellites and other defense technologies.

Schiess pointed to the Victus Haze mission as an example of how the Space Force is getting ready to react to orbital threats on short notice. Rocket Lab carried out Victus Haze in June, launching an Electron rocket and interceptor spacecraft within just 17 hours of receiving notice from the Space Force, setting a launch turnaround record.

Schiess also highlighted the Space Force’s critical role in Operation Epic Fury and the ongoing engagement of U.S. military forces in Iran. “Guardians are not supporting from the sidelines as a nice-to-have, but we are delivering space power directly into the fight as a need-to-have,” he said. Schiess even gave an anecdotal example of the actions of one Guardian, “Specialist Gray,” in the heat of battle.

“Even as alarm red sirens were blaring and incoming missiles targeted her site, she courageously held the line, protecting forces, denying adversary capability, and delivering space effects until her commander had to literally pull her from the console to safety,” Schiess said.

Schiess described her operations before she was pulled from that console, giving some clue as to what exactly is meant by “on-orbit weapons.”

He said the Guardian in question needed to “reconfigure her weapon system and execute critical non-kinetic fires,” and went on to add, “She locked onto the target, optimized her weapon system and waged electromagnetic warfare against a determined adversary.”

Those descriptions offer at least some clues about the technologies involved. Phrases like “electromagnetic warfare” and “non-kinetic” could point to signal jamming technology or other non-physical means of disrupting a target.

Schiess said the Space Force intends to continue expanding its combat power with more robust architectures and the ability to respond with increasing speed to evolving threats. That proliferation on behalf of Golden Dome and other national security programs stands to deliver substantially more military hardware into orbit in the coming years, but Schiess framed the buildup around the prevention of conflict, rather than its provocation.

“Our aim is deterrence,” he said.

For decades, researchers have been monitoring armed conflict around the world by analyzing news reports and collecting oral testimonies. This approach, while valuable, has its limitations. A new study suggests that a satellite's view from above might fill the gaps in our understanding of the grim realities of war.

In 2017, the Myanmar Army murdered several hundred Muslim Rohingya civilians in the village of Chut Pyin near the country's western coast. Reports of the massacre in the settlement of about 2,000 reached the world through the testimonies of survivors who fled to neighboring Bangladesh. The massacre was part of a years-long campaign of brutality against the Muslim minority conducted by the Buddhist-run state. Satellite data later showed that houses in the predominantly Rohingya neighborhood were burned down by the Myanmar military during the atrocity, providing undeniable proof that the ethnic minority was targeted.

The incident is one of many demonstrating the advantage of adding views from space into conflict research, study lead author Valerie Sticher, a political science researcher at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, told Space.com.

"We have huge data sets about wars around the world going back 40 years," Sticher said. "But those datasets are based mostly on media reports. And these reports are not always available and not always reliable. Media can have biases and often focus only on certain types of violence."

For example, human reporters are more likely to focus on the numbers of people killed rather than the number of houses destroyed, she said. Satellites, on the other hand, provide a broad sweep over vast areas of land and, crucially, revisit the same location repeatedly. They can reveal patterns in conflicts and trends that could otherwise go undetected, while providing an overview of areas controlled by authoritarian regimes.

The researchers are now developing a methodology to integrate satellite observations into conflict research and create automated image analysis pipelines that would generate early warnings and alert the world to what's happening on the ground.

"Automated satellite data analysis would allow us to respond faster," said Sticher. "For example, in Myanmar, the area affected by ethnic cleansing was closed to independent journalists and investigators. Satellite data was the earliest reliable information to reach the outside world."

Hannes Mueller, a conflict researcher at the Spanish National Research Council, said that totalitarian governments can be very good at preventing information about atrocities from reaching the world. However, they can hardly fool satellites.

"In Myanmar, for example, when the military clears villages, they frequently kill everybody in those villages," he said. "Then you don't have any eyewitnesses for you to find out what's going on. But they usually also destroy the entire village, and so the violence leaves a mark from space."

Mueller was not involved in the new study but has used satellites in his work since the conflict in Syria in the early 2010s. He lauds the new paper for trying to "plot the road" for a more systematic integration of satellite data into conflict-monitoring data sets.

"Imagine we could generate a data stack of the entire world of all housing destruction since 2020 without any gaps in it," he said. "That would be a complete breakthrough!"

But satellites, too, have their limitations, he said. Currently, spacecraft must be tasked to take images and beam them to Earth. Because of the limited download availability, they can't image every spot they fly over, meaning they usually only reveal the aftermath of catastrophic incidents. For example, the Syrian city of Homs only became the focus of satellite imaging campaigns after the Syrian military attacked it with heavy artillery to suppress pro-democracy protests.

"There are no images of Homs before it got attacked," said Mueller. "There is no archival data of the city from before. Then, after the attack, you suddenly get lots."

In the future, onboard AI image processing — which some of the commercial satellite Earth-observation companies have already rolled out — might solve the problem. Machine learning algorithms running on computers on board the satellites will be able to detect incidents of potential interest and autonomously select significant images to send to the ground.

But there are other concerns. Just as authoritarian regimes can deny access to warzones to independent journalists, governments can order Earth-observation companies to restrict access to images of specific areas. In fact, the U.S. government did just that earlier this year when it ordered American commercial Earth-observation providers like Planet Labs to stop releasing high-resolution images of the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz amid the escalating conflict in the region. The U.S also asked Europe to delay releasing images of that region captured by the European Sentinel satellites by 24 hours.

"With that, we are back to the same biases that we have with the news reporting," Mueller said. "We need to think about infrastructure that would provide us with transparency. That would really be a revolution in conflict research."

The new study was published in the journal Nature on Sept. 9.