Delphi relies on many commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) parts.

Brian Taylor founded Lux Aeterna in 2024 after building satellites for SpaceX Starlink, Amazon Project Kuiper (now Amazon Leo), and Loft Orbital.

Delphi has a mass of about 200 kilograms with just under 25% designated for payload capacity.

Data collected by the Smile satellite will contribute to understanding physical mechanisms that govern interactions between the Sun and Earth relevant to space weather.

ESA and industrial partner technical teams at the Guiana Space Centre perform functional checks, system checks, and integration of spacecraft with the launcher.

Smile carries scientific instruments specifically designed to observe the region of interaction between the solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field.

The Smile mission is a scientific cooperation between the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Pre-launch activities for Smile at the Guiana Space Centre include final environmental tests, integration with the launch system, and subsystem validation procedures.

The Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana functions as the European spaceport for ESA and its institutional and commercial partners.

On 9 March 2026 the Smile satellite was transferred to the launch site managed by the European Space Agency at the Guiana Space Centre.

The Guiana Space Centre’s geographic location near the equator provides favorable launch conditions for satellites to a variety of orbits.

Space weather phenomena studied by Smile can influence satellites, communications systems, and terrestrial energy infrastructure.

The Smile mission is designed to study interactions between the solar wind and Earth’s magnetosphere.

The Smile spacecraft arrived at the Guiana Space Centre (Europe Spaceport) in French Guiana.

The National Reconnaissance Office awarded a 23-month dedicated contract to HawkEye 360 for tactical RF data and analytics capabilities aligned to EUCOM mission requirements.

The National Reconnaissance Office, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and a European Ministry of Defense are locked in as government anchor tenants for HawkEye 360.

Innovative Signal Analysis is a 28-year-old signals-processing company with deep government pedigree in the U.S. intelligence community.

In 24 months, HawkEye 360 acquired wideband spectrum scanning and AI-enhanced signal characterization capabilities from the only independent commercial owners who had built them to a government-certifiable standard.

A European Ministry of Defense awarded HawkEye 360 a contract valued at up to $75 million for Air Defense and GPS Interference Monitoring services in early March 2026.

HawkEye 360 completed a strategic acquisition of Innovative Signal Analysis in December 2025.

The window for multi-source RF-GEOINT procurement has narrowed to one primary integrated vendor.

HawkEye 360 closed a $150 million Series E financing round anchored by NightDragon and Center15 in December 2025.

POLARIS Spaceplanes is developing multiple vehicles for defence and commercial hypersonic testing and space transportation applications.

The Space Rider-derived REV1 concept being developed by Space Cargo Unlimited and Thales Alenia Space is not fully reusable in its current form.

Dassault Aviation’s VORTEX project is a prominent European spaceplane project.

AndroMach is developing a small ENVOL spaceplane designed for a rocket-powered takeoff and ascent to a maximum altitude of 200 kilometres followed by a controlled glide phase for recovery.

The European Space Agency published a call for the design of a fully reusable, responsive launch system that employs spaceplanes.

POLARIS Spaceplanes was founded in 2019.

The ESA call encourages proposals that include novel propulsion techniques and identifies detonation and air-breathing-based propulsion systems as potential avenues of exploration.

The ESA call is restricted to non-prime contractors, limiting eligibility to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Dawn Aerospace is headquartered in New Zealand and developed the small Aurora spaceplane.

FAST Aerospace is developing the HyperDart launch system intended to deliver payloads of up to 250 kilograms to low Earth orbit.

Dawn Aerospace has a European subsidiary based in the Netherlands that has been focused on propulsion solutions.

The ESA call invites proposals for a fully reusable spaceplane system and targets at least two distinct design concepts.

AndroMach was founded in 2023.

FAST Aerospace was founded in 2024.

ESA operates the Space Rider programme.

ESA published the call on 27 February.

AndroMach’s larger ÉTOILE vehicle is designed for orbital flights and will be launched atop a rocket.

Current reusable launch systems are primarily based on classic launcher architectures that use liquid rocket engines.

Dassault Aviation and the companies involved in ESA’s Space Rider programme are not SMEs.

POLARIS Spaceplanes’ vehicles use jet engines for takeoff and landing phases and aerospike rocket engines to accelerate into space.

The Santiago Optical Ground Station is supported by the European Space Agency and transitions ground-station communications from radio frequency dependencies to high-bandwidth laser-based communication.

The NODES network began operational trials in Western Australia in early 2025 and is now capable of supporting direct-to-Earth laser links across two continents.

The Santiago OGS passed site acceptance testing and is integrated into the NODES (Network of Optical Stations For Data Transfer To Earth From Space) project.

The ESA ScyLight program focuses on maturing European-made optical and quantum communications technologies to provide secure and resilient connectivity for member states and global partners.

SSC Space's new Optical Ground Station at its existing satellite station north of Santiago became operational on March 10, 2026.

Safran Space manufactured the Santiago OGS with a design capability to support data rates up to 10 Gbit/s.

Hanna Sundberg is Optical Program Manager at SSC Space.

SSC Space has a goal of achieving carbon-neutral operations by 2040.