This Week in Space Tech #14

Welcome to This Week in Space Tech, covering 17 to 23 November 2025.

Launches and on orbit activity

A SpaceX Falcon 9 launched the Copernicus Sentinel 6B ocean monitoring satellite from Vandenberg, with liftoff late on 16 November local time and orbital operations beginning on 17 November. The spacecraft extends a 30 year data record on global sea level that underpins both climate science and coastal policy.

Two Starlink flights from Florida framed the week. A mission on 18 November carried 29 second generation smallsats from Cape Canaveral in an early evening launch that marked a return to more flexible timing after temporary FAA restrictions.

On 20 November, another Falcon 9 flight from Kennedy Space Center delivered a Starlink batch and quietly set a record as the 100th orbital launch of 2025 from Florida’s Space Coast, underscoring just how dense the launch calendar has become.

China added to its own constellation activity on 19 November, sending three Shijian 30 satellites to low Earth orbit on a Long March 2C from Jiuquan. Officials said the trio will monitor the space environment and support technology demonstrations.

Rocket Lab broadened the picture with atmosphere skimming, not broadband. A HASTE suborbital mission flew from Wallops Island on 18 November, carrying hypersonic test payloads for the US Missile Defense Agency and Defense Innovation Unit and reinforcing Rocket Lab’s role as a national security test partner.

Governments, policy and strategy

Germany used the run up to ESA’s CM25 ministerial to signal a bigger role in European space. Research minister Dorothee Baer said Berlin plans to raise its ESA commitment from about 3.5 billion euros to as much as 5 billion euros over the next three year cycle, and tied that increase to a broader 35 billion euro space security strategy.

In the UK, the UK Space Agency awarded nearly 7 million pounds in fresh funding under ESA’s ARTES program to five satellite technology projects, including propulsion and refueling work that aims to keep European operators competitive in on orbit servicing and advanced communications.

NASA leaned into public outreach and science with a live event on 19 November to showcase imagery of interstellar comet 3I ATLAS captured by a fleet of spacecraft, followed by the release of higher resolution images on 20 November after delays linked to the recent US government shutdown.

Space policy circles also digested remarks from US Space Force leadership about a forthcoming 15 year roadmap, signaling that procurement and architecture decisions for military space assets are about to get more predictable and long dated.

Startups, contracts and new capabilities

Orbit Fab, the self styled gas station in space company, landed a headline refueling contract backed by ESA and the UK Space Agency. The deal centers on its RAFTI refueling interface and GRASP capture system, moving xenon and other propellants from PowerPoint decks into operational European missions later this decade.

DARPA awarded Redwire a 44 million dollar contract to build what it calls the world’s first air breathing satellite, designed to ingest residual atmosphere in very low Earth orbit and use it as propellant. If it works, it could unlock long lived imaging and relay platforms flying closer to Earth for sharper pictures and faster links.

The same UKSA ARTES funding call that supported Orbit Fab also delivered grants for partners such as Viasat and smaller UK firms, seeding hardware for smarter ground segment software, secure links, and more flexible payloads. For startups, it is a reminder that agency grants in Europe can still meaningfully de risk frontier tech.

On the conference circuit, Space Tech Expo Europe in Bremen ran from 18 to 20 November and effectively became a deal room for hardware suppliers, launch providers and newspace founders, just as governments were unveiling their ESA positions and funding levels.