Space communications startup AnySignal expands into undersea market. AnySignal, Andrenam plan to develop acoustic modems that would allow submerged systems to exchange data with remote operators through surface buoys and satellite networks, aiming to make it easier to move data from the ocean to operators anywhere in the world.

1,000 planets have been discovered with data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The new additions also bring the archive's total confirmed planet count to 6,445. There are currently 4,823 TESS Project Candidates waiting to be confirmed, and data for more than 8,000 candidates have been uploaded to it's sister archive, the Exoplanet Follow-up Observing Program (ExoFOP). The following sky maps were created based on TESS observations from the first 96 sectors. Each pink dot is a TESS confirmed planet.

The Lithuanian space startup Astrolight has announced the successful commissioning of a space-to-ground laser communication link. The link company’s ATLAS-1 laser communication terminal aboard ERMIS-3, an 8U cubesat led by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens as part of the ERMIS mission, connected with HolOGS-1, the optical ground station of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece.

New fossils from South Africa are reshaping the story of early human evolution. Researchers have described 18 hominin fossils from Drimolen Cave, including an adult Homo erectus skull fragment dated to about 2 million years ago, supporting evidence that the species appeared in southern Africa roughly 200,000 years earlier than long thought. The finds also reveal that Paranthropus robustus, which lived alongside Homo erectus, was gradually evolving even larger teeth and stronger chewing muscles as the climate changed.

The Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud (AMEC) forms, stretches and fades within a single Martian day, growing up to 1,800 km (1,118 miles) long before evaporating. The cycle repeats every morning for several months.

Astronomers have confirmed a powerful radio galaxy from nearly 12.5 billion years ago. The source, TXS 2354+015, was originally identified as a high-redshift candidate from its characteristic drop in optical light, and follow-up spectroscopy placed it at a redshift of 4.946.

RTX’s Raytheon unit won a multiyear contract worth up to $24.4 billion to produce Standard Missile-6 interceptors for the U.S. Navy, as the Pentagon pushes to replenish munitions stockpiles depleted by conflicts.

France’s Air Force, together with the country’s Directorate General for Armament and the agency for defense Artificial Intelligence, plans to fly crewed fighter jets in collaboration with combat drones in 2028, part of a project to experiment with AI in combat aviation dubbed Hypairion.

GEOSAT is expanding the use of high-resolution Earth observation data through the Very High-Resolution (VHR) satellite imagery solutions, providing optical satellite imagery, multispectral data and geospatial analytics for applications ranging from agriculture and mapping to infrastructure monitoring, maritime surveillance, environmental management, emergency response, energy and mining and defense and security.

Anduril Industries and Voyager Technologies announced a strategic partnership to accelerate the development, testing, qualification and production of critical technologies for advanced U.S. weapon systems and missile defense. Anduril and Voyager are already collaborating across multiple strategic weapons programs.

Sophia Space is developing a new class of computing infrastructure designed specifically for the space environment. The modular TILE architecture integrates high-performance computing, solar power and passive radiative thermal management into scalable systems designed for Artificial Intelligence (AI) inference, data processing and other compute-intensive workloads in orbit. By combining Sophia Space's compute architecture with Redwire's space infrastructure and engineering capabilities, the companies aim to address one of the central challenges facing the emerging orbital computing market: moving from individual technology demonstrations toward the repeatable, scalable infrastructure needed for the global build-out of orbital data centers.

Outpost is developing StarFiber, a space-manufactured optical fiber designed to take advantage of microgravity conditions to produce materials with properties that can be difficult to achieve on Earth. Built using heavy metal fluoride glass technology, StarFiber is intended to extend optical transmission deeper into the infrared spectrum than conventional silica fiber, opening potential applications in communications, sensing, quantum technology, defense, artificial intelligence infrastructure and medicine.

Varda Space Industries, a company that operates reentry spacecraft for pharmaceutical and hypersonics research applications, has raised $251 million as it prepares to launch three missions in the next month. The company said W-8 will carry an interior payload from Canopy Aerospace & Defense to monitor the performance of the spacecraft’s heat shield during reentry, while the heat shield itself will test new thermal protection materials from the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Prometheus program and another undisclosed Defense Department partner. W-9 will carry a navigation system inside the spacecraft provided by the Defense Department that will collect data during hypersonic flight. The heat shield will test next-generation composite materials from Syensqo. Varda is also preparing to launch W-7 on a separate mission later in October. That mission will focus on pharmaceutical research, testing a new cancer medicine called PROTAC that shows promise but is difficult to formulate in ways the body can absorb effectively. Varda, which developed the pharmaceutical payload internally, will test whether the microgravity environment can help produce alternative crystal structures that are more effective.

Elethron has secured a payload reservation aboard the commercial space station Starlab to test and refine advanced substrate manufacturing in microgravity. Under the agreement, Elethron will deploy its ĀTAR platform—an autonomous, modular in-space materials-processing laboratory—to Starlab for a six-month pilot program. Operating in LEO eliminates gravity-driven convection and buoyancy, allowing materials to form with fewer crystal defects and improved compositional uniformity.

NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) issued a G1 – Minor geomagnetic storm watch for October 2, 2026, following a large filament eruption and associated coronal mass ejection (CME) on September 28. SWPC expects glancing effects from the CME, while NASA models place its arrival near the start of October 2 with an uncertainty of several hours. NASA’s Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) said a large solar filament extending approximately from S10W50 to N45W50 began lifting off at about 13:51 UTC on September 28. The associated CME was first observed west of the Sun in imagery from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory’s Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph C2 at 14:36 UTC.

The Nova Systems Space Precinct has continued to strengthen its role in Australia's growing space industry, supporting national and international missions while providing infrastructure for the global space economy. Among the precinct's key achievements has been providing critical ultra-high frequency (UHF) ground segment support for SpIRIT, the first satellite mission funded by the Australian Space Agency.

Nioa will use the stage of the Land Forces International Defence Exposition in Perth to unveil for the first time the training and live payload being developed for the SYPAQ Systems Corvo Counter small Uncrewed Aerial System (CsUAS) interceptor platform.

NASA is working with Boeing to launch an unpiloted Starliner capsule in the December-January time frame to test upgrades and improvements. If the unpiloted test flight goes well, NASA and Boeing hope to launch a piloted Starliner flight in mid 2028.

SpaceX and NASA are preparing to send the next crew of four to the ISS. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13, is led by NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins, who will become the first agency astronaut to fly twice onboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. She along with NASA Astronaut Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov, will fly onboard Dragon Grace to the ISS for a six-month expedition.

Star Catcher Industries, has its prototype power node, Protostar, prepared for launch at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Launching aboard SpaceX's Transporter-18 mission scheduled for October 2026, the Protostar mission aims to conduct a landmark power beaming demonstration between two untethered spacecraft, a feat that has never been achieved.