satellites

Two Spanish space giants have joined forces to take 5G defense satellites into space: PLD Space and Sateliot

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Two Spanish companies they have sealed an agreement to launch new generation satellites without depending on any other foreign company. In Europe we have been with the run run of technological sovereignty. This agreement is a perfect example of this, and also a milestone for Spain if the project ends up materializing. The agreement. PLD Space, manufacturer of the Miura 5 rocket based in Elche, and Sateliot, a telecommunications satellite operator based in Barcelona, ​​have signed a contract to launch two satellites from Sateliot’s Tritó constellation aboard the Miura 5. The launch is scheduled for the last quarter of 2027, expectedly on the fourth commercial flight of the Elche rocket, and will do so from the Kourou Space Port, in French Guiana. Each satellite weighs about 160 kilos and will be launched on a dedicated mission, without sharing space with other operators. Why is it important? This agreement is presented as the first entirely Spanish private space mission, with satellites designed, manufactured and operated in the country, launched using a rocket also of Spanish origin. And the interesting thing about the project is that it would cover the entire value chain of the sector (manufacturing, launch, operations and commercial exploitation) without foreign intermediaries. Although the European Union has been trying for years reduce your dependence on operators like SpaceXthis alliance fits directly into this context. What are Tritó satellites? The Tritó constellation is a significant evolution of the current satellites that Sateliot has, weighing 15 kg and dedicated exclusively to the Internet of Things (IoT). In this case, the new Tritó have greater capacity and will combine IoT connectivity with direct device-satellite communication (D2D), including data, voice and video through 5G. Marco Guadalupi, CTO of Sateliot, counted to El Español that one of its key points is that they will be able to “establish the connection when the device is in the pocket”, being key for emergencies, natural disasters and defense applications. The risk they assume. Guadalupi does not hide that it is “a risky mission.” The Miura 5 is a new rocket, whose first launch test is scheduled for the end of this year, and its reliability has yet to be demonstrated in real flight. “We are crazy and we know what we want,” I was joking Guadalupi himself in the interview with the media. The Sateliot team claims to have visited the PLD Space integration and testing facilities on three occasions before signing. In exchange for the risk, they get something that few options on the market offer: a dedicated mission, without competing for space, and the flexibility to adapt flight conditions to their specific needs. Review. Last November, PLD Space closed financing of 169 million euros through ESA’s European Launcher Challenge, backed almost entirely by Spain, for launch contracts and improvements to the Miura 5. Sateliot, for its part, has plans to deploy up to 100 satellites in 2028 and aims to reach revenues of 1 billion euros in 2030, according to they count from Reuters. Among its shareholders is Indra, with 4% of the capital. The agreement with PLD Space also occurs while Sateliot is opening market in India. Jaume Sanpera, CEO of the company, traveled to the Asian country coinciding with the announcement, where the company already has headquarters and sees potential for a future business in which they offer connectivity in remote areas. What’s coming Before the satellites board the Miura 5, Sateliot plans to launch a prototype of the Tritó platform in mid-2027 to validate the payload. The more capable commercial satellites would be integrated into the rocket in the final stretch of that same year. Regarding the total number of satellites they hope to put into orbit, Guadalupi counted that “there will be hundreds.” Sateliot’s intention is to centralize launches to simplify logistics, and although they do not rule out other suppliers, they aim to continue working with PLD Space. Cover image | Satellite In Xataka | A new “solar system” has just been discovered. There’s just one problem: it shouldn’t exist.

fry Starlink satellites

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Starlink is much more than a service that provides internet anywhere in the world, as demonstrated in the Ukrainian warit is also a strategic technology. For China, Starlink satellites are a threat to national security and They have been looking for ways to neutralize them with lasers for some time. Now, researchers have developed a weapon that could fry them without problem. Microwave. They tell it in South China Morning Post. Researchers at the Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology have developed a generator for a high-power microwave weapon. Its name is TPG1000Cs and it is capable of delivering 20 gigawatts of power, plus it can run for a full minute. It represents a notable leap with respect to other systems that were only capable of operating for a few seconds, in addition to being much more voluminous. Click on the image to open the post in X Starlink in the spotlight. Elon Musk’s satellite network keeps China awake at night, to the point that academic articles proposing solutions to neutralize them They are counted by tens. The reason, as we said, is Starlink’s ability to tip the balance in a conflict, such as a hypothetical invasion of Taiwan. It already happened in the Ukrainian war: Starlink became the communications backbone of the Ukrainian armyallowing them to react quickly even if ground communications had been destroyed. lighter. In addition to offering much greater power, the TPG1000Cs is also much more compact and lighter. It measures 4 meters and weighs 5 tons, which may seem like a lot, but there are other microwave weapons such as Sinus-7 which weighs 10 tons and only works for a maximum of 3 seconds. To achieve this, they have used an aluminum alloy and have also designed the energy storage tubes in a U shape, so that the energy bounces back and forth, offering the same performance in a smaller space. This makes it more manageable when transporting it by land, sea or there is even talk of the possibility of placing it in orbit. invisible attack. The use of such a weapon It presents a series of advantages. What it does is store a large amount of energy and release it in a concentrated and very intense beam. On the one hand, the absence of a projectile prevents an explosion from occurring and generating debris, which in turn could impact other satellites. On the other hand, the fact that it is an invisible attack gives the attacker the option of denying their involvement, something that it has already happened in other cases. Effectiveness. According to researchers’ estimates, a microwave weapon with an output of one gigawatt could disrupt communications from Starlink satellites operating in lower orbits. Starlink has had to reduce the orbit of its satellites to avoid collisionsmaking them more vulnerable to ground attacks with directed energy weapons like this one. If China also places its new weapon in orbit, it would be even more lethal. In Xataka | China increasingly dominates technology on Earth. There is a place where it is still very far from the West: space Images | Starlink, Pexels

another company already has permission for a constellation of 4,000 satellites

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The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has authorized Logos Space Services to deploy up to 4,178 satellites broadband in low Earth orbit. A few days ago we also discovered that Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos, was getting on board the satellite internet race for corporate clients with the approval of some 5,408 satellites. Low Earth orbit begins a new period of competition in which, until now, starlink dominated. Why it matters. Starlink dominates the sector with approximately 9,600 operational satellites of the nearly 14,000 that currently orbit the Earth, according to data of the European Space Agency. The recent approval of Logos satellites begins to break the hegemony that Elon Musk’s company had until now. Just like account Satnews, the US regulator, under Brendan Carr, has taken a more agile approach to approving mega-constellations and maintaining US space leadership. Who is behind. Logos Space Services was founded in 2023 by Milo Medin, former project manager at NASA and former vice president of wireless services at Google, together with veteran Rama Akella. According to SpaceNewsthe company, based in Redwood City (California), last year closed a Series A financing round of $50 million led by US Innovative Technologies (USIT), the investment fund of businessman Thomas Tull that has also bet on companies such as Anduril or Stoke Space. The deployment plan. Just like point In the middle, the satellites will operate in seven different orbital layers, located between 870 and 925 kilometers in altitude, with inclinations ranging from 28 to 90 degrees. FCC regulations require Logos to launch and operate half of the constellation over the next seven years, completing full deployment by January 30, 2035. According to has declared Medin himself told SpaceNews, the company only needs about a quarter of the proposed satellites to serve its global customers. The goal is to have the first operational satellite in orbit by 2027. The key difference with Starlink. While Starlink focuses on offering home and consumer internet, Logos presents itself as a specialized alternative for business and government users, very similar to the proposal from Blue Origin. According to the company, the constellation will use high-frequency spectrum bands (V, E, Ka and Q/V), which allow extremely narrow beams that are difficult to intercept or block, ideal specifications for the war conflicts we currently have underway. Furthermore, just as point Satnews, the satellites will incorporate coherent optical links between them, reducing dependence on terrestrial infrastructure and creating a more resilient global network with lower latency. The target market. Logos is not looking to compete for home users, but rather to offer MPLS and Ethernet connectivity services with “fiber-like performance” for multinational companies, remote data centers or offshore naval vessels. This dual-use (civil and military) approach is what has attracted investors like USIT. “A secure and resilient communications infrastructure is a fundamental requirement for both global competitiveness and business operations,” declared Peter Tague, managing partner of USIT, in the statement announcing the FCC approval. Partial regulation. The authorization occurred on January 30, although the FCC partially granted the proposal: it approved operations in the K, Q and V bands under certain conditions, but deferred and denied parts of the requests at higher frequencies. Logos had presented its initial plans in 2024 for 3,960 satellites, later expanding the proposal to 4,178 after refining the design. And now what. The European Space Agency esteem that by 2030 there will be 100,000 satellites in orbit. SpaceX has requested The FCC recently gave permission to launch one million Starlink satellites, although the final figure is likely closer to the 7,500 approved in previous rounds. Cover image | Satellite In Xataka | We knew that there was water on Mars, but not how much. It turns out that 3.37 billion years ago an ocean covered half the planet

This is the impressive interactive map to see the Earth in 4K live from space and monitor satellites

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Cartographically speaking, our planet is fascinating: its evolution over time, what it’s really like taking into account the precision of physics and of course, per se: the mountain ranges, the irregularities of the coasts, the tectonic plates… all of that looks great from space. And be careful, because the space that surrounds the Earth It is full of satellites: only Starlink ones around 15,000 units. But satellites allow us to have a fabulous view of the earth. And in fact, some of the main space projects that monitor the Earth have their recordings open, without going any further, what the International Space Station “sees” either NASA events They are available to anyone. The problem is that not everyone knows it, nor do the tools shine for having a clear and intuitive interface. So to someone who loves astronomy it occurred to him to create it to follow from satellites to shooting stars or racing cars. SatellitesArg Although you can see the Earth from space live and in 4K without doing anything, it is worth setting your location for a more personalized and precise experience of everything it offers. From here, there are several ways to select a satellite to follow, some as intuitive as tapping on “Satellites” and selecting from the list (there are some as popular as Starlink or BlueWalker 3) to see, for example, the ISS live camera. However, you can also save them to your favorites. Another interesting option is “Visible Passage”, which is what happens when a satellite crosses the sky illuminated by the Sun while it is night in your location. To do this, simply select a specific satellite, open it on the map and click “Visible path”. Within “Best steps” those satellites that will be highest and brightest in the coming days are shown. Likewise, there are filters to, for example, see only the steps at dawn or dusk. The “Radar” option is used to locate a specific satellite, something especially interesting if done from a mobilesince with the help of the compass you can hunt it at some point in the sky. You can also view those that are nearby, use augmented reality to superimpose the trajectory using your phone’s camera. Although you can see in real time, you can also go back to monitor past trajectories and have access to astronomical events, the phases of the moon and even have a map of the stars in the sky. But even if you don’t take advantage of all those functions, the option to see the Earth in real time in 4K by tapping on “ISS Live Camera” It is simply spectacular. In Xataka | This map shows what the Earth will be like in 250 million years. If it comes true, Spain will be very lucky In Xataka | The Earth has moons that we don’t know about: exploring them is key to revealing the secrets of our solar system

Until now, launching satellites was the business. The US has just turned its exorbitant cost into a million-dollar opportunity

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For years, the space business has revolved around a very specific idea: launch more satellites, faster and cheaper. The race to fill low Earth orbit with large constellations has skyrocketed demand and turned takeoff into a multibillion-dollar industry, but it has also brought to the table a problem that for a long time remained in the background: what to do with these satellites when they reach the end of their useful life and continue to take up space in orbit. In this context, the United States has taken a decisive step by promoting and beginning to materialize the exorbitant market. New business on the horizon. This step forward has already resulted in a concrete contract. Starfish Space has been awarded of an agreement valued at 52.5 million dollars by the Space Development Agency (SDA) of the United States Space Force to offer a service for deorbiting satellites at the end of their useful life. The assignment includes the development, launch and operation of the otter ship in low orbit intended to deorbit satellites of the PWSA when they are no longer operational, with a first operation and the possibility of carrying out several more. The launch is planned for 2027. behind the scenes. This shift cannot be understood without the economic context that has turned space into a high-volume industry. Global space launch services market reached $21.19 billion by 2025 and, according to estimates by Precedence Researchcould climb to 70,560 million in 2035, with a compound annual growth rate of 11.56%. A substantial portion of that revenue comes from continuous satellite deployment, driven by constellations that require frequent launches to maintain and renew their in-orbit networks. An increasingly saturated orbit. Having thousands of satellites operating at the same time is not only a question of deployment, but also of end-of-cycle management. Those responsible for large constellations must decide whether to deorbit their satellites relatively early to limit the risk of orbital debris or whether to keep them active for as long as possible to extract their full economic and operational value. This tension, without a simple solution, has become one of the main drivers that push us to search for new formulas to manage the end of life in orbit. What changes with “deorbit-as-a-service”. Starfish’s proposal is based on separating the end of life of the satellite from its design and daily operation, allowing an external spacecraft to be responsible for deorbiting without requiring prior modifications to the devices in orbit. The company maintains that this approach allows operators to maximize the useful life of their constellations and delegate the retirement of those satellites that cannot deorbit themselves. The previous step. Although the deorbit mission has not yet launched, Starfish Space comes to this point with a previous history of in-orbit demonstrations. The company launched Otter Pup 1 in June 2023 and managed to maneuver it to within 1,000 meters of a target ten months later, a relevant milestone for approach and control operations. In October, an Impulse Space Mira spacecraft used Starfish software to approach another spacecraft to within 1,250 meters, and in June 2025, Otter Pup 2 was launched with the goal of performing the first commercial docking of satellites in low orbit. The big question to answer. What is now being tested is whether satellite deorbiting can go from being an exception to becoming a recurring industrial practice. The expansion of constellations and the pressure to keep low orbit operational force us to look for solutions that do not depend solely on each individual satellite. In this context, the United States’ decision to contract this type of services offers a first sign of where the sector can evolve, although its real scope can only be measured when the first missions begin to operate. Images | Starfish Space In Xataka | Human beings have not set foot on the Moon for 54 years: the mission that aims to correct it has just entered its final phase

has the green light to deploy 7,500 additional satellites

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Rarely has a technological infrastructure grown so quickly and so out of the everyday radar. While for almost everyone the sky remains as usual, thousands of Starlink satellites are already moving in low Earth orbit, building a network designed to bring connection to almost any point on the planet. In just a few years, SpaceX has gone from a first experimental launch to becoming the world’s largest satellite operator, and that buildup of hardware in space presents opportunities, but also annoyances in parts of the scientific sector. The most recent movement comes in a context of criticism from the astronomical community for the impact of these constellations on sky observation. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorized SpaceX to deploy another 7,500 Starlink second-generation satellites, bringing the total authorized Gen2 satellites to 15,000. The organization not only gave the green light to this expansion, but also allowed technical improvements and a more flexible use of frequencies and coverage, in a decision that seeks to facilitate advanced mobile services and connections up to 1 gigabit per second. The authorization, in detail. The FCC has given SpaceX room to redesign and squeeze its constellation. The permit includes the update of the second generation Starlink with new form factors and advanced technology, the joint use of the Ku, Ka, V, E and W bands, and the possibility of providing both fixed and mobile services from space. Added to this is the elimination of limits that blocked beam overlap and the creation of new orbital layers between 340 and 485 kilometers, which the FCC itself presents as a way to optimize coverage and performance. In May 2019, Elon Musk announced the launch of the first batch of Starlink satellites The permit, however, does not cover everything SpaceX had requested. The company requested authorization to deploy nearly 30,000 second-generation satellites, but the regulator has decided to stay at half for now. In its resolution, the FCC emphasizes that part of these Starlink Gen2 has not yet been tested in orbit and that there remain doubts about operations at higher altitudes, above 600 kilometers, which explains why the decision on the remaining 14,988 satellites has been postponed, according to Reuters. The clock starts ticking. The FCC approval is not indefinite. SpaceX will have to prove concrete advances in the coming years, with at least half of the authorized constellation operating in their assigned orbits before December 1, 2028 and the rest before December 2031. In addition, the regulator forces the deployment of the first generation to close before November 2027, while the company prepares a reconfiguration for 2026 that will lower thousands of satellites to a lower orbit to reduce risks. Versions of Starlink satellites Expansion is not justified only by more bandwidth. Part of the constellation is intended to enable direct mobile connectivity in regions outside the United States and also strengthen coverage within the country, which would allow mobile services and data in areas without land towers at high speed. It is the same approach that already supports Starlink’s agreements with T-Mobile and with several international operators aimed at converting the satellite into an extension of the cellular network. The cost of filling the orbit. Now massive satellites are not without criticism. Astronomers They have been warning for years that constellations like Starlink generate trails in optical images and “noise” in radio telescopes, to the point that the International Astronomical Union created a specific center to protect the “dark and silent sky.” Added to this is the fear of orbital saturation and the risk of collisions, a debate that has been revived after recent incidents. Images | Mark Handley | SpaceX In Xataka | China has taken a silent step in the new space race: the world’s first system to measure time on the Moon

We have so many satellites orbiting the Earth that they have become a barrier for someone: telescopes

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For years, the astronomical community has looked at the sky with considerable concern from Earth. And it’s normal. In recent years, the number of satellites that we have put into orbit has grown exponentially, highlighting above all starlinkwhich promised to bring the internet to the entire planet in exchange for fill our nights with “trains of lights”. But this is only hindering our ability to continue investigating the universe where we are immersed. Trapped in a cage. The telescopes that we now have closer to Earth to do their work logically have to look towards our sky. The problem, as the research points out led by Alejandro S. Borlaff, is that they are going blind. Specifically, the low orbit (LEO) space telescopes that are not only not safe, but they are trapped in a real cage that prevents them from seeing further. Until now, it was possible to think that satellite traces could only affect terrestrial observatories. However, orbital reality is pure geometry: most large space telescopes like Hubble They orbit at about 540 km high. A height at which the internet megaconstellations that are located above or in the layers that range from 340 km to 8,000 km. Because. Satellites do not emit any type of light and should not cause problems. But the problem comes when they reflect sunlight, and when this happens in the new coverage satellites that have a large size, we find that even if it is night on Earth (or wherever the telescope is), at a hundred kilometers high the Sun continues to illuminate the satellite. And the lighting and telescopes they get along very badly. Space telescopes are designed to look at objects that are “still” at infinity (stars, galaxies). To capture its faint light, the telescope must fix its gaze on an exact point and not move. However, satellites move at thousands of kilometers per hour in relation to the telescope and since the camera shutter is open for a long time (long exposures of minutes or even hours) to capture weak light, the satellite crosses the entire frame during the photo, being recorded not as a point, but as a continuous line or “scar” of light. A problem. In this way, if a telescope is 540 km high when pointed at the sky, it will encounter an increasingly dense network of space traffic in the form of satellites. Specifically, there are currently about 15,000 satellites in orbit, but requests to different regulators suggest that we could reach half a million satellites by the end of the 2030s. Something that would leave large space observatories unusable. To put specific cases, we have the NASA Hubble that right now 3–4% of the images it captures have satellite trails. A figure that will increase to almost 40%, causing one in every three photographs of the most famous telescope in history to have a ‘light scar’. We have another case in SPHEREx which is the future explorer of the origins of the universe and which will have almost 100% of its catchments contaminated. Its impact. It is undoubtedly incalculable. Missions like ARRAKIHS (of the European Space Agency, with strong Spanish participation) or SPHEREx depend on taking very wide-field images to map the structure of the universe. By having such a large field of view, the probability of dozens of satellites being “snuck in” in a single shot is 100%. For him Chinese Xuntian Telescopewhich orbits lower, the situation is much worse. Being “below” most of the Starlink, Kuiper constellations and the Chinese networks themselves such as Guangwang You’ll have a harder time dealing with nearly a hundred bright lines crossing every image you take. The solution. Orbiting telescopes were a solution to this problem that was occurring in terrestrial telescopes. Now history repeats itself. Experts point to the need to define precise orbits so that telescopes can avoid satellites in a simple way. But this requires great international coordination to share this information and, above all, to regulate the number of launches that are carried out. Images | NASA Hubble Space Telescope In Xataka | Which telescope to buy to enjoy the nights and stars: 20 telescopes, binoculars, gadgets, accessories and more

SpaceX changed the space economy. Now he wants to do the same with the cost of satellites

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The cost of launching cargo into space was, for years, one of the great limits of the aerospace industry. LaNASA documents in several works, including the analyzes of Harry W. Jonesthat during the last decades of the 20th century many pitchers moved in a typical range of between 10,000 and more than 20,000 dollars per kilowith an average cost of around $18,500/kg in low orbit, with the space shuttle far above due to its complexity and operating expense. It was not just the price of the launch systems, but of a model based on disposable components, manual processes and highly specialized operations. The situation remained stable for decades, until SpaceX decided to rethink how the economics of orbital launch should work. Instead of assuming these costs as inevitable, the company opted to reuse stages, optimize processes and manufacture its own engines and systems from scratch. This combination allowed the price per kilo to be reduced to unprecedented levels, although the change did not occur immediately. What is relevant is that, for the first time, a private actor demonstrated that launches could be much cheaper and that price did not have to be a structural barrier for the industry. When launch is no longer the limit, attention shifts to satellites The resulting prices began to change behavior in the sector. With Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, the cost per kilo became in the range of 3,000 to 1,500 dollars, according to NASA calculations based on catalog prices. These figures not only mark a reduction, but a turning point: for the first time, companies, institutions and even governments could rethink the design of missions knowing that launch was no longer the main economic barrier. From there a question arose that until then had no answer: if the trip had been made cheaper, what would happen to what was sent into space? The traditional satellite model was built on the idea of ​​optimizing each unit. It was not important to produce many, but to produce one that could operate for years, with high capacity and low probability of failure. Manufacturers and operators were investing in complex systems, with long development cycles, exhaustive testing and specialized structures to fulfill specific and prolonged missions. This strategy responded to an environment in which launch was so costly and infrequent that it was more profitable to prioritize reliability and durability than to think about scalability or rapid replenishment. One of the first companies to help change this approach was OneWeb, that introduced a manufacturing model designed for scale. Instead of ordering each satellite as an individual piece, the company designed a common architecture and partnered with Airbus to produce repeatable unitswith standardized processes and shorter manufacturing times. The plant installed in Florida in 2019 was presented as the first factory of satellite serial production on a large scale, with two lines capable of removing up to two units a day. It was not about building a better satellite, but about building many. SpaceX took the satellite constellation idea and turned it into its own industrial system. With Starlink, it not only replicated the use of mass-produced satellites, but also linked that production to its launch capacity with Falcon 9, operated by the company itself. This integration allowed the deployment to be accelerated without depending on external release windows or commercial suppliers. The constellation began to grow at an unprecedented rate and, in a few years, it vastly surpassed any other similar project in number and pace. The difference was not only in manufacturing satellites, but in being able to launch them at will. Although OneWeb was one of the first players to apply industrial logic to satellite manufacturing, its constellation has grown at a very different pace than Starlink. At the end of 2025, OneWeb has around 648 satellites in orbit, while SpaceX exceeds 8,000 operational satellitesaccording to the most recent data published by orbital monitoring firms. The difference is not only due to the number of launches, but also to the mode of production. According to an economic analysis published in 2025the estimated manufacturing cost of OneWeb satellites is around $14,000 per kilo, compared to approximately $2,500 per kilo for Starlink satellites. These figures reflect a gap that has more to do with the integration model than with the technology itself. The estimated manufacturing cost of OneWeb satellites is around $14,000 per kilo, compared to approximately $2,500 per kilo for Starlink satellites. The reaction of the sector did not take long to arrive. With the advancement of Starlink, both companies and public institutions Similar projects began to be considered based on constellations with a high number of satellites and sustained deployments. Amazon launched KuiperEutelsat and OneWeb reinforced their alliance to maintain presence in the market and the European Union approved the IRIS2 program with institutional support.China is also working on its own large systems. It is not just about competing in numbers, but about accepting that scale and replacement capacity are part of the new spatial model. When the satellite becomes a replicable product, the way of planning its presence in orbit also changes. It is no longer about launching a mission and hoping it works for as long as possible, but rather about building a structure that can grow, modernize and replace units regularly. The satellite becomes a component of a network, not the center of the mission. This logic favors models based on scalability and continuous replacement, similar to those of other technological infrastructures. Space stops being a destination and becomes a platform. SpaceX demonstrated that the cost of the launch was not a technical limit, but rather a model one. Now it is trying to apply that same logic to satellites, with an approach based on scale, continuous manufacturing and integration with its own launch systems. The result is not only a larger constellation, but a different way of understanding what it means. operate in orbit. The question is no longer how much it costs to get to space, but who can … Read more

Real Betis Balompié has joined the space race to solve a pressing problem: collisions between satellites

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It sounds unlikely, but it is a fact. Real Betis Balompié has entered the space sector. And without leaving Seville. GMV’s new partner. The historic football club and the aerospace company GMV have installed in the Rafael Gordillo sports city a satellite surveillance and tracking antenna. The agreement makes Betis the first football club in the world to host a facility dedicated to the sustainability of the space. More specifically, at pressing space debris challenge and the increasing risk of collisions in orbit. Betis 1 – Space trash 130 million. Earth orbit congestion may not be the main concern of green and white fans, but it is a danger for the satellites we use every daywhether with the car navigator, to see the weather forecast or when we turn on the broadcast of a football match. Thousands of operational satellites coexist with up to 130 million fragments of space debris: pieces of dead satellites and rocket remains that travel at hypersonic speeds and have triggered the evasion maneuvers of the active satellites. It is “one of the great challenges that humanity faces in the orbital environment,” says Miguel Ángel Molina, of GMV. Monitor and prevent. This is where the new 2.7 meter satellite dish installed at the Betis training center in Seville comes into play. Its mission is to track space debris and predict collisions in order to avoid them. To this end, GMV internally developed a system called Focusear. It works by “listening” to the signals that the satellites themselves emit in the Ku band (the same one used by satellite television) from the geostationary orbit, about 36,000 km high. Nanosecond precision. Upon receiving these signals, the system uses radio frequency triangulation techniques (TDoA and FDoA) to determine the position and orbit of the satellites with a margin of error of about three meters, equivalent to 10 nanoseconds. These data are vital to inform satellite operators, who are in charge of managing the evasion maneuvers of their fleets. But also to expand the European Space Surveillance System (EUSST), a catalog of objects that helps prevent large-scale collisions. Why Betis. The Sevillian club had created the Forever Green foundation, whose name has a double meaning. In addition to being green for its kit, Betis has become the most sustainable club in LaLiga (and the second in Europe) in terms of energy efficiency, recycling and water reuse. Expanding this vision of sustainability to space is literally taking its environmental commitment “beyond the Earth,” says Rafa Muela, manager of the foundation. But there is something else. Seville is the headquarters of the Spanish Space Agencyso the choice is not accidental. Somehow the Andalusian capital must be placed on the map of national spatial development. Image | GMV, Real Betis Balompié In Xataka | Three large pieces of space debris reenter every day: “one day our luck will run out and they will fall on someone”

We’ve been obsessed with strong passwords and public Wi-Fi for years. It turns out that the data sink was in the satellites

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While we worry about choose strong passwords and Don’t let the neighbor steal our WiFiit turns out that anyone can capture private data simply by pointing a dish at a satellite. It is not a government conspiracy, it is what some Californian researchers have discovered using a piece of equipment that only costs $800. What has happened? They count in Wired that several researchers from the universities of California and Maryland have been capturing communications from various satellites for three years. During this time they have collected a huge amount of private data. Among the information collected there is data on calls and messages from users of various operators, the pages visited by airplane passengers who used WiFi on board, communications between different critical infrastructures such as oil platforms or electrical companies and even police and military communications that revealed the position of their equipment. Why it is important. According to the study’s conclusions, it is estimated that around half of the signal from geostationary satellites carries sensitive information of consumers, companies and also governments. We strive to protect our WiFi networks, our online accounts or mobile devices, but the results of the research make it clear that satellites are a critical element through which data can also be leaked. A basic equipment. What is striking is that the researchers did not use super complex technology to obtain these findings. They simply placed a satellite dish on the roof of a university building and started pointing it at the satellites. They only invested $800 in the entire equipment. The data they obtained is only from the satellites that they could capture from their position in southern California, which according to their calculations is 15% of the total, so logic leads one to think that the amount of sensitive data will be much larger. In addition, it also shows that anyone could do it from another part of the world. Operators. The most significant data came from telephone providers, mainly T-Mobile, but also Telmex and AT&T México. In just nine hours of communications logging, researchers were able to collect the phone numbers of more than 2,700 T-Mobile users, as well as text messages and phone calls. After contacting T-Mobile to alert them, the company took steps to encrypt the data. AT&T also fixed this and claimed it was due to a satellite provider failing to configure some towers in a region of Mexico. Telmex has not said anything about it. Military and police data. That anyone’s data is exposed is already problematic, but that it is data from the army and security forces adds another layer of seriousness. Investigators were able to intercept communications between US military ships and the names of those ships. Since they were in Southern California, they also obtained data from Mexican authorities, including transmissions of confidential information about ongoing operations. “When we started looking at military helicopters, it wasn’t the sheer volume of data that worried us, but rather the extreme sensitivity of that data,” says Aaron Schulman, co-director of the research. Cybersecurity in space. In August of this same year, researchers found several vulnerabilities which, under certain conditions, could allow remote control of satellites. At the beginning of the Ukrainian war, Russia carried out a cyber attack against ViaSat which affected thousands of users. Cases like these highlight the need to bring the cybersecurity debate to space systems as well and not just terrestrial systems. Image | SpaceX on Pexels In Xataka | There are so many satellites orbiting the Earth that Starlink has a new concern: avoiding colliding with them

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