AMSTERDAM — Following a year marked by intensified calls for European autonomy in orbit, organizers of SmallSat Europe have opened the technical call for papers for their 2026 conference. The solicitation comes as the European Union and its member states aggressively ramp up defense spending and constellation development to close the gap with the United States and China.

Sovereignty and the Smallsat Pivot The call for technical abstracts arrives during a critical pivot point for the European space sector. According to recent industry analyses, including reports from McKinsey and the European Commission, Europe’s share of global launches has faced pressure from rapid innovation abroad. In response, major powers are mobilizing significant capital. Germany recently unveiled a national space strategy earmarking billions for security-focused space capabilities, while France has committed more than €4 billion specifically to space defense through 2030.

This strategic shift has placed a premium on the small satellite supply chain, which offers the rapid responsiveness and distributed architecture required for modern “dual-use” defense and commercial applications. SmallSat Europe, now established as the largest dedicated small satellite event on the continent, serves as a primary exchange for the engineering and business solutions underpinning these initiatives.

Technical Tracks and Submission Deadlines The 2026 conference, scheduled for May 26-28 at the RAI Amsterdam, has expanded its technical scope to address these evolving requirements. Organizers are soliciting abstracts across a broad spectrum of disciplines, including systems design, advanced analytics, payload innovation, and ground architecture.

Engineers and researchers must submit abstracts by January 23, 2026. Selected authors will receive notification by February 20, 2026, with final technical papers due by April 30, 2026. Accepted papers will be presented during 15-minute oral sessions or poster presentations and published in the official conference proceedings.

Scaling the Ecosystem The event’s growth mirrors the sector’s expansion. The 2026 edition is projected to host more than 2,000 attendees and 180 exhibitors, a significant increase from previous years. This scale addresses a frequently cited challenge in the European market: fragmentation. By consolidating systems integrators, launch providers, and subsystem manufacturers in a single venue, the conference aims to streamline the cross-border partnerships essential for programs like the EU’s IRIS² secure connectivity constellation.

Schedule and Registration SmallSat Europe 2026 will take place from May 26 to May 28, 2026, at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre. Early bird registration is currently open, with the abstract submission window closing strictly on January 23.

Structuring the Next Decade of Commercial Space

Entering its 11th year, the SmallSat Symposium has released a 2026 agenda that signals a distinct shift from the “new space” experimental era to a phase of industrial maturity and integration. Scheduled for February 10 through February 12 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, the event has opened registration with time-sensitive early bird pricing. The 2026 program moves beyond general market optimism to address the specific engineering and regulatory bottlenecks facing high-growth sectors like Direct-to-Device (D2D) and on-orbit edge computing.

SmallSat Industry Trends

The unveiled session tracks reflect three dominant trends currently reshaping the satellite market:

• The D2D Reality Check: While the direct-to-cell market has attracted billions in investment, the engineering challenges remain substantial. The session “Cracking the D2D Code: Engineering Solutions to Power, Doppler & Spectrum Locks” indicates a move away from broad partnership announcements to the technical realities of closing the link budget between moving satellites and standard smartphones.
• From Downlink to Edge Compute: The agenda features multiple sessions, including “Edge of Orbit: Smallsats and the Rise of the Space Data Layer” and “Trust in Orbit: AI, Autonomy & Accountability.” This aligns with the wider industry trend of reducing latency by processing data in space—shifting value from simple data collection (Earth Observation) to actionable intelligence (AI/Analytics).
• Regulatory Saturation: With Low Earth Orbit becoming increasingly crowded, the symposium has prioritized the “Great Spectrum Crunch” and “Space Domain Awareness.” These sessions highlight the critical transition from open skies to a contested, heavily regulated orbital environment where spectrum rights and collision avoidance are now central business risks.

Venue and Market Context

Returning to Silicon Valley, the symposium utilizes the Computer History Museum to underscore the convergence of terrestrial tech and orbital infrastructure. Since its inception more than a decade ago, the event has served as a primary deal-making hub where technical milestones often translate into funding opportunities. The 2026 iteration continues this focus, offering specific tracks on “Navigating the Financial Frontier” to help companies adapt to a capital environment that now demands profitability over growth.

Registration and Schedule

Registration is currently open for the three-day event. Organizers have implemented early bird pricing tiers to encourage early commitment from the international delegation. The program runs from Tuesday, February 10, through Thursday, February 12, 2026.

Climate change effects on the Earth’s water cycle and the availability of water on our planet are the missions of the first European Space Agency Scout mission.

Launched from Vandenberg SFB, the twin HydroGNSS smallsats were launched on November 28, 2025, as a payload within a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as a member of the Transporter-15 rideshare flight.

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL), this missions prime, has received signals from the satellites, indicating that both of them are safely in their assigned orbits.around Earth.

A technique—GNSS reflectometry—finds these satellites, which orbit the Earth with 180 degrees of separation, capturing L-band signals from navigation systems, such as GPS and Galileo, and then transmit L-band microwave signals that change when reflected off the Earth’s surface. These signals are then compared with the signals received from the navigation satellite and uncover the valuable information about water cycle properties and more. These systems gather high-quality data and capture more detailed and definitive data from ground-based GPS-reflection sites, more accurately than has previously been available.

In order to accomplish these tasks, each of the HydroGNSS smallsats carry a zenith and nadir antenna that comprise a delay doppler mapping receiver. The received signals are processed into delay Doppler maps.

Simonetta Cheli, the ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programs, said, “HydroGNSS marks an important milestone for this new family of rapid, low-cost, Earth observation missions, and we extend our thanks to the missions prime, SSTL. We look forward to seeing how HydroGNSS will employ reflectometry to deliver valuable insights into key, hydrological variables that shape Earth’s water cycle.”

ST Engineering has been selected by FADA, the space-focused entity under EDGE Group, to deliver a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite as part of the UAE National SAR Constellation Program, Sirb.

This project is aimed at enhancing the UAE’s Earth Observation (EO) capabilities and includes the design and delivery of the satellite and the mission control infrastructure necessary to capture high-resolution radar images for critical applications such as disaster response, environmental monitoring and national security.

The satellite will have state-of-the-art imaging with sub-meter resolution and a high-speed downlink. Beyond the SAR satellite, ST Engineering will design and deliver the infrastructure required for its operation. This mission control system will enable flexible and real-time satellite monitoring, ensuring that the satellite provides reliable day-and-night, all-weather imaging.

The satellite will align with FADA’s roadmap, enhancing UAE’s space-based capabilities for government and commercial use. The program will draw on EDGE Group’s depth of expertise in advanced technologies across defence and commercial fields.

The project moves into its next phase after completing the SAR system design review, with assembly and integration of the satellite to follow, along with rigorous operational testing. The collaboration will continue to strengthen the UAE’s position as a global leader in space technology.

Mr. Low Jin Phang, President of ST Engineering’s Digital Systems business, said, “FADA’s selection of ST Engineering for this strategic project underscores our proven leadership in space technology and our ability to design and produce commercial Earth observation satellites. We are committed to delivering end-to-end solutions that meet the UAE’s strategic needs and contribute to its vision of building a resilient, self-sustaining space ecosystem.”

Amazon LEO is a simple nod to the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation that powers the network.

Seven years ago, Amazon set out to design the most advanced satellite communications network ever built. The company’s vision was simple: There are still billions of people on the planet who lack high-speed internet access, and millions of businesses, governments, and other organizations operating in places without reliable connectivity. With a constellation of satellites in LEO, the company could help bridge that gap and extend fast, reliable internet to those beyond the reach of existing networks.

Amazon LEO started small, with a handful of engineers and a few designs on paper. Like most early Amazon projects, the program needed a code name, and the team began operating as “Project Kuiper”—inspired by the Kuiper Belt, a ring of asteroids in our outer solar system.

The code name stuck through many of the early milestones: filing and receiving initial licenses, signing the largest set of launch contracts in history, completing a successful prototype mission, and deploying our first full batch of production satellites earlier this year.

The company is now ready to share the permanent brand for the program: Amazon Leo.

The long-term mission remains the same and the company now operates one of the largest satellite production lines on the planet. Some of the most advanced customer terminals ever built, including the first commercial phased array antenna to support gigabit speeds, have been built by the company.

There are now more than 150 satellites in orbit, and customers and partners such as JetBlue, L3Harris, DIRECTV Latin America, Sky Brasil, and NBN Co., Australia’s National Broadband Network operator, have already signed up to deploy the service.

The initial satellite constellation continues to be built out and service will be initiated once more coverage and capacity to the network has been added.

Two sub-orbital rockets from NASA Wallops have been installed on the pads at Andøya Space, ready for their launch campaign.

Kolbjørn Blix, VP Sub-Orbital at Andøya Space, said, “I must admit that I am especially proud of the GHOST mission, of which I have the honor of being one of the principal investigators, together with my American friend and colleague – Christopher Koehler. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank NASA Headquarters, NASA Wallops, Andøya Space and the Norwegian Space Agency for their support of the project. Without this, it would not have been possible to carry out such transatlantic student rocket projects.”

GHOST is a two-stage vehicle carrying experiments onboard made by students from USA, Puerto Rico and Norway.

GHOST is a successor to a similar student-oriented rocket which launched from Andøya in 2019, G-CHASER,” Blix said. “This is all about giving the next generation space professionals a chance to participate in a real mission, showcasing their own experiments. These young people will be the ones building our future earth observation satellites and interplanetary probes. Many of the students will be here to witness the launch of the rocket carrying their experiments up to space. Earlier this year, we did a song contest for the GHOST mission in collaboration with Ghost Rocket Music and The Hollywood Independent Music Award. The winning song will be played during the launch live stream on our YouTube-channel.”

RENU-3 is the third vehicle in the RENU-project, which is an abbreviation for Rocket Experiment for Neutral Upwelling. It is a four-stage vehicle and its mission is to investigate a region of the Arctic atmosphere where the air is leaking into space. RENU-3 aims to travel up to 500 kilometers altitude in its 16 minute flight, while the GHOST mission will reach an apogee of about 250 kilometers and end its flight after nine minutes.

Earth is essentially a large magnet,” said Blix. “And around the magnetic poles, we see that air is escaping to space, creating a well-known speed bump for satellites. We are of course talking about a very small amount here, but enough for the satellites to feel the effect. RENU-3 will land in the ocean north of Svalbard. And the GHOST rocket will land 150 kilometers north-west of Andøya.”

The launch period is from November 13th to 27th, and the daily launch window is between 07 and 12, local time. The launch campaign will be live streamed on Andøya Space’s YouTube-channel.

INNOSPACE (KS:462350) has begun functional checks and satellite–launch vehicle interface tests for customer satellites and experimental payloads as part of the operational procedures for its first commercial launch mission SPACEWARD of the ‘HANBIT-Nano’.

This procedure verifies the electrical and mechanical connections between the payload adapter (PLA) and other integration hardware with the satellites and payloads. It is an essential pre-launch step to ensure stable mounting and integrated operation.

With its first commercial launcher HANBIT-Nano, INNOSPACE plans to deploy five customer satellites into LEO at 300 km altitude and 40° inclination, while simultaneously performing missions for three non-separating experimental payloads and one branding payload.

The target launch time is November 22 at 3:00 PM (BRT), from the Alcantara Launch Center in Brazil. The launch window runs from October 28 to November 28.

On the same day, three Brazilian customers—Federal University of Maranhão (UFMA), the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB), and Castro Leite Consultoria LTDA (CLC)—visited the launch site to conduct functional checks and interface testing. UFMA completed pre-launch procedures for two small satellites for technology development and education; AEB completed checks for two small satellites for climate and environmental data collection and one inertial navigation system (INS); and CLC completed procedures for one GNSS unit and one INS payload.

One small satellite from the Indian customer Grahaa SPACE is scheduled to follow the sequential integration process. In addition, one highball-can branding model from Korean company BREWGURU will be placed separately onboard as a symbolic participatory payload.

Following the completion of these functional checks and interface tests, INNOSPACE will proceed with final integration to mount the satellites onto the launch vehicle. Once completed, the process will move on to payload fairing installation, pre-launch rehearsal (dry run), comprehensive weather and environmental assessments, and finally the joint flight-safety and integrated-operations procedures with the Brazilian Air Force leading up to the final launch countdown.

INNOSPACE’s satellite–launch vehicle interface test marks a significant step, as it is the first time a Korean private company has independently carried out the integration procedures required for commercial launch services in line with customer requirements. This is symbolic of Korea’s private launch service industry entering true commercialization, supported by practical preparations to serve satellite customers,” said Soojong Kim, Founder and CEO of INNOSPACE.

Voyager Technologies [NYSE: VOYG] recently acquired ExoTerra Resource, a developer of electric propulsion systems.

ExoTerra’s proprietary technology delivers precise maneuvering, extended lifetimes and high efficiency delta-V – essential for spacecraft across national defense architecture layers that must be able to reposition, avoid threats and sustain mission advantage.

ExoTerra’s Halo thruster technology is proven aboard DARPA Blackjack ACES spacecraft. The company also has contracts with commercial companies and organizations such as NASA. Combining ExoTerra’s capabilities with its deep portfolio of mission-critical technologies, Voyager is well positioned for strategic initiatives such as Golden Dome.

We bridge innovation with industrial scale, turning technologies into capabilities that fill gaps and actually move missions forward,” said Dylan Taylor, Chairman and CEO of Voyager. “We’re amplifying our collective mission capability with ExoTerra, accelerating delivery across defense and commercial markets. As freedom of maneuver becomes central to space control and deterrence, it’s imperative that reliable propulsion systems are built, tested and qualified right here in the United States.”

We’ve spent years developing efficient, compact and reliable electric propulsion systems, and joining forces with Voyager allows us to enhance and deliver these systems at scale,” said Mike VanWoerkom, CEO of ExoTerra. “Together, we’ll manufacture flight-proven propulsion technologies that fortify the nation’s ability to manufacture and field spacecraft with speed, resilience and cost efficiency.”

GomSpace North America, a subsidiary of GomSpace Group AB, has received a component purchase order valued at $1.5 million from a leading global service provider.

The order includes advanced spacecraft subsystem components to support an upcoming satellite mission. Delivery is scheduled for the first half of 2026.

GomSpace will supply components from its established line of high-performance nanosatellite power and command systems, known for their flight heritage and suitability for complex commercial and government applications.

This order contributes to GomSpace’s ongoing footprint expansion in the Americas and strengthens its role enabling resilient multi-satellite mission architectures around the world.

This order reflects the continued confidence global space industry partners place in GomSpace’s flight-proven hardware portfolio,” said Slava Frayter, Chief Executive Officer, GomSpace North America. “We are committed to supporting our customers’ mission success with reliable technology and responsive technical collaboration.”