International Lunar Consultations

lunar base A UN team is examining how to better coordinate lunar surface activities to avoid future conflicts over landing sites and resources. (credit: ESA) International lunar consultations: future-looking developments at the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space by Giorgio Cardile Monday, August 10, 2026 As lunar exploration accelerates, avoiding interference is a pressing diplomatic issue. In 2024, the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) established the Action Team on Lunar Activities Consultation (ATLAC) to facilitate expert exchanges. Its mandate complements Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty and other COPUOS groups. While private enterprises advance landers and extraction technologies, UN delegates linger over terminology. Operating on a 2025–2027 workplan, ATLAC’s work matured into substantive policy debates by mid-2026, with a final report expected next year. This April, a coalition of ten states submitted a joint Conference Room Paper urging ATLAC to formally discuss an “international consultation mechanism.” It recommended dedicating meeting time to this framework, conducting tabletop simulations to test it in practice and incorporating perspectives from civil society, academia, and emerging spacefaring nations. During COPUOS plenary, debates continued over this mechanism’s scope versus an alternative “International Lunar Environment/Locations” (ILEL) framework, focused on definitions and information exchange. These discussions culminated in a negotiated draft report. At the final informal meeting on June 17, member States agreed to continue discussions on whether to establish a potential international mechanism for information sharing and exchange, as well as consultations related to lunar activities in accordance with applicable national regulatory framework and international law. The Action Team would continue such discussions, including on the potential scope and mandate of such a mechanism. The Action Team had noted a conference room paper prepared by the Co-Chairs (A/AC.105/2026/CRP.39), a background paper prepared by the secretariat (A/AC.105/2026/CRP.33) and a presentation by the representative of Mexico relevant to such discussion and further agreed on three paragraphs to be included in the final 2026 report of ATLAC to COPUOS. Deliberative, or too slow? Compared to rapid commercial lunar developments, ATLAC may seem slow. While private enterprises advance landers and extraction technologies, UN delegates linger over terminology. Technical challenges are daunting: an analysis compiled by the ATLAC Co-Chairs in 2026 highlighted that lunar operations face unique risks like landing plumes, dust ejecta, and electromagnetic interference. Notably, methane from lunar landings can travel and contaminate pristine Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs). Furthermore, without atmospheric re-entry, orbital debris will accumulate indefinitely without proactive disposal guidelines. Achieving diplomatic consensus is also inherently difficult. During informal meetings, delegations spent considerable time debating the difference between information “sharing” and information “exchange,” arguing that “exchange” implies necessary reciprocity and consultation, whereas “sharing” is mere unilateral action. Others expressed concern that continuously adding layers of legal language to draft recommendations slows down substantive progress. An international “mechanism” The central ATLAC debate concerns the proposed mechanism’s design. A background analysis by the Co-Chairs identified five core functions: pre-mission information-sharing, managing harmful interference, coordinating end-of-mission disposal, prioritising operational alignment (e.g., common docking/communication standards), and developing shared scientific baselines. States lack architectural consensus. One proposal suggests a “Coordination body for Lunar workstreams” leveraging existing UN resources to coordinate space debris (IADC) and space resource expert groups, avoiding new bureaucracy. It also proposed adapting, from the Antarctic Treaty System, Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs) to safeguard sensitive lunar sites like PSRs and far-side radio-quiet zones without claiming sovereignty. This debate has also exposed underlying geopolitical tensions regarding lunar resource utilisation. One state presented a proposal based on the BBNJ (Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction) agreement, arguing that the Moon, like the high seas, is an area beyond national jurisdiction where no state can claim sovereignty. ATLAC’s most significant achievement may be maintaining open diplomatic channels between established and emerging spacefaring nations, ensuring lunar competition remains a matter of regulatory divergence rather than geopolitical confrontation. However, others highlighted a fundamental legal fracture: unlike seabed resources treated as the “common heritage of humankind,” the legal status of space resources is contested. Some stressed the mechanism requires answering fundamental questions regarding who holds lunar obligations and the legal characteristics of extracted resources. Others insisted any mechanism must be strictly bound by existing international law (lex lata), while noting ATLAC’s work overlaps with the Working Group on Space Resource Activities and discussions on safety zones. Predictions for ATLAC Heading into its 2027 final reporting phase, ATLAC’s trajectory suggests a cautious evolution, potentially becoming a long-lasting COPUOS working group serving as a central lunar coordination hub. Upcoming ATLAC meetings are scheduled for September 30, October 31, and November 18. In the near term, ATLAC is well-positioned to prevent operational and technical conflicts. By facilitating information sharing, establishing life-support and communications compatibility standards, and implementing practical frameworks like Antarctic-style management zones, ATLAC can help actors avoid physical interference and operational disputes. However, ATLAC may struggle to resolve political conflicts over lunar resource rights. The international community may be heading toward a bifurcated lunar future: technical coordination managed by a UN-backed ATLAC mechanism, alongside resource extraction governed by a patchwork of national laws and bilateral agreements. Ultimately, ATLAC’s most significant achievement may be maintaining open diplomatic channels between established and emerging spacefaring nations, ensuring lunar competition remains a matter of regulatory divergence rather than geopolitical confrontation. Giorgio Cardile is a licensed lawyer and LL.M. Candidate in Leiden University in Air and Space Law. He attended the International Space University Space Studies Program (SSP) in 2024 and is a PhD candidate in Defence studies at the Ministry of Defence University of Italy. Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarantee that all submi

Decision Without Deciders

Golden Dome When space systems increasingly rely on automation and AI, there needs to be ways to audit the decisions those systems make. (credit: Boeing) Decisions without deciders: authority at machine speed in the space enterprise by Bharath Gopalaswamy and Daniel “Sphinx” Dant Monday, August 10, 2026 In February, Operation Epic Fury opened with space and cyber forces rather than with aircraft. Less remarked was a second shift underneath it. A growing share of the decisions that determine who sees, who talks, and who moves in a contested environment are now executed by software in milliseconds, against rules written months in advance. The governance problem this creates is simple to state: machine-speed allocation now makes sovereign decisions before any accountable human can reconstruct them. At machine speed, governance is whatever was specified before the crisis. Machine-speed allocation now makes sovereign decisions before any accountable human can reconstruct them. Governance is whatever was specified before the crisis. This had to happen, and it is the right development. At the tempo of modern conflict and the scale of proliferated constellations, no human-in-the-loop process could keep pace with the volume of allocation and routing choices a crisis generates. The programs that delivered this capability moved quickly and were right to move quickly. What has not advanced at the same rate is the record that lets anyone reconstruct, afterward, why a system decided as it did. That gap is narrower and more fixable than it looks. Let’s start with how these decisions actually present. They rarely look like decisions. In a crisis touching orbital infrastructure they appear as configuration: bandwidth prioritization, service tier enforcement, geofencing, imagery release thresholds, and the throttling rules that determine whose traffic degrades first. Each is defensible as engineering. In aggregate, under pressure, they allocate national capability, and the commercial incentives bearing on those choices are not the same as the operational ones.[1] A commercial operator exercising ordinary contractual discretion can determine which military formation stays connected, which hospital network holds, and which exchange clears. It is acting within its rights. The open question is not whether it may, but whether anyone can afterward establish why. When allocation is performed by a learned model rather than a rule table, that answer is frequently unavailable. That’s not because anyone is concealing it, but instead because the system was never asked to produce it. Logs record what happened, but they rarely record what was weighed, which alternatives were scored and set aside, or under what authority the action was taken. Without that record there is no way to verify that contractual priority was honored, no way to compensate a party that went dark, and no way to improve the system from the event. This is a specification gap rather than a limit of the technology. The operational reality is already here. Maven shows how far the capability has come. Established in 2017, it became a program of record at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in 2023 and now supports the Pentagon’s combined joint all-domain command and control effort. What began as a system for identifying objects of interest can now integrate data from multiple sources, track targets, recommend which weapons are available against them, and compress sensor-to-shooter timelines from hours to minutes.[2] In March 2026, the Deputy Secretary of Defense consolidated oversight under the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office and named AI-enabled decision-making the cornerstone of that architecture.[3] This is genuine progress, delivered at pace. The natural next step is to specify what such systems should be able to show about their own reasoning. Golden Dome makes the timing concrete. An architecture of proliferated sensors, space-based interceptors, and battle management at machine speed, carrying a 2028 demonstration, will encode allocation rules whether or not they are debated.[4] The engineering choices being made this year are governance choices in a different vocabulary, and they are far cheaper to set now than to revisit once fielded. Auditability is a design property, not an overlay, and it means something specific. It is neither a dashboard nor an explanation generated after the fact by a second model, which yields a plausible account rather than a true one. There is a strategic dimension as well. Dual-use sensing and interceptors blur the boundaries between defense, surveillance, targeting, and preemption, an ambiguity that long predates autonomy and that has shaped space security debates since the first anti-satellite tests.[5] When sensing and interceptors are cued automatically on commercially operated systems, an adversary assesses American intent against a process that is hard to reconstruct even from the inside. Deliberate ambiguity is a legitimate instrument of strategy, but ambiguity the originating party cannot resolve is not. Other sectors settled this in calm conditions, and the precedents are binding, not advisory. Telecommunications operates priority frameworks written into obligation, among them Telecommunications Service Priority and the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service.[6] Electric reliability standards, aviation safety duties, and financial stress-testing follow the same logic: obligations defined before the event, binding on the operator, surviving a change of ownership. Department of Defense Directive 3000.09 governs autonomy in weapon systems and requires appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force.[7] It does not reach the allocation layer, where a great many crisis decisions will actually be made. Civil practice is moving first. On August 2, European obligations for high-risk artificial intelligence took full effect, requiring that such systems allow the automatic recording of events across their lifetime.[8] Those provisions reach hiring tools and credit scoring. No standing equivalent applies to a system that recommends which weapon answers which target. That is not because anyone judged military systems to need less traceability. It is because the question has not yet been put. The precedent for setting rules ahead of the event also exists inside this domain. The first National Security Space Strategy, issued in 2011, described a space environment growing congested, contested, and competitive, and argued for shaping that environment deliberately rather than responding to it after the fact.[9] Much of that agenda was carried out. The allocation layer is the part of it that was never finished, largely because the technology that would make it urgent did not yet exist. Nor does the fix require research. Auditability is a design property, not an overlay, and it means something specific. It is neither a dashboard nor an explanation generated after the fact by a second model, which yields a plausible account rather than a true one. At a minimum, it means three records: the state observed and the confidence assigned, so a reviewer can distinguish a poor decision from one made on poor information; the options available and the scores they received, since an allocation is only assessable against the alternatives; and the model version in force at the moment of action, because thresholds are tuned and models are retrained. All of this is routine in fields where decisions must be defended. Published work has already demonstrated response systems that reason under explicit legal constraints, using deontic logic to return a set of permissible options rather than a single opaque output.[10] The methods exist and are documented. What is absent is the requirement to use them. Vendors build to the requirement they are given, and where a specification is silent no source selection will score a feature nobody asked for. Three acquisition requirements would close most of the gap, and the Department of Defense can impose all three now, through instruments it already holds. The first is decision provenance as a contract requirement: any system holding a sovereign-critical allocation function should produce an auditable record of the inputs received, the rule or model invoked, the alternatives considered, and the authority claimed, written into the request for proposals, scored in source selection, and demonstrated at acceptance. The second is a priority framework for orbital services, negotiated in peacetime and written into contract, with defined tiers, override conditions, and compensation for commercial parties who lose revenue when a priority order is exercised. The third is a named authority able to order, override, and answer for an allocation decision under declared emergency conditions, with the legal basis established in advance rather than assembled during the event. The owners of the problem are identifiable today: the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, which now holds oversight of AI-enabled decision-making; Space Systems Command, which is writing Golden Dome’s requirements this year; and the combatant-command requirements writers whose operational plans assume the allocation layer will hold. None of this runs against the commercial interest. Vendors build to the requirement they are given, and where a specification is silent no source selection will score a feature nobody asked for. A clear and uniform requirement applied before award is easier for industry to price and to meet than a standard assembled afterward through inquiry. That has been the experience of every sector that has been through this. Capability has moved faster than the paperwork, which is what happens when a country is serious about delivering. The paperwork is the cheaper half, and it is the half still available to us. The specifications are being written now, and the only question is whether anyone accountable is holding the pen. Notes Bharath Gopalaswamy and Daniel Dant, “Golden domes, fragile firms: the business risks of AI-enabled space infrastructure,” The Space Review, March 16, 2026. Palantir Technologies, “Palantir Expands Maven Smart System AI/ML Capabilities to Military Services,” September 20, 2024; Center for Strategic and International Studies, “What Is Maven Smart System, and What Does It Do?” June 2026. DefenseScoop, “Feinberg’s new Maven directive sets AI-enabled decision-making as ‘the cornerstone’ for CJADC2,” April 3, 2026. Space Systems Command, public release on the Space-Based Interceptor program, describing a demonstration capability integrated into the Golden Dome architecture by 2028. Bharath Gopalaswamy, Final Frontier: India and Space Security (Westland/Tranquebar, 2019). Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Telecommunications Service Priority (TSP) and Government Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS) program documentation, cisa.gov. Department of Defense Directive 3000.09, Autonomy in Weapon Systems, updated January 25, 2023. Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Article 12 (Record-keeping); obligations for high-risk systems applicable from 2 August 2026. Department of Defense and Office of the Director of National Intelligence, National Security Space Strategy: Unclassified Summary, January 2011. T. Deb, M. Jeong, C. Molinaro, A. Pugliese, A. Quattrini Li, E. Santos, V.S. Subrahmanian, and Y. Zhang, IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics 54, no. 12 (2024): 7147–7162, presenting a framework for multi-objective decision-making under legal constraints using deontic logic and Pareto-optimal status sets. Bharath Gopalaswamy, PhD, is an aerospace, defense, and emerging-technology executive. Col. (Ret.) Dan Dant, Vice President at KBR, is a defense industrial-base strategist. Gopalaswamy and Dant are Senior Fellows of the National Spacepower Center. The views expressed are the authors’ own.

Satellites Are Subject To Hacking By Quantum Computers

satellite telemetry Satellites log activities and transmit those data to Earth, but often rely on encryption systems vulnerable to hacking by quantum computers. (credit: L3Harris) Who will believe the space logs in 2040? Space governance and the quantum audit problem by Burak Oktenli Monday, August 10, 2026 Space operations have become exercises in relentless logging. Every thruster firing, every conjunction warning, every proximity operation, and every anti-satellite test generates a stream of telemetry that is meticulously recorded. Today, these logs are operational necessities, but decades from now they will become critical geopolitical evidence. If a state actor claims in 2037 that a commercial satellite intentionally interfered with its military asset, the resolution of that crisis will depend entirely on the historical data recorded today. But how will we know that those logs are authentic and unaltered? The answer is cryptographic signatures. Unfortunately, this is precisely where the foundation of space governance begins to crack. Directing engineers to use new algorithms for new satellites solves only half the problem. The unresolved crisis in space governance is what happens to the historical records. Currently, the cryptographic locks securing space records rely overwhelmingly on classical algorithms like the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA). These algorithms are mathematically sound today, but they have a strictly limited shelf life. In August 2024, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) finalized its first post-quantum cryptographic standards, and its companion transition roadmap, NIST IR 8547, sets a hard deadline. Classical algorithms like ECDSA are slated to be “deprecated” by 2030 and entirely “disallowed” by 2035. Directing engineers to use new algorithms for new satellites solves only half the problem. The unresolved crisis in space governance is what happens to the historical records. “Harvest now, verify/forge later” and the silent vulnerability The defense community is rightly focused on the “harvest now, decrypt later” threat, where adversaries intercept encrypted communications today to decrypt them when quantum computing matures. However, space audit trails face a more insidious variation of this threat. We must confront the reality of “harvest now, forge later.” In this scenario, an adversary collects publicly broadcast or intercepted signed records today. When cryptographically relevant quantum computers arrive, the adversary uses them not to read secrets, but to break the underlying signature scheme. Once the signature is broken, the adversary can retroactively forge historical records. They could alter the telemetry of a 2026 orbital maneuver and present it in 2032 to claim that a specific action never occurred, or that a completely different, hostile maneuver took place. This is not science fiction. According to NIST’s own definitions, a “disallowed” signature scheme must be assumed vulnerable to forgery. Technically speaking, any space record signed with ECDSA will be considered vulnerable to retroactive forgery after 2035. The space domain is uniquely exposed to this vulnerability for three reasons. First, space records have exceptionally long lifespans. A satellite may remain in orbit for 15 to 20 years, and the legal and operational value of its records lasts even longer. Second, these records are the primary mechanism for attribution. Attribution is the cornerstone of space security, and it is exactly what an adversary would want to manipulate. Third, there is no opportunity for “re-measurement” in space. If the telemetry of a specific orbital event is compromised, the only proof of that event is lost forever. The challenge is not merely encrypting the future. It is securing the integrity of the past in a post-quantum world. Why simply changing the algorithm is not enough The seemingly obvious solution is to abandon ECDSA and mandate the immediate use of new, quantum-resistant signatures like ML-DSA. While necessary, this approach is structurally incomplete for several reasons. What space governance needs is not just a new algorithm, but a layered, crypto-agile architecture. Relying exclusively on a single new algorithm introduces a new single point of failure. Algorithms like ML-DSA rely on complex lattice mathematics. If future cryptanalysis breaks that specific mathematical foundation, the space industry will have repeated the exact mistake it is currently trying to fix. Leaning on one pillar is a dangerous architecture for multi-decade records. Furthermore, the transition period itself constitutes a massive vulnerability. Without a clear architecture dictating how and when legacy systems migrate to post-quantum standards, records generated during the transition remain exposed. Finally, historical records are already signed and sealed. You cannot simply go back and “re-sign” decades of telemetry with a new key without fundamentally breaking the chain of custody and the trust inherent in the original record. This is precisely why NIST IR 8547 supports hybrid approaches. During a transition, utilizing both classical and post-quantum algorithms simultaneously ensures that if one fails, the other maintains the integrity of the data. What space governance needs is not just a new algorithm, but a layered, crypto-agile architecture. A layered solution for deep defense in space records Securing the long-term integrity of space records requires a defense-in-depth approach. This aligns with the authority architectures I have previously argued for in these pages regarding on-orbit servicing and the AUTHREX Space Vehicle framework (see “Space autonomy needs an authority architecture before 2027”, The Space Review, June 22, 2026). To protect audit chains against quantum adversaries, we must divide the space record system into three distinct cryptographic layers. Layer 1 is the Entry Commitment. At the moment a record is generated, it must be sealed with two signatures simultaneously. One signature is classical (compatible with today’s infrastructure), and the other is post-quantum. During the transitional decade, both protect the record. An adversary in 2026 cannot break the classical signature because they lack a quantum computer, and by 2032, even if they possess quantum capabilities, the post-quantum signature remains intact. Layer 2 is the Chain Binding. Individual records must be linked together in a continuous hash chain, where every new record carries the digital fingerprint of the previous one. Crucially, this chain must explicitly tag which algorithm was used at every step. This concept, known as “algorithm agility,” ensures that even if algorithms change in the future, older records can still be verified using their original, securely recorded parameters. In the event of a conflict, an orbital collision, or a liability dispute, the deciding factor will be the reliable data logged at the moment of the event. Layer 3 is the Archival Anchor, which provides the long-horizon guarantee. At specific intervals, perhaps annually, a summary digest of the entire record chain is sealed with a stateless, hash-based signature like SLH-DSA. The critical feature of hash-based signatures is that they rely solely on the security of the hash function itself, rather than breakable mathematics like lattices or elliptic curves. The strategic result of this architecture is profound. In the absolute worst-case scenario where all lattice-based cryptography is broken, the assurance that a space record has not been altered reduces to the security of a single hash function. Hash functions are highly resistant to quantum attacks. Quantum computers only halve their effective strength; they do not shatter them entirely. Implementing this layered defense is remarkably inexpensive. My own testing of this prototype architecture demonstrates that sealing a record takes roughly a thousandth of a second, processing over 600 records per second on a single standard processor core. Generating a 30-year archival anchor requires only a few megabytes of storage and seconds of processing time. Long-horizon security is, operationally speaking, practically invisible. The governance gap and the 2030 horizon Current international space governance discussions within the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) focus heavily on debris mitigation, anti-satellite testing norms, and the “due regard” principles of Outer Space Treaty Article IX. However, these discussions are ignoring the long-term integrity of the records that make these norms enforceable. Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty requires states to conduct activities with due regard for the corresponding interests of others. This principle is entirely dependent on the existence of reliable, unalterable logs. If we accept that post-quantum adversaries can retroactively forge space records, the entire attribution mechanism of international space law collapses. The 2030 algorithm deprecation date is approaching rapidly. Cryptographic transitions in complex infrastructure typically take five to ten years. An agency or commercial operator that does not begin this migration by 2027 will find its operational margins severely depleted. A comprehensive breakdown of this timeline is available in this analysis of NIST IR 8547. To bridge this governance gap, I propose four immediate actions. First, state and commercial space operators must design their logging systems today to be crypto-agile. Second, the use of hash-based archival anchors must become a mandated standard for any long-lived space record. Third, COPUOS and related international norm-setting bodies must formally address record integrity through a long-horizon perspective. Fourth, the space industry must align its cryptographic migration strategy with a strict milestone plan tied directly to the NIST 2030 and 2035 deadlines. Conclusion In the space domain, power is increasingly tied to who holds the correct records. In the event of a conflict, an orbital collision, or a liability dispute, the deciding factor will be the reliable data logged at the moment of the event. The quantum era threatens to unlock these records, placing not only future operations but our current historical telemetry at risk. The 2030 and 2035 deadlines are not distant theoretical concepts. They are imminent operational realities. If the space community intends for its records to remain credible decades into the future, the foundational architecture must be built now. A record whose lock can be broken loses its value the moment the lock fails. The question is not whether space records will outlive their cryptographic locks. They already are designed to. The question is whether we will give them locks worth keeping. Burak Oktenli holds an MBA and is pursuing a Master of Professional Studies in Applied Intelligence at Georgetown University, where his research focuses on the governance of autonomous and AI-enabled military systems.

Cloud Cover And Satellites

optical vs SAR imagery Intel Ohio One construction monitoring. Passing clouds partially obstruct the optical imagery (left), whereas SAR radar (right) penetrates the cover to map exact structural geometry, metallic foundations, and material density. (credit: EOS Data Analytics) Seeing through the storm: SAR imagery’s evolution beyond defense applications by Kateryna Sergieieva Monday, August 10, 2026 Cloud cover shouldn’t get a vote in who survives, but it did for many years. Relief teams sat waiting for a clear satellite pass over a flooded valley or a collapsed building, and the ground kept shifting underneath them the whole time. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) put an end to that wait. Agencies still filing SAR satellite imagery under “specialty backup” rather than “standard tool” are burning time they don’t have and risking lives they can’t get back. SAR is increasingly crucial for emergency managers, who finally can have eyes on the ground after a hurricane or earthquake. For decades, SAR was largely used by militaries, but that’s over. Commercial operators sell high-resolution SAR images straight to the public now, with growing demand for such imagery. The physics explains the appeal: radar pulses pass straight through smoke, storms, and darkness, conditions that blind an ordinary optical camera. So, for disaster responders, SAR is not optional anymore. Defense and intelligence: the traditional anchor Defense and intelligence remain SAR’s largest market. In December 2025, Germany signed a €1.7 billion deal with Iceye and Rheinmetall to build a sovereign SAR satellite network. Poland, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Finland have all signed similar deals. Japan’s IHI Corporation began receiving its first operational images in 2026 from two ICEYE-built satellites, the opening phase of a contract for four satellites with an option for 20 more. They are part of a sovereign Earth-observation push that Tokyo ties directly to monitoring vessel activity and protecting supply chains across the region. The reason for such popularity is rather simple: radar doesn’t stop working because the sky is overcast or the sun has set. Open-source analysts have taken full advantage of that to track aircraft carrier construction inside Chinese shipyards and watch troop buildups near contested borders, cross-referencing commercial SAR images with shipping data. Disaster response: seeing through the storm SAR is increasingly crucial for emergency managers, who finally can have eyes on the ground after a hurricane or earthquake. Clouds from storms can blind optical satellites but SAR doesn’t have that problem. It sees straight through the weather that grounds everything else. During major flood events, SAR imagery has become the tool of choice for mapping and directing rescue crews to where the water actually is, not where a map from six hours ago said it was. NASA and ISRO built their joint NISAR mission around this exact use case, designing it to hand decision-makers actionable SAR data for disaster response and agricultural monitoring. Greece didn’t wait for a joint mission: it deployed two of its own Iceye SAR satellites specifically to speed up response to floods, wildfires, and landslides. Infrastructure monitoring: protecting critical assets Pipelines, ports, and power plants can’t shut down for a sandstorm. Manual inspections and scattered ground sensors can’t keep pace with assets that run 24/7 in remote terrain, as they’re slow, costly, and often catch problems after they’ve already become expensive to fix. Point a satellite at the same target for a few extra seconds, and the radar starts picking up motion too small to see with the eye. This is where high-resolution SAR imagery benefits. Taskable radar satellites capture detail through darkness, cloud cover, and sandstorms alike. Capella Space’s constellation, for instance, can image the Port of Fujairah—one of the busiest bunkering hubs outside the Strait of Hormuz—at one-meter resolution, picking out terminal layout and vessel traffic at midnight as clearly as at noon. Pipelines get the same benefit. Paired with thermal and hyperspectral sensors, SAR catches the soil discoloration or gas plumes that signal a leak already underway. Detect those leaks early, and you can cut methane emissions from oil and gas operations by up to 70%. Maritime awareness: tracking the invisible fleet Today, some companies run illegal fishing operations, smuggling routes, or sanctions-evasion schemes, hiding their vessels from radar at sea. However, SAR satellite images can highlight “dark vessels” that stop transmitting signals to evade detection. That assists investigations by border enforcement agencies and sanctions monitors. New Zealand is pushing the concept further with low-cost floating radar reflectors designed to help space-based SAR spot people lost at sea: a real answer to the problem of searching 30 million square kilometers of ocean for a single boat or swimmer. In the Pacific Ocean, that can be the difference between a rescue and a recovery. The next frontier: micro-motion detection SAR used to freeze the world in a single frame: one image, one moment, nothing more. That’s changing. Point a satellite at the same target for a few extra seconds, and the radar starts picking up motion too small to see with the eye. That includes phenomena such as an engine idling, a bridge swaying slightly, or a gear turning inside a machine. Each of those tiny movements leaves its own signature in the radar phase data, which is what lets analysts detect them from orbit. Researchers proved it in Glasgow, picking up the idle vibration of a parked van and matching it to an 87-hertz reading from an accelerometer bolted to the vehicle. They’ve done the same with moving ships, extracting not just position but also behavioral clues: what the vessel is actually doing, not just where it sits. Micro-motion detection turns SAR imaging from a mapping tool into a diagnostic one, capable of identifying vehicle types or flagging failing infrastructure before it fails. Conclusion Every example highlights the main point: the ability to see through weather, darkness, and distance saves lives. A decade ago, these technologies were not widely accessible for civilians. But today we finally can track a carrier under construction, guide a flood rescue, and watch a pipeline through a sandstorm, all without approval from military or intelligence services. Iceye alone has launched 62 satellites since 2018. Capella and Umbra have built out fleets of their own. Together, they’ve taken a capability that once belonged to a handful of governments and put it up for anyone serious to order. The debate has shifted from whether SAR is useful to determining who else can’t afford to be without it. Kateryna Sergieieva has a Ph.D. in information technologies and 15 years of experience in remote sensing. She is a scientist responsible for developing technologies for satellite monitoring and surface feature change detection. She is an author of more than 60 scientific publications.

The Producers of Star City Talk About The Brilliant Series

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REQmXCsbKwE

My Hero Jareed Isaacman Will Take U.S. Astronauts Back to The Moon First

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTMZ8z4SS9A

Perserving The Legacy of the I.S.S.

ISS The International Space Station is scheduled for retirement, and a destructive reentry, as soon as 2030. (credit: NASA) Preserving the legacy of the ISS by Jeff Foust Monday, July 27 2026 Last week marked the 15th anniversary of the end of the final Space Shuttle mission, STS-135, and only now are the all the orbiters getting to the final homes. In June, the California Science Center previewed its revised display for the shuttle Endeavour in the new Samuel Oschin Shuttle Gallery. Inside, Endeavour is displayed as though it was on the launch pad, mounted on a external tank with two solid rocket boosters attached and a gantry beside it. “I would love to see this thing in a museum, I really would,” Keaton said. “It’s just not possible in a fiscally responsible, I suppose, or technologically responsible way.” “It is the fulfillment of a decades-long dream and will stand as an enduring source of inspiration for generations of scientists, engineers, and explorers,” Jeffrey Rudolph, president and CEO of the museum, said in a statement about the new center, set to open to the public in November. It also brings to mind another long-running program soon reaching its end: the International Space Station. NASA has maintained plans to retire the ISS at the end of 2030, although there have been some hints that it could be extended at least a couple years. A NASA authorization bill in the Senate, for example, would formally extend the station’s life to 2032. Even if the station continues to operate into the early 2030s, it’s clear it’s time to start thinking about the end of the ISS. That includes not just how to deal with the end of life of the station and how to transition to commercial successors but also what to preserve from the station, and how. Unlike the shuttle orbiters, which could be returned to Earth and put in museums much like aircraft, there is no way to bring the ISS back. NASA has also ruled out trying to preserve the station in orbit, perhaps at a higher altitude than it operates today. “We have a paper on this,” Jacob Keaton, acting ISS director at NASA headquarters, said during a half-day series of panels about preserving the ISS at the AIAA ASCEND conference in May. That 2024 paper looked at several alternatives to NASA’s plans to deorbit the station at the end of its life, including boosting it into a higher, longer-lived orbit. “It’s a lot of delta-V and the debris environment is pretty bad,” he said. That paper estimated that moving the ISS, currently in a orbit a little more than 400 kilometers high, to one between 640 and 680 kilometers, which would keep it in orbit for a century, would require between 18,900 and 22,300 kilograms of propellant. That higher orbit also has more debris, creating the risk of collisions that could cause “complete fragmentation” of the station and jeopardizing the safety of low Earth orbit. The same analysis, he said, also ruled out the partial disassembly of the station to either deorbit pieces of it individually or return them to Earth. “Any disassembly effort to safely disconnect and return individual components (such as modules) would face significant logistical and financial challenges,” the NASA paper noted. “I’ll just speak personally: I would love to see this thing in a museum, I really would,” he said. “It’s just not possible in a fiscally responsible, I suppose, or technologically responsible way, to preserve big chunks of this.” “Though large modules are not feasible for return, NASA has engaged with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and other organizations to develop a preservation plan for some smaller items from the space station,” the NASA paper stated. “The Smithsonian has given us a list of desires,” said Ryan Landon, director of NASA’s ISS research integration office at the Johnson Space Center. She didn’t elaborate on the contents of that list. Cargo Dragon missions won’t be possible once the USDV is installed, Landon said. “So, our last cargo home will be about the middle of 2029.” One challenge will be finding the space to bring those items back. Today, only SpaceX’s cargo Dragon can return significant amounts of cargo from the ISS, with small amounts available on Crew Dragon and Soyuz. Other cargo spacecraft—Cygnus, HTV-X, and Progress—deliver cargo to the station but burn up on reentry. The pace of cargo missions will also slow as the station nears retirement. A key milestone will be the launch of the US Deorbit Vehicle (USDV), a modified Dragon that will dock to the station about 18 months before deorbit. It will use one of the two docking ports available to both commercial crew vehicles and cargo Dragon spacecraft. With the other port used by a Crew Dragon or Starliner spacecraft for the crew, there will be no space for a cargo Dragon. “Once those two vehicles are onboard,” she said of the USDV and commercial crew vehicle, “we will no longer have a vehicle that can return. So, our last cargo home will be about the middle of 2029.” That adds to the urgency for decisions on what to preserve from the ISS. However, historians and curators will be competing for space on those cargo missions with scientists seeking to return experiments as they maximize the station’s research in its final years, along with engineers who need to bring equipment back for maintenance or reuse. “That’ll be an interesting discussion,” she said. ISS A ten-person crew on the International Space Station shares a dinner together earlier this month. (credit: NASA) Researchers have made clear they want to use the ISS as long as they can. “We seek to continue to utilize the International Space Station right up until that last moment when Ryan turns the lights out. So, there will be drivers to maintain as much science capacity on those final return vehicles as we can,” said Michael Roberts, chief scientist of the ISS National Lab. “But, it’s not lost on anyone that there is tremendous scientific knowledge, as well as historical knowledge, that can be retained from the return of some of that instrumentation,” he added. There is, at least, awareness of the need to start planning for preserving items from the ISS. “The ISS is coming on my radar,” said Brian Odom, NASA’s chief historian. “It is the history of the agency’s human spaceflight for a very long time.” However, it’s not clear there is a formal process for determining what can be brought back and how. “There has to be a very concentrated, intentional effort by someone,” said Landon. That individual must be involved in discussions about cargo logistics and can thus advocate for bringing back items when space becomes available on a cargo return mission. That includes “talking to the crews about things to look for and having crews think about heritage while they’re up there,” she said. “The crew is amazing at packing those bags. There is always space somewhere.” “It will be a challenge” determining responsibility for preserving ISS heritage, Keaton said. “The space station program, as currently constituted, is focused on flying the space station.” Odom urged those working on the program “to be their own historian” and think about how to preserve records. “Your work could disappear forever.” “If protecting ISS heritage is something Americans or the US government, or certain portions thereof, care about, that has to be expressed though policy channels. It costs money, it costs time and effort not currently being given to those kinds of things,” noted Gabriel Swiney, director of the Office of Space Commerce’s policy, advocacy, and international division. “If people want to do that, there has to be some organized effort to do so.” Preserving ISS heritage goes beyond hardware on the station today that could be brought back. A big focus will be on preserving physical and electronic records of the station’s development and operations, as well as the oral histories of those involved in the station. That includes how crews actually used the station versus how it was designed to be used. “Archaeology is not necessarily about the distant past,” said Justin Walsh, a professor of art history, archaeology, and space studies at Chapman University. “It’s really about understanding human activity, understanding human culture, understanding adaptation to environments, and specifically doing that through the lens of material culture.” Walsh is the co-principal investigator on an ISS archaeology project that included documenting six areas on the station daily for two months to see how those areas were used by crews, including in “unexpected and unanticipated” ways, such as one astronaut who stored their toiletry kit on a wall in a high-traffic area of the station, illustrating the challenges of storing items on the ISS. “Those kinds of things tell a story that is really important for us to understand about what it means to live in space at our current level of technology.” That heritage can be documented in many ways. He pointed to the “ISS in Real Time” website that brings together photos, videos, transcripts of space-to-ground calls, and other documentation from nearly every day of ISS operations. He added he’s looking for other ways to document the station, including working with NASA to sample smells in different parts of the ISS to understand the chemicals that create it. “We would actually be able to know what the chemical composition of the atmosphere is to a degree that we could recreate smells for exhibits in science museums,” he said. (“Unfortunately, the first time I crossed over from STS-126, it even smelled like a submarine, which is not a nice thing to say about any place,” Stephen Bowen, a submarine officer who became a NASA astronaut, said of the station during another panel.) Despite that rich record, though, historians like Odom are worried they will lose valuable insights into the ISS because of ephemeral electronic records and fading memories. “We might know about Apollo at any minute than we’ll know about ISS in five years,” he said. “The way the bureaucracy created a record during Apollo was pretty substantial.” He urged those working on the program “to be their own historian” and think about how to preserve records of the decisions they made. “Don’t think that somebody else is going to do it for you,” he said. “Your work could disappear forever.” “I’m not big person on holding things,” Bowen said. “The biggest legacy, and what we should be preserving, is to continue to fly similar missions.” Regarding physical preservation of the station, some panelists got creative and suggested that private astronaut missions might be able to help, “taking down that they can,” said Todd Mosher, scholar in residence at the University of Colorado Engineering Management Program. Roberts called on historians to buy a SpaceX Dragon mission “and load it up with whatever you want.” (Perhaps overestimating the financial resources of historians.) Asked what one object from the ISS they would like to preserve, panelists offered answers ranging from the station’s cupola to the table that served as a communal dining space on the ISS to the station’s microbiome. Robert Pearlman, editor of collectSPACE, suggested something large enough that could be cut into small pieces and then mounted on cards or melted into medals “just so that everyone who remembers the space station, everyone who had a good memory of it over the last 25+ years, can have a piece of it if they want.” And what about Bowen, who spent half a year on the ISS in 2023 after three short-duration visits during the final years of the shuttle program? “I’m not big person on holding things,” he said. “The biggest legacy, and what we should be preserving, is to continue to fly similar missions.” Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.