Episode Details

Main Topics

Space Times will be at Satshow 2026!

* Listen to this week’s podcast to get a discount code for the conference

* Hear part of our interview with conference Chairman Jeffrey Hill

* Reach out to us if you’re interested in meeting and/or receiving media coverage

Comms

* Aalyria raised a $100M Series B, led by Battery Ventures and J2 Ventures, valuing Aalyria at $1.3 billion to fund the deployment of their optical communications products. [source]

* AST SpaceMobile was awarded a $30M prime contract by the U.S. Space Development Agency to develop a prototype TACSATCOM for future tranches of the PWSA as part of their HALO Europa program. [source]

* Starlink Updates:

* Kyivstar hits 3M subscribers for its Starlink direct to cell offering in Ukraine, totalling 1.2M SMS messages sent. [source]

* Virgin Media O2 launches Starlink direct-to-smartphone service in the UK to provide mobile data to apps including WhatsApp, Messenger, and Google Maps. [source]

* The European Investment Bank extended €25M in venture debt financing to Luxembourg-based D2D satellite operator OQ Technology. The company will use the money to develop and launch 20+ satellites in the next two years. [source]

* Sceye unveils SceyeCELL, their high-altitude platform for space-to-ground cell relay planned to fly in summer of 2026. [source]

* French ground-station-as-a-service startup Skynopy won a €500K award from the French government to integrate a ground antenna, owned and operated by the Kenya Space Agency, into its commercial network. [source]

AI

* Sophia Space announced the close of a $10M Seed round led by Alpha Funds, KDDI Green Partners Fund, and Unlock Venture Partners to accelerate development of the company’s next-generation orbital computing systems and proprietary thermal technology. [source]

* CesiumAstro acquires Vidrovr to embed AI in their communications systems for real-time multimodal signal analysis. [source]

* Seekr and Wyvern partner to launch SeekrGeo, an AI-driven hyperspectral reasoning engine for extracting usable intelligence from raw satellite data. [source]

* NordSpace founder backs Wyvern with their new Canada-focused venture arm. [source]

* Boeing announced in recent ground tests that they de