Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026 is Feb. 25 A single collision could cause a cascading effect in orbit. Elon Musk's plan to launch millions of AI satellites could be disastrous for the planet. At the start of the month, Elon Musk announced that two of his companies -- SpaceX and xAI -- were merging, and would jointly launch a constellation of 1 million satellites to operate as orbital data centers. Musk's reputation might suggest otherwise, but according to experts, such a plan isn't a complete fantasy. However, if executed at the scale suggested, some of them believe it would have devastating effects on the environment and the sustainability of low Earth Earth orbit.

Why did SpaceX just apply to launch 1 million satellites? We are only a month into 2026, yet it's already clear what one of the major space stories of the year is going to be: mega-constellations, and the ongoing attempts to launch thousands of satellites into Earth's orbit. The latest development is that SpaceX has asked the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to launch 1 million orbital data centre satellites. The previous largest filing with the FCC, also by SpaceX, was for 42,000 Starlink satellites in 2019. "This is beyond what's been proposed by any constellation," says Victoria Samson at the Secure World Foundation in the US.

Ukraine hails'real results' after Musk restricts Russian Starlink use Elon Musk's efforts to stop Russia from using Starlink satellites for drone attacks have delivered real results, a Ukrainian official said. Praising the SpaceX founder as a true champion of freedom and a true friend of the Ukrainian people, defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Musk had swiftly responded when he was told Russian drones with Starlink connectivity were operating in the country. The drones have been linked to a number of recent deadly attacks by Russia on Ukraine, including one on a moving passenger train which left six people dead. Looks like the steps we took to stop the unauthorised use of Starlink by Russia have worked, Musk wrote on X. Let us know if more needs to be done.

SpaceX combining with xAI would bring Elon Musk's rockets, Starlink satellites, the X social media platform and Grok AI chatbot under one roof. NEW YORK - SpaceX is exploring deals with other companies helmed by serial entrepreneur Elon Musk, leaving investors working through permutations between space, autonomous driving and artificial intelligence to analyze which combination makes the most sense. The rocket maker is in discussions to merge with xAI ahead of a blockbuster public offering planned for this year, Reuters reported on Thursday. The combination would bring Musk's rockets, Starlink satellites, X social media platform and Grok chatbot under one roof, according to a person briefed on the matter and two regulatory filings. The deal's value, timing or primary rationale could not be independently determined.

Like so many things in Elon Musk's orbit, a lot of it may come down to AI. SpaceX is planning to raise tens of billions of dollars through an initial public offering next year, multiple outlets have reported, and Ars can confirm. This represents a major change in thinking from the world's leading space company and its founder, Elon Musk . The Wall Street Journal and The Information first reported about a possible IPO last Friday, and Bloomberg followed that up on Tuesday evening with a report suggesting the company would target a $1.5 trillion valuation. This would allow SpaceX to raise in excess of $30 billion. This is an enormous amount of funding.

With the rapid advancement of aerospace technology and the large-scale deployment of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations, the challenges facing astronomical observations and deep space exploration have become increasingly pronounced. As a result, the demand for high-precision orbital data on space objects-along with comprehensive analyses of satellite positioning, constellation configurations, and deep space satellite dynamics-has grown more urgent. However, there remains a notable lack of publicly accessible, real-world datasets to support research in areas such as space object maneuver behavior prediction and collision risk assessment. This study seeks to address this gap by collecting and curating a representative dataset of maneuvering behavior from Starlink satellites. The dataset integrates Two-Line Element (TLE) catalog data with corresponding high-precision ephemeris data, thereby enabling a more realistic and multidimensional modeling of space object behavior. It provides valuable insights into practical deployment of maneuver detection methods and the evaluation of collision risks in increasingly congested orbital environments.

In this paper we introduce some new algebraic and geometric perspectives on networked space communications. Our main contribution is a novel definition of a time-varying graph (TVG), defined in terms of a matrix with values in subsets of the real line P(R). We leverage semi-ring properties of P(R) to model multi-hop communication in a TVG using matrix multiplication and a truncated Kleene star. This leads to novel statistics on the communication capacity of TVGs called lifetime curves, which we generate for large samples of randomly chosen STARLINK satellites, whose connectivity is modeled over day-long simulations. Determining when a large subsample of STARLINK is temporally strongly connected is further analyzed using novel metrics introduced here that are inspired by topological data analysis (TDA). To better model networking scenarios between the Earth and Mars, we introduce various semi-rings capable of modeling propagation delay as well as protocols common to Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN), such as store-and-forward. Finally, we illustrate the applicability of zigzag persistence for featurizing different space networks and demonstrate the efficacy of K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) classification for distinguishing Earth-Mars and Earth-Moon satellite systems using time-varying topology alone.

Ukrainian users of SpaceX's satellite internet network could be making themselves the targets of Russian military attacks, due to the distinctive appearance of the company's dishes, cybersecurity experts have warned. SpaceX's chief executive Elon Musk has been shipping thousands of Starlink terminals and powerful batteries to Ukraine, to help the country stay connected during its war with Russia. As well as providing internet to some of the country's stricken cities, the Ukrainian army has reportedly been making very successful use of Starlink for drone attacks on Russian tanks and positions. However, even Musk has acknowledged that the distinctive appearance of the Starlink terminals could make them targets in Russian airstrikes, and urged users to'place light camouflage over antenna to avoid visual detection'. Now experts have rubbished this suggestion, claiming that the terminals cannot be camouflaged because they need to have an obstructed view of the sky to connect to satellites.

SpaceX's Starlink satellites may be used for navigation and GPS in the future, a new study suggests. Engineers from Ohio State University have developed a means to use signals broadcast by Starlink to locate a position on Earth. It is the first time the system has been used by scientists outside of SpaceX, and the researchers say they only used data related to the satellites movement and location – not the actual data being sent through the satellites. "We eavesdropped on the signal, and then we designed sophisticated algorithms to pinpoint our location, and we showed that it works with great accuracy," said Zak Kassas, director of the Center for Automated Vehicles Research with Multimodal Assured Navigation (CARMEN) at Ohio State. "Even though Starlink wasn't designed for navigation purposes, we showed that it was possible to learn parts of the system well enough to use it for navigation. Apple says it is aware of a problem with the new iPhone 13 and Apple Watch iPhone 14 to bring'complete redesign', report claims Trading app Robinhood has stopped working "The important catch here is that we are not'listening' in on what is being sent over these satellites.

Hundreds of astronomers have warned that satellite constellations like Elon Musk's Starlink network could prove "extremely impactful" to astronomy and scientific progress. A report by the Satellite Constellations 1 (Satcon1) workshop found that that constellations of bright satellites will fundamentally change ground-based optical and infrared astronomy and could impact the appearance of the night's sky for stargazers around the world. The research brought together more than 250 astronomers, satellite operators and dark-sky advocates to better understand the astronomical impact of large satellite constellations. "We find that the worst-case constellation designs prove extremely impactful to the most severely affected science programs," stated the report, which was published on Tuesday. Elon Musk's SpaceX plans to launch more than 30,000 Starlink satellites in order to beam high-speed internet down to Earth.