Space · Lead record
A pending, published application claims a satellite gateway that swaps inroute channels between two multiple-access schemes by traffic load. Reading claim 1 shows where its scope sits — and where the dependent claims narrow it.
Space
Boeing’s newly issued US12669308B2 claims a missile seeker built from two rigidly fixed cameras. The dependent claims — no cooling, a tapered missile nose, gripstock launch — are where the real scope lives.
Space & Defense
A published application assigned to Xplore Inc. is directed to a small satellite that performs onboard georectification with edge computing, so image data is spatially accurate before it is ever downlinked.
Space & Defense
An issued patent claims a business device that manages a satellite constellation of 100 or more satellites, coordinating orbital altitude and the timing of satellite passes where orbital planes cross. It sits in the cosmonautics class B64G 1/1085, the heart of the assignee's growing space-traffic-management portfolio.
Space
Electric propulsion trades thrust for fuel efficiency, letting satellites maneuver for years on a tank of xenon. Here is how these inventions are classified under B64G 1/405 and what a real all-electric claim covers.
Space
Phased-array antennas steer a beam electronically instead of mechanically — the enabling technology behind LEO broadband terminals. Here is how the patents are classified and what a real claim protects.
Space
Under 35 U.S.C. 181, the Patent Office can be ordered to keep a defense-relevant invention secret — withholding publication and the grant itself. It is why the public space and defense patent record has visible gaps.
Space
When a contractor invents something on a NASA or Defense Department contract, the Bayh-Dole Act lets the contractor keep the patent — but the government keeps a license, march-in rights and a U.S.-manufacturing preference. Here is what the statute reserves.
Space
B64G is the Cooperative Patent Classification subclass that covers cosmonautics — spacecraft, launch equipment, space suits and on-orbit tools. Knowing how it is structured is the fastest way to map where the space industry is actually filing.
Space
An FAA Federal Register notice (FR Doc. 2026-05638) invites public comment on renewing OMB Control No. 2120-0720, the mandatory information collection tied to human space flight crew and space flight participant requirements.
Space & Defense
A pending application names individually identifiable corner-cube retroreflectors read by a laser-and-sensor body — directed, the disclosure says, at formation-flying spacecraft and in-orbit structures. It published this week, classified in optics and laser CPC subclasses rather than the spacecraft class.
Space
An arXiv paper (2606.17947) builds a continuous LEO collision-risk index and finds the collective burden of a constellation element can exceed its operator-centric risk by more than two orders of magnitude.
Space
A new FCC Report and Order (document 2026-06992) requires a broad class of license and authorization holders, satellite operators included, to attest to and disclose any foreign-adversary control.
Space
An FAA notice (document 2026-03291) announces a Final Tiered Environmental Assessment and FONSI/ROD for added Starship launch trajectories and Super Heavy landings at SpaceX's Boca Chica site, the regulatory step before expanded operations.
Space
A new FAA notice (document 2026-07789) implements per-payload-pound launch and reentry user fees mandated by the 2025 budget law, attaching a recurring cost to every licensed U.S. mission.
Space
Two weeks after replacing EPFD limits, the FCC Space Bureau opened a proceeding (document 2026-10617) on the geostationary reference links that anchor its new protection criteria, the parameters that will settle close coordination disputes.
Space
A new FCC Report and Order (FCC-26-09565) replaces the decades-old Equivalent Power Flux Density framework with performance-based GSO protection criteria, reshaping the regulatory floor under every U.S. satellite-broadband filing.
Space
Under a NEPA provision, NASA is adopting categorical exclusions originally created by ten other federal agencies. The move trims environmental review on routine actions, the quiet bureaucracy that governs how fast things get to the pad.
Space
A public notice invites commercial space firms and academics to advise US delegations to international meetings on spaceflight safety and responsible behavior. It is how soft-law norms for orbit actually get made.
Space
A proposed rule implementing the WRC-19 Final Acts would harmonize US allocations across spectrum from 495 kHz to 50.9 GHz, and quietly revisit field-strength limits at a radio-quiet zone that protects scientific receivers.
Space
The Space Bureau wants updated evidence before letting NGSO constellations use additional frequency bands to serve antennas on planes, ships and vehicles. The proceeding's docket numbers reveal how long this has been pending.
Space
A proposed rule in SB Docket 26-54 confronts an acute shortage of telemetry, tracking and command spectrum for spacecraft that are not communications satellites. The fix is a quiet rewrite of how the Commission classifies what flies.
Space
The Space Bureau wants to redraw the assumed geostationary network that every NGSO operator must protect. The numbers buried in SB Docket 25-157 will set how much broadband capacity LEO constellations can legally radiate.
Space & Defense
A June 2026 University of Michigan grant addresses a quiet problem with electric propulsion — the spin it imparts to a spacecraft — by building the counter-torque into the thruster itself.
