Space News for Tuesday, May 05, 2026

In this episode, we aggregate and summarize today's top space news stories. Enjoy!(00:10) Podcast Introduction(00:23) Firefly plans late summer launch of first Alpha Block 2 rocket(01:00) NRO taps EarthDaily, Iceye, Pixxel to expand commercial data pipeline(01:49) NATO governance policies need updating(02:04) Tech firms partner up to push intelligence processing closer to the battlefield(02:50) Pixxel pushes into orbital data centers for faster geospatial intelligence(03:39) Lockheed Martin joins collaboration with Firefly Aerospace and Seagate for off-shore launches(04:21) U.S. Space Force Awards $3.2 Billion for Space-Based Interceptor Layer(04:53) Interlune Secures $6.9 Million NASA Contract for Lunar Resource Extraction(05:28) U.S. Space Force Integrates Domain Awareness Capabilities into Balikatan 2026(06:07) Smallsat Sector to Deploy 16,900 Satellites Through 2035 as Market Reaches Industrial Maturity(06:46) SmallSat Europe Speaker Focus: Massimo Comparini, Leonardo Space Division(07:20) NASA Fosters Development of Lunar Resource-Seeking Technologies(08:13) NASA Welcomes Malta as Newest Artemis Accords Signatory(08:50) Breaking Barriers at 3rd Annual Findings from the Field Symposium(09:51) Lt. Gen. Schiess Nominated to Lead Space Force(10:31) Payload Field Guide: Lunar Rovers(11:01) NASA wants to land astronauts on the moon in 2028. Will SpaceX's Starship or Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander be ready in time?(11:50) Trump's proposed NASA budget is a 'horrible threat to our future' in space, Planetary Society CEO says(12:37) James Webb Space Telescope directly studies an exoplanet's surface for the 1st time: 'We see a dark, hot, barren rock'(13:26) Our Milky Way's 'Zone of Avoidance' holds a galaxy supercluster with 30,000 trillion times the sun's mass(14:03) Lasers take aim at a galaxy far, far away | Space photo of the day for May 4, 2026