Boeing is moving closer to final safety certification for the 737 MAX 10, with the Federal Aviation Administration targeting September or October should the review stay on track. The approval would clear a long-delayed hurdle for the largest member of the 737 MAX family and could help Boeing improve its cash flow as it competes with Airbus in the single-aisle jet market.
Shield AI and GE Aerospace said on July 20 that they had completed integration, actuation and engine ignition testing for the Axisymmetric Vectoring Exhaust Nozzle (AVEN) on the X-BAT vertical takeoff and landing unmanned combat aircraft. The milestone brings the AI-enabled, runway-independent fighter closer to a first flight later in 2026.
As geopolitical tensions push strategic industries from AI and semiconductors into space, Pegatron Chairman T.H. Tung said Taiwan is ready to compete. Speaking on July 21, Tung said Taiwan's satellite component self-sufficiency rate has climbed above 85%, and that scaling up production would drive down costs and unlock economies of scale.
An organization under China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) released the membership list of the National Commercial Space Alliance's Commercial Space Entrepreneurship Consortium on July 1, offering a rare look at 271 officially recognized space-related organizations. Covering everything from launch services and satellite development to ground infrastructure and financial services, the list signals Beijing's increasingly institutionalized approach to identifying and supporting established commercial space companies.
The United States' proposed Golden Dome missile defense system remains highly uncertain, but it is already emerging as a new market that US space and defense startups are racing to enter.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has completed the first flight test of its reusable small experimental rocket RV-X, marking an early step in Japan's effort to develop lower-cost launch technology for future satellite missions.
Governments across Asia and Europe are moving to build or protect homegrown satellite communications, driven by a shared anxiety: that critical connectivity should not rest in foreign, privately controlled hands. Recent policy moves in Japan, China, and the EU reveal the same instinct — technological sovereignty in orbit — pursued through starkly different tools.
China's private rocket industry is entering a make-or-break decade, as low-Earth orbit satellite demand, reusable launch technology, and STAR Market reforms drive the race to build a "China SpaceX."
Rocket Lab is taking a major step toward competing more directly with SpaceX, announcing an agreement to acquire satellite communications provider Iridium Communications in an approximately US$8 billion cash-and-stock transaction. The deal transforms Rocket Lab from a launch and spacecraft manufacturer into a fully vertically integrated space company with its own global satellite communications network, a strategy widely viewed by the market as mirroring SpaceX's integrated business model.
