8 April 2026 – Astroscale has successfully completed the Critical Design Review (CDR) for the Ministry of Defence’s Orpheus mission, marking a major milestone in delivering new UK capability in support of Space Domain Awareness (SDA) and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) thereby strengthening the UK’s long-term resilience in space. The Orpheus mission requires Astroscale UK to operate two spacecraft, to be built by subcontractor Open Cosmos, flying in close formation delivering critical data on the space domain. The development of the spacecraft builds on Open Cosmos’s small satellite heritage and incorporates significant design input from Astroscale UK. Read more