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Aug 11
China's Long March 7A rocket explodes 85 seconds after liftoff in rare launch failure
China's Long March 7A Y18 rocket exploded in mid-air shortly after launching from Wenchang, Hainan, on the evening of August 10, with its ChinaSat-4B satellite payload believed to have been completely lost. Chinese authorities later confirmed that the mission had failed because of an in-flight anomaly but have yet to disclose the cause, leaving uncertainty over whether the incident stemmed from a system malfunction or the activation of the flight termination system.

Lite-On Technology reported strong revenue growth in the first seven months of 2026, fueled by demand for AI, cloud, and LEO satellite power systems. The results underscore how the company's overseas production strategy, especially in Vietnam, is becoming central to its growth as customers seek more resilient supply chains.

Ubiqconn Technology reported its second-quarter 2026 results and said July revenue strengthened as satellite applications became a bigger growth driver. The company said consolidated revenue in July reached about NT$182 million (US$5.65 million), up 28% from June and 18% from a year earlier, while cumulative revenue for the first seven months totaled about NT$1.124 billion, narrowing the year-over-year decline to 14%.

California's satellite manufacturing sector kept growing despite high costs and strict regulation, as startups and established operators expanded across San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Los Angeles. According to SpaceNews, the state remained a central hub for the U.S. space supply chain because of its talent base, venture funding, customer access, and the ability to repurpose office space.

Demand for non-China drone supply chains is clear in Europe and the US, while calls to reduce reliance on Chinese suppliers have recently emerged even in Southeast Asian countries friendly to China. The opportunity comes as Taiwan's drone exports have posted explosive growth for two consecutive years, underscoring the competitiveness of Taiwanese drones in international markets.

Bureau 1440's Rassvet constellation initiative has been gaining industry-wide attention for emerging as a comparative presence to Russia's Starlink, although it is currently nowhere near Starlink in constellation size or continuous global service.
South Korea's Hanwha Aerospace posted a second-quarter 2026 operating profit of more than KRW1 trillion (approx. US$704.9 million), highlighting its ability to expand military exports and aerospace operations simultaneously. With earnings momentum strengthening, the company is now positioning unmanned warfare and AI-enabled combat systems as its next major growth drivers.
Shield AI and Taiwan's National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) said on August 6, 2026, that they have successfully completed a live demonstration of a multi-drone cooperative autonomous search mission, using three Mighty Hornet III drones developed by NCSIST. The two sides said they will continue working together to expand the use of Shield AI's Hivemind autonomous system across NCSIST research and development programs.

Amid the escalation of geopolitical tensions and extreme weather events, Taiwan has stepped up efforts to become a global hub for drone manufacturing as countries around the world accelerate buildouts of non-red supply chains. Drones have now evolved from tools for aerial photography into crucial elements of national defense, disaster response, and the rising low-altitude economy.

As geopolitical tensions and natural disasters continue to highlight the importance of resilient communications infrastructure, Chunghwa Telecom is accelerating investments in both satellite and subsea cable networks to strengthen Taiwan's network redundancy.

SpaceX's earnings call — the first since its IPO disclosure — beat expectations on Aug 4, but the line that moved markets wasn't a revenue figure.

Elon Musk's ambitions across AI, robotics and space infrastructure are moving into a new phase following the unveiling of Terafab, an ambitious semiconductor manufacturing complex designed to secure the compute capacity required by Tesla, SpaceX and xAI.