VANDENBERG, USA, Oct. 1, 2026 - Germany's Rheinmetall and Italy's Argotec launched their first jointly developed satellite on 1 October aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.^[1][2] The satellite is built to support military air-defence surveillance.^[3] The programme is meant to provide space data for air defence and early warning,^[4] and the satellite's situational data will be fed into existing defence systems.^[5] The launch extends a growing partnership between the two companies.^[6] Argotec, headquartered in Turin, supplies the space technology,^[7] and a follow-up satellite is scheduled to launch in 2028.^[8][9] Space Nugget. Satellites that watch for military threats usually fly in low Earth orbit, a few hundred kilometres up, where they can see the ground in detail but pass over any one spot only briefly. That is why such systems tend to grow into constellations: more satellites mean a shorter wait between looks at the same place.