On 5 October, the southern Turkish city of Antalya welcomed an unusual crowd: heads of space agencies, engineers, and entrepreneurs and investors exchanging business cards. The 77th International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2026) opened there and runs until 9 October under the theme “The World Needs More Space”. It is the first time the congress has been held in Türkiye, hosted by the Turkish Space Agency, with 5,000 to 10,000 participants and more than 3,000 papers.

An unusually crowded start to October

On 7 October, South Korea’s Nuri launch vehicle completed a successful fifth flight carrying 14 satellites; the ESA director-general warned in Antalya against the militarisation of space.

On 25 August, the first Long March 6C lifted off from Taiyuan carrying seven satellites, among them the Lingzhi-09 Thailand CubeSat built by GalaxySpace — the first time a Chinese commercial company has developed, launched and delivered a complete satellite to Southeast Asia.

Selling a satellite is no longer just handing over hardware

The customer is Thailand’s GISTDA. GalaxySpace supplied satellite, ground system and capability building together: Thai engineers trained in China, Chinese teams taught in Thailand. The company has launched 49 self-developed satellites, is pursuing an A-share IPO, and will next focus on Belt and Road markets. On 12 February, China Great Wall Industry Corporation used a Smart Dragon-3 sea launch to orbit PRSC-EO2 for Pakistan’s SUPARCO.

Every contract and manual is a cross-language project

The document list is long: bilingual contracts and technical specifications, export-compliance material, interface documents, test reports, ground-station manuals and training material. Terminology is dense, revisions are frequent, and numbers, units and standard identifiers cannot drift. Framework agreements and IP clauses are handled to legal-document standards, and carrying standards across languages is itself part of the engineering. How we do the work is described in “Satellites Need to Speak the Local Language”, while “Want to Translate for the Space Sector?” takes the translator’s view. Enquiries are welcome via the contact page.

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