Propulsion Ion propulsion pushes a spacecraft by firing charged gas at high speed. Here is how ion and Hall thrusters work, and why they trade thrust for efficiency.
Propulsion Nuclear propulsion uses a reactor to heat or power a spacecraft. How nuclear thermal and nuclear electric engines work, and why Mars trips need them.
Space Economy Space tourism sells seats on rockets to private passengers. Here is how suborbital and orbital flights differ, what a trip is like, and who has flown.
Space Economy Space mining means extracting water and metals from asteroids and the Moon. Here are the target resources, the companies, the law, and the feasibility.
Space Economy Asteroid mining seeks water for in-orbit fuel and metals for Earth. Learn how missions prospect, extract, and navigate real physics and legal rules.
Future Tech A space elevator is a cable from Earth to beyond geostationary orbit. Here is how the counterweight and climbers would work, and why none is built yet.
Space Economy A directory of active asteroid mining companies and lunar resource ventures, detailing missions flown, targets, funding figures, and stock availability.
Space Environment Space debris is wreckage from 70 years of launches, now tens of thousands of tracked objects. How the Kessler cascade works, and what removal takes.
Space Economy AstroForge is attempting to mine platinum-group metals from asteroids. How its spacecraft work, its mission record, funding, and public stock status.
Space Environment The Kessler syndrome is a self-sustaining chain of collisions in orbit. How the cascade works and which altitudes keep debris for centuries.
Basics Space technology covers launch vehicles, satellites, ground systems, and the materials developed for space that end up in everyday products like GPS.
Space Economy Moon mining focuses on polar water ice for propellant and regolith oxygen. What missions have detected, who is building hardware, and why it remains hard.
Applications Space technology in road construction means satellite surveys for route planning, GNSS for tracking and tolling, and imagery for monitoring progress.
Space Environment Space traffic management starts with tracking data. Who issues collision warnings to satellites, and what the Commerce Department is building to share them.
Infrastructure Orbital refueling splits into satellite servicing with storable propellant, which has flown, and cryogenic ship-to-ship transfer, which has not yet.
Future Tech Space-based solar power collects sunlight in orbit and beams it to Earth as microwaves. What demonstrations have proven, and why it isn't at scale yet.
Space Environment Space weather stems from solar activity that disrupts the power grid, satellites, and GPS. Here is how geomagnetic storms work and what they cost.
Propulsion A lunar nuclear reactor delivers continuous power through the two-week lunar night. Here is how NASA's fission surface power and SPARC programs operate.
Emerging Tech Learn how a space data center operates, why Google and Starcloud are researching orbital AI compute, and the core engineering hurdles.
Space Economy Loft Orbital operates a space-as-a-service model using standardized satellite buses. Learn how its missions work, its funding, and its stock status.
Spacecraft Portal Space Systems builds solar thermal spacecraft designed for rapid orbital maneuvering, serving emerging US Space Force dynamic space operations.
Space Infrastructure Satellite servicing extends spacecraft life through docking, inspection, and robotics. See what Northrop Grumman, Astroscale, and Starfish have flown.
Space Infrastructure A space tug moves satellites between orbital regimes after separation from a launch vehicle. Learn how commercial transfer vehicles operate and compare.
Space Technology See what hardware has flown for in-space manufacturing: pharmaceutical crystals, ZBLAN optical fiber, semiconductor tests, and capsule reentries.
Space Environment Active debris removal sends servicer spacecraft to capture and deorbit dead satellites and spent rockets. Learn how missions like ADRAS-J work.
Space Power Redwire's roll-out solar array (ROSA) powers the ISS and NASA's DART spacecraft. Learn what Axiom Space ordered in October 2026 and where ROSA has flown.
Space Economy Interlune plans to mine lunar helium-3 for quantum cooling and fusion. Who runs the startup, how extraction works, and what customers have signed.
Space Environment NASA SSPICY is a technology demonstration in which Starfish Space's Otter spacecraft inspects up to four inoperable U.S. objects in low Earth orbit.
Spacecraft What CosmoChute is, the EPOC modular rover, OASYS trailer, and Cartridge system it builds, who backs it, and what its public record states.
Propulsion The F-1 rocket engine made 1.5 million pounds of thrust, and five powered the Saturn V first stage. How engineers fixed its combustion instability.
Space Stations How does the space station get oxygen? The ISS splits recycled water into breathable air using electrolysis, backed by stored gas and chemical candles.
Space Stations NASA plans an ISS deorbit in 2031 using a SpaceX vehicle. Here is how the controlled reentry works, why it cannot stay in orbit, and where it will land.
Propulsion A regenerative cooling rocket engine circulates cold propellant through chamber walls to stop metal from melting. Here is how modern cooling methods work.
The engineering behind everything in orbit
Every capability covered on OrbitalIntel rests on a stack of hard engineering: the propulsion that gets mass to orbit and moves it around once there, and the materials and systems that keep spacecraft working in a vacuum bathed in radiation. This section explains that technology in plain language, from the engines flying today to the concepts still on the drawing board.
Propulsion is where it starts. Our explainer on how rocket engines work covers the chemistry and physics of chemical rockets, the difference between liquid and solid engines, and why a number called specific impulse decides how far a rocket can go. From there, ion propulsion shows how electric thrusters trade brute thrust for extraordinary efficiency to move satellites and deep-space probes, and nuclear propulsion explains the reactors that could cut the trip time to Mars.
The frontier
Beyond propulsion, a set of technologies keeps appearing in headlines and funding rounds. Space tourism has already flown paying passengers on suborbital and orbital trips, and we explain the difference and what a flight involves. Space mining looks at the real resources, and the legal and physical obstacles, behind the idea of extracting water and metals from asteroids and the Moon. And the space elevator is the century-old concept that keeps failing on one stubborn problem: no known material is strong enough to build the tether.
Grounded, not breathless
Space technology attracts more hype than almost any field. We try to keep the two apart, explaining how a technology would work, what has actually been demonstrated, and what is still speculative. Where a concept is decades away or may never be practical, we say so rather than dressing a press release up as a product. The rockets that carry this technology are covered in our launch section.
How to use this section
Start with rocket engines if you want the fundamentals of how anything reaches space, then branch into propulsion or the frontier topics that interest you. Each page is written to stay accurate as the field moves, with time-sensitive claims marked and hedged.