Tag: capitalism

Orbital tug company Momentus gets two NASA contracts

9:54 am

The orbital tug startup Momentus yesterday announced that NASA has awarded it two contracts worth $7.6 million total to fly two experimental NASA payloads on its Vigoride tug.

One payload will test “test the ability to make semiconductor crystals in microgravity”, while the second will “test a rotating detonation rocket engine, a propulsion system designed to provide higher efficiency than traditional engines.” In this case the propellants used will be nitrous oxide and ethane.

Both will fly on the same Vigoride tug on a mission to be launched no earlier than October 2026. Momentus also says there is room for additional payloads on that mission.

It appears the increase in the number and launches of rockets has actually hurt the orbital tug business:

Momentus is among several companies that developed orbital transfer vehicles, or OTVs, like Vigoride to ferry spacecraft between orbits. They are designed to provide last-mile delivery to specific orbits for spacecraft launched on rideshare missions such as [SpaceX’s] Transporter [launches]. However, demand for such services has been slower to materialize than expected. “Candidly, that part of the market has not developed as much as people thought, say, five years ago,” [said John Rood, Momentus’ chief executive] during a panel at World Space Business Week in September. “The reason is many small manufacturers are multi-manifesting satellites to deploy a single plane with a single launcher.”

As a result, Momentus has focused on getting technology demonstration contracts such as the two above, with the tug acting more like a service module.

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Canadian rocket startup Nordspace signs deal for its mission control center

9:01 am

Proposed Canadian spaceports
Proposed Canadian spaceports

The Canadian rocket startup Nordspace, which earlier this week signed a deal for another company to establish ground stations for its proposed Atlantic Spaceport, today signed an agreement with the company Kongsberg Geospatial to provide software for running its mission control center.

According to the news release TerraLens “will ingest data from multiple sensors to deliver real-time three-dimensional (3D) visualization of launch operations, range safety, decision support, and vehicle tracking. This will help streamline launch operations and enable deployment of critical space missions to orbit in under 48 hours.” Kongsberg said TerraLens builds on their “experience supporting range safety and mission-critical visualization for the Andøya Space and Defence project in Norway.”

Andøya is Norway’s new commercial spaceport that has been launching suborbital government rockets for decades.

Nordspace continues to move forward quickly, having been established only three years ago. It is putting the pieces together for its spaceport, and is testing both a small suborbital rocket and the engines for its proposed orbital Tundra rocket. Though the race is certainly not over, it does appear Nordspace will get to orbit ahead of the Nova Scotia spaceport that was first proposed in 2016.

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AST SpaceMobile signs up Verizon to use its constellation for phone-to-satellite service

8:40 am

The startup AST SpaceMobile, which is building a constellation of satellites able to act as cell towers for smart phones, has now signed an agreement with Verizon to give its subscribers access to the service.

AST SpaceMobile’s shares closed up more than 8% Oct. 8 after Verizon joined AT&T in signing a definitive agreement to use its planned space-based cellular network, easing investor concerns about SpaceX’s aggressive push into the fledgling direct-to-device (D2D) market.

The deal enables Verizon to provide D2D connectivity to its customers from some point in 2026, building on a strategic partnership announced in May 2024 that included plans for a $100 million investment in AST.

As noted above, AST has now signed both Verizon and AT&T, two of the largest cellphone companies, strengthening its position considerably in its competition with SpaceX’s Starlink cell-to-satellite alternative. Both deals appear to allow these companies the ability to sign contracts with both AST and Starlink, so it is possible the competition won’t be as fierce initially as it appears. It is also possible that eventually they will pick one or the other, so neither company should be complacent.

AST presently has five of its BlueBird satellites in orbit out of its planned 45-60 satellite constellation, and hopes to have at least half the constellation in orbit by the end of ’26. So even if it wins its cellphone competition with SpaceX that rocket company will still likely make some money launching AST’s satellites.

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Canadian rocket startup Nordspace obtains expanded ground station contract

9:28 am

Proposed Canadian spaceports
Proposed Canadian spaceports

The Canadian rocket startup Nordspace has signed an agreement with the ground station company C-Core to establish more tracking and communication facilities in conjunction with Nordspace’s launch plans at its Atlantic spaceport in Newfoundland.

NordSpace and C-CORE have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will see the companies work together in developing new ground stations across Canada with initial locations planned for the Atlantic Spaceport Complex (ASX) in St. Lawrence, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Inuvik, Northwest Territories.

With C-CORE being based in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and already established in providing ground station services, it seems like a natural collaboration that could benefit both companies. For NordSpace, which owns and is developing the Atlantic Spaceport Complex, this collaboration provides the potential for another type of revenue source as the company tries to diversify.

Nordspace has not yet launched, though its first suborbital test launch several weeks ago was scrubbed twice due to ground equipment fuel leaks. It has not yet announced another date for that suborbital test, but plans a static fire test in October of the engine it is building for its orbital Tundra rocket.

This company is only three years old, and appears to have leap-frogged past Canada’s other spaceport operation in Nova Scotia, which has been trying to get off the ground for almost a decade.

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Stoke Space said to be raising as much as $500 million in private investment capital

9:17 am

Stoke's Nova rocket
Stoke’s Nova rocket, designed to be
completely reusable.

UPDATE: Stoke Space confirms the story, announcing today that it has raised $510 million in new capital.

According to anonymous sources, the rocket startup Stoke Space is in the process of raising as much as $500 million in private investment capital, with new $2 billion valuation for the company.

Stoke Space, one of the Seattle area’s up-and-coming space startups, is said to be raising hundreds of millions of dollars in a funding round that it hasn’t yet publicly acknowledged. A report about the round, based on two unidentified sources, was published today by The Information.

The Information quoted its sources as saying that the funding round could total as much as $500 million, and would value Stoke at nearly $2 billion. That figure would be roughly twice as much as the $944 million valuation that was cited by Pitchbook as of January. The round’s lead investor is said to be Thomas Tull’s United States Innovative Technology Fund.

Earlier this year Stoke raised $260 million, bringing its available capital to almost a half billion. If this story is confirmed, it means the company will have almost a billion in available cash on hand.

The design of Stoke’s Nova rocket is unique in that both the lower and upper stages will be reusable. The first stage will land vertically, like SpaceX’s Falcon 9. The upper stage meanwhile uses a radical nozzle design, a ring of tiny nozzles around the perimeter of a heat shield, to protect it during re-entry.

The company has said it plans the first launch in 2026, but has not been more specific as to when. If successful, this rocket will certainly become a major player, as it will be able to offer even lower prices than SpaceX because none of the rocket will be expendable.

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SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites, reuses 1st stage for 29th time

8:31 am

SpaceX last night successfully launched another 28 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage, B1071, completed its 29th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. The present rankings for the most reflights of a rocket:

39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
30 Falcon 9 booster B1067
29 Falcon 9 booster B1071
28 Columbia space shuttle
28 Falcon 9 booster B1063
27 Falcon 9 booster B1069

Sources here and here.

Note also that SpaceX was able to refly this stage only 24 days after its previous flight. Even after 28 flights, the booster appears so robust the company can get it back in the air only weeks later.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

129 SpaceX
58 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 129 to 98. SpaceX has another launch scheduled for this evening, placing another set of Amazon’s Kuiper satellites into orbit.

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Japanese satellite company extends its launch contract with Rocket Lab

8:01 am

The Japanese satellite company Q-shu Pioneers of Space, Inc. (iQPS) has purchased three more launches from Rocket Lab, for a total of seven planned.

The multi-launch contract includes three dedicated Electron missions that will launch no earlier than 2026 from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. With four dedicated missions already booked by iQPS on Electron, these three additional missions bring the total number of upcoming launches for iQPS to seven.

Each dedicated launch will deploy a single synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite from a Rocket Lab Motorized Lightband separation system – demonstrating Rocket Lab’s vertical integration across launch and space systems that improves reliability and streamlines the launch process for its customers.

Rocket Lab has already completed four successful launches for iOPS, so with this deal means that it will complete eleven launches total for the satellite company. Essentially iQPS has made Rocket Lab its prime launch provider.

This is also the second major launch contract for Rocket Lab in the past week. On September 30, 2025 Synspective purchased its second multi-launch contract with the company, buying ten more launches. Its first contract was for eleven launches, with six already completed. Synspective hopes to have its entire radar constellation of 30 satellites in orbit by the late 2020s.

Both contracts tell us that Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket is going to have a very busy launch schedule for the next few years, even as the company initiates its larger Neutron rocket.

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Is the fate of the independent live streams in Boca Chica uncertain?

12:52 pm

My headline paraphrases this interesting, very detailed, and largely accurate article today from Texas Monthly. It outlines how the newly formed town of Starbase there has the power to block the many independent lives streams and tourist operations that have sprung up since SpaceX opened its facility in Boca Chica.

This proxy government also has the power to create zoning rules and enforce them. In July the city adopted a plan that leaves those with the closest views of the launchpads in violation of new zoning designations. The mainstay launch-day ticket sellers here—Rocket Ranch and a few others—operate in what’s now officially a residential area, near newly built homes for SpaceX executives. The same violation applies to the spots where the streamers have mounted their video cameras.

These cottage industries aren’t doomed. Texas law has grandfathering provisions that allow existing businesses to remain open after zoning changes. But Starbase city attorney Andy Messer raised eyebrows during a recent city commission meeting by saying that the grandfathering would be considered on a “case-by-case basis.” Hearing this, some property owners expressed hesitation to approach the city to ask if their status was in question. “I don’t want to poke the bear,” as one put it.

Will SpaceX force the town of Starbase to shut these independent operations down? The article describes the possibilities in great detail. The very nature of SpaceX and its founder, Elon Musk, suggests it won’t happen. The company thrives on openness and straight talk. Musk himself is a proven supporter of free speech and competition. It would be shocking if his company suddenly took a different position. Moreover, SpaceX, Starbase, or its residents (almost all of which are SpaceX employees) generally benefit from the good publicity of these independent operations, publicity that the company’s own employees enjoy.

Yet, Starbase is a company town, and the long history of such places is that with time, the company takes over and rules everything, allowing nothing that it does not control.

Stay tuned. Above all things won’t be dull in Boca Chica.

Hat tip Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.

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ESA looks to global private sector for its next ISS cargo mission

10:13 am

ESA logo

The European Space Agency (ESA) has issued a request for bids to launch a cargo mission to ISS by the fourth quarter of 2028, and its request will allow companies other than those in Europe to bid.

Published on 3 October, the call for the CSOC Cargo Commercially Procured Offset initiative outlines a single mission to transport 4,900 to 5,000 kilograms of pressurised cargo to the ISS.

… In the call’s “Letter of Invitation”, the agency stated that, due to regulatory requirements that include certifications provided by NASA, the competition would be open to economic operators from the United States. ESA did, however, add that preference would be given, to the “fullest extent possible”, to bids from its Member States.

While the call is set to close on 31 October, the execution of the mission’s procurement will only move forward if the necessary funding is approved by Member States at ESA’s Ministerial Council meeting in November. It will then need to be approved by the relevant Programme Board and the Industrial Policy Committee.

Though there are several European startups (The Exploration Company, Thales Alena, Atmos, PLD) now developing unmanned returnable capsules that will eventually be able to bring cargo to and from ISS, none appear likely to be able to meet the 2028 deadline. Thus, the most likely winner of this contract will be SpaceX.

More significant is the nature of ESA’s request. In the past the agency simply built and owned its own cargo capsule, the ATV. Rather than build another, it is adopting the capitalism model, asking its private sector to make it happen.

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Firefly Aerospace buys defense contractor SciTec

9:21 am

Firefly Aerospace yesterday announced that it is buying the defense contractor SciTec for $300 million in cash plus $555 million in Firefly shares.

The shares go to SciTec’s owners at an agreed-to value of $50 per share, essentially making those individuals part owners of Firefly.

The acquisition will advance Firefly’s comprehensive space services by adding mission-proven defense software analytics, remote sensing, and multi-phenomenology data expertise. SciTec’s core capabilities – which include missile warning, tracking and defense, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, space domain awareness, and autonomous command and control – will supplement Firefly’s launch, lunar, and in-space services. SciTec further adds ground and onboard data processing as well as AI-enabled systems designed for low latency operations to support advanced threat tracking and response across multiple domains.

In other words, this acquisition is aimed at improving Firefly’s ability to win defense contracts, thus diversifying its business beyond outer space. This suggests its managers believe there isn’t enough business in outer space to put the company in the black. It needs defense contracts, and adding SciTech increases the odds it will win those contracts.

The stock price in this sale, $50, I think tells us something of the motives of SciTec’s owners. At present Firefly’s stock is selling at about $30 on Wall Street, and the price has not changed much today after this announcement. It appears the stock obtained by SciTec’s owners is thus not as valuable as listed in the intended sale price. This in turn suggests that those owners also needed this deal to diversify the company, and were willing to take a loss in the value of their stock to get it.

Then again, my understanding of how Wall Street and stocks function is limited, and my analysis on this point could be completely wrong.

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Space Force awards SpaceX and ULA seven launches worth more than a billion dollars

3:05 pm

The U.S. Space Force (USSF) yesterday awarded multi-launch contracts to both SpaceX and ULA for seven launches beginning in 2027 worth more than a billion dollars.

SpaceX received $714 million for five launches and ULA was awarded $428 million for two launches, USSF said in an Oct. 3 news release.

The awards are part of the Space Force’s National Security Space Launch Program, which it uses to launch services for military space missions. In April, it chose SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin to launch a total of 54 missions scheduled between fiscal 2027 and 2032, with SpaceX responsible for just over half, with 28 launches. Individual missions will be awarded in batches through fiscal 2029.

Though Blue Origin was included in this program and its New Glenn rocket has finally launched once successfully, its not yet been certified to launch military satellites, and to get certified the company is going to have to launch at least one more time. That launch is expected before this month is out. Moreover, it will soon have to compete against more companies, and the Pentagon will be adding Rocket Lab and Stoke Space to its approved list as soon as both successfully launch their respective Neutron and Nova rockets by next year.

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Gilmour to attempt first launch again next year

2:53 pm

Eris rocket launch and failure
Eris rocket falling sideways from launchpad
(indicated by red dot). Click for video, cued
to just before launch.

According to a presentation by the CEO and founder of Australian rocket startup Gilmour Space, the company now sufficiently understands what caused the failure on its first launch attempt on July 30 to plan a second attempt in 2026.

The company is still investigating the root cause of the failure. “It looks like what went wrong on the launch is something we’ve never tested close enough to the launch conditions before,” he said, but didn’t elaborate.

One factor in the launch was the long delay between shipping the rocket to the launch site, known as the Bowen Orbital Spaceport, and the launch itself. “Rockets aren’t designed to be at the launch site for 18 months,” he said. The launch site, he noted, is just a kilometer from the ocean, creating salty conditions that can be corrosive.

That extended time at the launch site stemmed from delays securing regulatory approvals for the launch. That included not just a launch license from the Australian Space Agency but also airspace, maritime and environmental permits. “We had to get 24 different permits from the Queensland government,” Gilmour said. “All of these things take a long time to do.” He acknowledged that the company had not put enough resources into those regulatory processes. “The approval processes just took way too long.”

What is ironic is that as bad as Australia appears to be in terms of red tape, it is far better that it mother country, Great Britain. At least in Australia spaceports have been approved and at least one launch has taken place. And it only took eighteen months! In Great Britain the permitting process for its two proposed rocket spaceports has taken almost a decade, and still no vertical launches have occurred at either.

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Satellite propulsion startup Portal successfully tests new and radical thruster design

10:32 am

The satellite propulsion startup Portal has become the first commercial company to test successfully a thruster that uses concentrated sunlight to ionize a fuel.

The concept has been studied several times by NASA and other government entities, but never tested to a point where it could be used on a mission. According to this report:

For the vacuum chamber test at Portal’s Bothell lab, engineers used an electrical induction system to simulate the sun’s heating power. The apparatus reached temperatures in the range of 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,700 degrees Fahrenheit), and the performance of the thruster validated Portal’s propulsion architecture for integration with future flight hardware.

The concept is similar to an ion engine, but appears to produce more thrust, allowing it to move satellites more quickly to different orbits. Portal hopes to do an in orbitat test by next year. The company has raised $17.5 million in private funding, and $45 million from an Air Force grant.

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Varda signs deal for more capsule landings in Australia

9:10 am

Proposed Australian spaceports
Australian spaceports: operating (red dot) and proposed (red “X”)
Click for original image.

The recoverable capsule company Varda has now signed a new deal that will allow it to land up to 20 more capsules at the commercial spaceport/range Southern Launch in Australia through 2028.

It has already landed capsules there twice. This new contract suggests that Varda has enough expected customers and products to place in its capsules to pay for about six or seven capsules launched per year. If so, this manufacturing model in space is going to bloom very quickly, and will likely become a major profit center for the commercial space stations now under development.

The deal also illustrates the utter failure of the U.S. government’s red tape, especially during the Biden administration.

The company landed its first mission, W-1, at the Utah Test and Training Range in February 2024. But difficulties securing licenses and other approvals for that mission prompted Varda to look elsewhere. “Through that experience, it became pretty clear that the U.S. was not going to be the location for high-cadence reentry operations in the near term,” Eric Lasker, Varda’s chief revenue officer, said at an IAC event announcing the new agreement.

Hopefully the anti-regulatory policies of Trump will change this, but for the moment our government has driven this American company away from the U.S.

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Belgium company joins Starlab space station consortium

8:25 am

Starlab design in 2025
The Starlab design in 2025. Click
for original image.

The Starlab consortium, proposing to build its single-module large Starlab space station that will be launched on Starship, has now added the Belgium company Space Applications Services (SpaceApps) as both a partner and investor.

SpaceApps contributes deep experience in space systems, mission operations and payload integration with capabilities that include avionics, payload development, the end-to-end International Commercial Experiment Cubes (ICECubes) service, as well as mission integration and operations control software. The company also works closely with the European Space Agency and international partners, broadening Starlab’s access to global markets and research communities.

The Starlab consortium already includes the American companies Voyager Space and Northrop Grumman and the European company Airbus. It also has a partnership agreement with the European Space Agency. This new Belgium partnership further cements its place as Europe’s potential future space station after ISS is retired.

This deal is only one of several news stories in the past week signaling progress by this consortium. It has signed the American company Vivace to build the station’s main structure and its partner Northrop Grumman has successfully tested the rendezvous and docking technology its Cygnus cargo capsule will use to dock with Starlab. All in all this station appears to be assembling the pieces its needs.

Below is my updated rankings of the four commercial stations under development:
» Read more

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Axiom successfully tests two of its lunar spacesuits underwater

8:01 am

Axiom's two spacesuits being tested underwater
Axiom’s two spacesuits being tested underwater.
Click for original.

The space station startup Axiom this week successfully completed underwater testing of two of its lunar spacesuits, making them ready for astronaut training.

Axiom won the contract to build these suits for NASA in 2022. It speaks well of the company that only three years later the suits are now ready for use. It also shows NASA’s own incompetence, because before it awarded this contract to Axiom the agency tried to build its own suits, spending more than a billion dollars and fourteen years to produce nothing.

Furthermore, this success underlines yesterday’s NASA inspector general report that lambasted Collins Aerospace’s incompetence in maintaining the spacesuits on ISS. Collins in 2022 had won a similar spacesuit contract to build new space station suits, but two years later backed out of the deal, unable to get the job done.

For Axiom, this spacesuit success adds an essential component to its own space station plans. Though these suits are intended for the Moon, the company now has the basics down for its own space station suit. It owns this suit design, and will not only sell suits to NASA, it can market the suits to any one else.

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Inspector General: The state of NASA’s spacesuits on ISS is becoming critical

1:28 pm

NASA's failed spacesuit
NASA’s failed Moon spacesuits

A new NASA inspector report issued today [pdf] has found that the single contractor NASA uses to maintain the spacesuits on ISS, Collins Aerospace, has increasingly been unable to do the job, and NASA has no alternative contractor to turn to. From the report’s executive summary:

We previously reported on NASA’s spacesuit management in 2017 and 2021, finding that the Agency faced a wide array of risks to sustaining the EMUs [the spacesuits], including design inadequacies, health risks, and low inventories of spacesuit life support systems, ultimately leading to NASA’s efforts to design and develop next-generation suits to replace the existing EMUs. Specifically, the EMU design flaws have increased the chance of and led to unexpected water in helmets, thermal regulation malfunctions, and astronaut injuries. Given that spacesuits are necessary to meet future ISS maintenance needs until its planned decommissioning in 2030, it is critical that NASA effectively manages the contract performance and subsequent safety risks associated with ESOC [the contract with Collins].

…Until the ISS’s planned decommission at the end of the decade, NASA will continue to require spacewalking capabilities to perform upgrades and corrective and preventative maintenance to the Station. However, Collins’ performance on ESOC increases programmatic risks to NASA as it attempts to conduct safe spacewalks outside the ISS and maintain critical EMU life support component inventories. The contractor is experiencing considerable schedule delays, cost overruns, and quality issues that significantly increase the risk to maintaining NASA’s spacewalking capability.

Collins was awarded this five-year cost-plus maintenance contract in 2010 for $324 million. Since then NASA has been repeatedly extending it, so that it now runs through 2027 and has funneled $1.4 billion into Collins’ bank account. Yet Collins has repeatedly failed to deliver necessary repair parts, even as there have been more frequent problems on ISS, including several cases where spacewalks had to be aborted because an astronaut’s life was in danger. Here are just a few examples cited in the report:
» Read more

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Firefly loses first stage for next launch when it explodes during static fire test

8:40 am

During a static fire engine test yesterday in preparation for launch, the rocket startup Firefly lost the first stage when an explosion occurred at what appeared to be the base of the rocket. From the company’s update:

During testing at Firefly’s facility in Briggs, Texas, the first stage of Firefly’s Alpha Flight 7 rocket experienced an event that resulted in a loss of the stage. Proper safety protocols were followed, and all personnel are safe. The company is assessing the impact to its stage test stand, and no other facilities were impacted.

Video of the explosion can be seen here.

This incident will obviously delay the next launch, which had only just been scheduled following the completion of the company’s investigation into its launch failure in April. This explosion also suggests there remain serious issues with the Alpha rocket, which has only had two full successes in six launch attempts.

At the same time, with the successful soft landing of its Blue Ghost lander on the Moon earlier this year, Firefly has demonstrated its engineering can be sound and robust. It just appears that a lot more work needs to be done to get Alpha into shape.

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Two Japanese startups partner to fly the first private lunar sample return mission

9:53 am

Two Japanese startups, the lunar landing company Ispace and the orbital capsule startup ElevationSpace, have signed an agreement to develop the first private mission to bring samples back to Earth from the Moon.

Based on the agreement, Ispace and ElevationSpace will jointly pursue development to undertake a lunar return mission. Ispace has already demonstrated the technology to deploy a lander into lunar orbit through its two lunar missions operated in 2023 and 2025. The company is currently considering the development of an Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV), derived from its existing lunar lander development technology.

The collaboration aims to conduct a technology demonstration to verify the feasibility of missions utilizing an and the sample return re-entry capsule being developed by ElevationSpace, as well as to evaluate the overall system characteristics.

At the moment this project is only a PowerPoint proposal. Though Ispace has made two attempts to soft land an unmanned spacecraft on the Moon, neither was a success. It has three further contracts with NASA, ESA, and Japan’s space agency JAXA, but none has flown yet, and its orbital vehicle is only under development.

As for ElevationSpace, it has flown nothing yet as well. Its first demo satellite, designed to test re-entry and recovery, won’t fly until late next year, assuming its launch rocket, Isar’s new Spectrum, gets to orbit.

Nonetheless, this project illustrates the continuing shift to the private sector in space. The companies are doing this to demonstrate their capabilities in order to win contracts from both commercial and government customers.

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Avio wins $47 million study contract to build reusable upper stage rocket

9:20 am

Avio's proposed reusable upper stage
Click for original.

The Italian rocket company Avio has won $47 million study contract from the European Space Agency (ESA) to begin design work on a reusable upper stage rocket.

The contract runs for two years, with a goal to “assess and prepare the requirements, the design and the technologies for both the ground and flight segments required for an upper stage demonstrator that in the future could return to Earth and be reused on another flight.”

In other words, Avio is not yet building this upper stage, but will use this money to work up a design. The Avio graphic to the right suggests the lower stage will be based on the first stage of Avio’s solid-fueled Vega-C rocket. The upper stage concept appears to resemble Starship, which suggests Avio will be aiming for a vertical landing, using the methane-fueled engines it is developing for its not-yet-launched Vega-E rocket.

This ESA contract once again shows that agency’s shift to the capitalism model. Rather than develop this idea in-house, as it has done so poorly in the past, ESA has asked a private company to do it, and own what it develops.

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SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites

7:49 pm

SpaceX this evening successfully placed another 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage, B1063, completed its 28th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. (This booster had been listed as the first stage on a launch two days ago, but it turns out the booster on that flight was B1082, completing its 16th flight.) The present rankings for the most reflights of a rocket:

39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
30 Falcon 9 booster B1067
28 Columbia space shuttle
28 Falcon 9 booster B1071
28 Falcon 9 booster B1063
27 Falcon 9 booster B1069

Sources here and here.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

126 SpaceX
57 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 126 to 97. China has a launch scheduled for this evening, but nothing as yet has been published about its status as of this posting.

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Canadian rocket startup Nordspace postpones first suborbital test launch

9:42 am

Proposed Canadian spaceports
Proposed Canadian spaceports

After trying twice earlier this week to launch its first suborbital test rocket from its Atlantic Spaceport in Newfoundland, the rocket startup Nordspace has decided to postpone that launch for at least several weeks, while it investigates the fuel leaks on the launchpad that caused fires during both launch attempts.

From the company’s website:

After detailed review over the last 15 hours, the root cause has been discovered to be related to our propellant quality slightly differing between vehicle tests at our test facility in Ontario, compared to our first launch test in Newfoundland and Labrador at our spaceport. This led to a fuel-rich scenario. All systems on the rocket and ground performed nominally after careful review. Personnel, rocket and the launch pad are perfectly safe and secure, and our safety systems operated nominally. As our company’s manufacturing and testing facilities are located in Ontario, there’s no expedient way to make the necessary modification with the temporary infrastructure and suppliers we have in place at our launch site.

This company is only about three years old, so this delay is hardly systematic to its operations. In that time they have established their own private spaceport, have built their first demo satellite (set to launch in June 2026), and developed a test suborbital rocket, Taiga, that is on the cusp of its first launch. The company is also developing its own rocket engines, as well as an orbital rocket dubbed Tundra.

Its speed puts to shame Canada’s other proposed spaceport in Nova Scotia, which was first proposed in 2016, and has far accomplished little. Many of its problems stemmed from the Ukraine War, which lost it the rocket it had hoped to market. Even so, it only signed its first launch customer in August of this year.

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Germany’s military commits to spending $41 billion on space through 2030

9:25 am

In another sign that the member nations of the European Space Agency (ESA) are increasingly going their own way, Germany’s defense minister announced yesterday that his agency plans to spend $41 billion on space through 2030.

According to a 25 September Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces) release published following the minister’s address, the €35 billion investment will cover five main priorities: hardening against data disruptions and attacks, improved space situational awareness, redundancy through several networked satellite constellations, secure, diverse, and on-demand launch capabilities, and a dedicated military satellite operations centre.

This commitment is going to definitely benefit the three German rocket startups, Isar Aerospace, Rocket Factory Augsburg, and Hyimpulse. It will also likely benefit the North Sea launch platform — based in Germany — that is being built by a German consortium that has already received almost one million from the government.

While the European partners in ESA have generally kept their military spending separate from that agency, in the past a large bulk of this defense spending would have been committed to ESA joint projects, such as funding the agency’s commercial launch operation, Arianespace, to do the launches. No more.

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NASA cancels Sierra Space’s contract for Dream Chaser cargo missions to ISS

8:01 am

Tenacity grounded in a warehouse
Tenacity grounded in a warehouse, with the
Shooting Star small cargo capsule attached to
its aft port.

NASA today announced it has modified its fixed-price cargo contract with Sierra Space, canceling the planned seven cargo missions as well as a demo docking mission, replacing this with one test flight that will simply go into orbit and then return to Earth.

After a thorough evaluation, NASA and Sierra Space have mutually agreed to modify the contract as the company determined Dream Chaser development is best served by a free flight demonstration, targeted in late 2026. Sierra Space will continue providing insight to NASA into the development of Dream Chaser, including through the flight demonstration. NASA will provide minimal support through the remainder of the development and the flight demonstration. As part of the modification, NASA is no longer obligated for a specific number of resupply missions, however, the agency may order Dream Chaser resupply flights to the space station from Sierra Space following a successful free flight as part of its current contract.

The first launch of Tenacity, the only Dream Chaser so far constructed, has been repeatedly delayed for the past two years, with no explanation from either the company or NASA. Those delays started in 2023 as engineers began the final ground testing before launch, so though we do not know what the issue is it is likely that testing found something fundamentally wrong with the spacecraft that Sierra could not afford to fix.

According to Sierra’s own press release, the company will target a late 2026 launch for that free flyer mission. The company still hopes that mission will make further flights possible, either purchased by NASA or by others wishing to use Tenacity for in-orbit manufacturing, something it first proposed last year.

In the past two years, Sierra has shifted its focus away from commercial manned space and more towards winning military defense contracts. Part of that decision might have come from the problems with Dream Chaser. The decision might have also been fueled by the company’s generally unsatisfactory experience working with Blue Origin on their proposed Orbital Reef space station. While Sierra committed cash to develop and test its LIFE inflatable module, including a full scale prototype, Blue Origin appeared to do nothing at all. As early as September 2023 there were rumors the partnership was falling apart.

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SpaceX launches 24 more Starlink satellites

12:13 am

SpaceX this evening successfully placed 24 additional Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 28th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific, moving it up into the top rankings for the most reuse by a rocket:

39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
30 Falcon 9 booster B1067
28 Columbia space shuttle
28 Falcon 9 booster B1071
28 Falcon 9 booster B1063
27 Falcon 9 booster B1069

Sources here and here.

As for the 2025 launch race, this is the present leader board:

125 SpaceX
55 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 125 to 95.

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Axiom hires Redwire to build the solar panels for its first station module

9:18 am

Axiom's new module assembly sequence
Axiom’s assembly sequence for its planned station, initially attached to ISS but subsequently detached

The space station startup Axiom today announced that it has signed an agreement with the space hardware company Redwire to build the solar panels for its first station module, now under construction.

The companies announced Sept. 25 that Redwire will provide a version of its Roll-Out Solar Array, or ROSA, to Axiom for use on Axiom Station’s Payload Power Thermal Module, known as AxPPTM. AxPPTM is the first module Axiom plans to launch for its commercial station. Under a revised assembly schedule announced last December, AxPPTM will berth with one of two ports on the International Space Station used by Cygnus cargo spacecraft.

It would remain there until Axiom launches a second module, called Hab1. At that point, AxPPTM would unberth from the ISS and dock with Hab1, forming the initial station that can support four-person crews. Axiom would later add more modules.

At present Axiom is targeting a 2026 launch of the AxPPTM module. The hull, built by Thales Alenia, is presently being tested in Europe, and is expected to shipped to Houston for integration later this year.

The four commercial stations under development, ranked by me based on their present level of progress:
» Read more

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Starlab selects Vivace to build the primary structure of its proposed space station

8:25 am

The American space stations under construction
The American space stations under development

The Starlab consortium today announced that it has chosen the Louisiana space hardware company Vivace to build the primary structure of its proposed space station, designed to launch as one very large module inside SpaceX’s Starship.

The aluminum-based structure, one of the largest single spaceflight structures ever developed for launch, will be built at Vivace’s facility in New Orleans, La., with additional development and testing support from [NASA’s] Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in Louisiana.

…The program will use Vivace’s New Orleans facility at MAF for fabrication, with support from U.S. government partners for subject matter expertise, structural analysis and potential test infrastructure. MAF will also support specialized large-scale manufacturing and assembly operations.

It appears Starlab chose this subcontractor because of its extensive ties to NASA, likely in the hope this will increase the chances it will win the upcoming station construction contracts NASA is expected to issue in the next year or so.

The four commercial stations under development, ranked by me based on their present level of progress:
» Read more

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NASA awards orbital servicing startup Katalyst contract to save the Gehrels Swift space telescope

8:04 am

Katalyst's proposed Swift rescue mission
Katalyst’s proposed Swift rescue mission. Click for original image.

NASA today announced that it has awarded the orbital servicing startup Katalyst a $30 million contract to use a robotic servicing satellite to rendezvous and attach itself to the Gehrels Swift space telescope and raise its orbit.

Right now the telescope’s orbit is decaying, and it will burn up sometime in 2029 if something isn’t done. As one of the most successful low-cost astronomy space telescopes ever launched — central to the study of gamma ray bursts — spending this small amount to save Gehrels seems a no-brainer. In mid-August NASA had awarded Katalyst and a second company small contracts to study whether they could do this mission. Today’s announcement means NASA liked Katalyst’s proposal.

Whether this startup can do it however remains unknown. It appears from its own press release today describing this contract award that the company decided to add Gehrels to its already planned first demo servicing mission planned for next year.

The schedule is also unprecedented: while satellite servicing typically takes years to plan, Katalyst must be ready to launch in eight months, with docking operations scheduled for mid-2026, to save Swift before it burns up.

…Katalyst was already on schedule for an in-space demonstration of its rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking technology for June 2026. The demonstration would buy down technical risk ahead of the planned launch of Katalyst’s multi-mission robotic spacecraft, NEXUS, in 2027. When NASA raised the alarm about Swift, Katalyst seized the opportunity to pivot to a live rescue operation which would demonstrate similar capabilities.

The mission is even further risky in that Swift has no grapple or docking port for Katalyst’s satellite to attach to. Instead, it “will rely on a custom-built robotic capture mechanism that will attach to a feature on the satellite’s main structure–without damaging sensitive instruments.”

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