Tag: commercial

Japan’s lunar lander startup Ispace wins contract with Korean rover startup

9:18 am

Artist rendering of Ispace's Ultra lunar lander
Artist rendering of Ispace’s Ultra lunar lander

The Japanese lunar lander startup Ispace has won a new customer for its next attempt to soft-land on the Moon, with the South Korean startup Unmanned Exploration Laboratory (UEL) signing a contract to put its proposed two-wheeled rover on that mission.

Under the terms of the agreement, the UEL rover will be integrated as a commercial payload on ispace’s ULTRA lunar lander for Mission 3, currently scheduled to launch in 2028. The mission would mark the first Korean rover to explore the Moon’s surface and underscores the growing commercial collaboration between Japan and Korea in the aerospace industry.

Mission 3 will serve as the inaugural flight for ispace’s ULTRA lunar lander.

Ispace so far has a very mixed record. It has successfully gotten two landers to the Moon, but both failed just before landing. It has also recently had to delay its lander mission for NASA because it had to replace the lander’s engine, the previous engine found to be inadequate.

Ultra is Ispace’s new larger lander design, intended to fly on all future missions. It remains untested in flight. The company presently has lander contracts for the following missions:

  • 2028: a Japanese mission funded by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
  • 2029: a Japanese mission funded by Japan’s Space Strategy Fund (designed at encouraging the private space sector
  • 2030: NASA’s mission, being built in partnership with the American company Draper

At the moment, everything about Ispace remains tentative. It needs to finally land something on the Moon to truly establish itself.

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Japanese rocket startup Interstellar gets another $47 million grant from Japan

8:58 am

The Japanese rocket startup Interstellar last week announced it has been awarded a new $47 million grant from Japan’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, in addition to the $53 million awarded in earlier grants.

The SBIR is a 3-phased governmental program aimed to promote the implementation of advanced technologies developed by startups in Japan. Interstellar was selected in September 2023 under the space section focused on the “Development and Demonstration of Private Launch Vehicles”, a project spanning for 5 years, from September 2023 to March 2028. After being selected as one of the four participating companies, Interstellar became one of three companies to pass the Phase 1 review in September 2024.

In this latest round, Interstellar is one of only two companies to pass, moving into the 3rd and final phase, which includes flight demonstration. Including the funds of the previous phases the total amount has reached a maximum of 15.4 billion JPY ( 98.97 million USD).

The company has also raised a little under $130 million in private investment capital, and has also signed contracts placing seven satellites on the first launch of its proposed Zero rocket. That launch was originally supposed to occur in 2025, but did not. No new launch date has been set, though this new grant suggests the company is getting close, though I also doubt it will occur in 2026.

At the moment Japan has no launch capability, as the two rockets controlled by its space agency JAXA are both grounded due to launch failures. It has several startups trying to build their own rockets, but none has succeeded as yet. The only one to attempt a launch, Space One, has tried three times to reach orbit with its Kairos rocket, all failures.

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Avio delays next Vega-C launch due to “technical issue”

8:40 am

The Italian rocket company Avio announced yesterday that is has postponed the May 9, 2026 launch of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Smile solar wind spacecraft due to “a technical issue” discovered by a subcontractor in a component used by the Vega-C rocket.

The press release provided little information:

The launch of the Smile satellite has been postponed, due to a technical issue occurred on a subsystem component production line after VV29 launcher integration. Additional investigations are needed to exclude any relation between such issue and the VV29 launcher in order to safeguard flightworthiness. The new launch date will be announced following the completion of these activities, as agreed with the supplier.

This launch will be the first entirely managed by Avio since it regained control of its rockets from ESA’s Arianespace division. The rocket itself was grounded for two years in 2023 and 2024 due to nozzle issues. It has since flown four times successfully.

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ULA launches 29 Leo satellites for Amazon

8:31 am

ULA early this morning successfully placed 29 Leo satellites for Amazon’s internet constellation, its Atlas-5 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force station in Florida.

This was the heaviest Atlas-5 payload so far launched by ULA, and ULA’S fifth launch for Amazon’s Leo constellation, which now has 241 satellites in orbit, out of the 1,616 it needs to launch by July to meet its FCC license requirement. Because it is not expected to meet that requirement, the company has asked for a time extension, which the FCC is presently considering.

ULA is in the process of retiring the Atlas-5 rocket. It now has only nine Atlas-5 rocket left in stock, with three reserved for Leo launches and six for Boeing’s Starliner manned capsule (though there is a good chance some if not all of the Starliner launches will be switched to other payloads).

This was also ULA’s second launch in 2026, which means the leader board for the 2026 launch race remains unchanged:

41 SpaceX
16 China
5 Rocket Lab
4 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

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SpaceX delays next Starship/Superheavy orbital test flight by about a month

2:30 pm

According to a tweet by Elon Musk today, the 12th orbital test flight of Starship/Superheavy is not going to happen in mid-April as previously hoped.

Instead, it is now pushed back to early to mid-May.

Next flight of Starship and first flight of V3 ship & booster is 4 to 6 weeks away.

In his tweet, “V3” refers to the third version of both Starship and Superheavy, incorporating many upgrades learned from the first eleven test flights. Version three will also be the first to use SpaceX’s Raptor-3 engine, the most powerful rocket engine ever built but with a much simplified design.

It is not clear what has caused this delay. The last test flight was in October 2025, which means there will be eight month gap between test launches, a much longer gap than desired by the company. Part of the delay was because the company was building a whole new launchpad for the rocket. Also, there were two tank failures during static fire tests of Superheavy that needed investigation and as well as pad repairs.

Still, time is marching on. SpaceX needs to launch this rocket, and begin doing it at a much faster pace. It can no longer complain about red tape, as under Trump that issue has been squashed quite effectively.

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Amazon responds to SpaceX’s FCC complaint about its last Leo satellite launch

8:57 am

Amazon Leo logo

Amazon yesterday submitted a letter [pdf] to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) responding to SpaceX’s FCC complaint earlier this week that accused it of using Arianespace’s Ariane-6 rocket to place 32 Leo satellites in a 450 kilometer orbit — 50 kilometers more than its license allowed — causing SpaceX to maneuver 30 of its own Starlink satellites to avoid any collisions.

In its response, Amazon claimed the higher orbit was not a violation, that its original license allowed for orbits “at or above 400 kilometers”, and that the problem was really caused by SpaceX’s decision in the past few months to lower the orbits of its Starlink satellites to a 462 to 485 kilometers. It also accused SpaceX of refusing to compromise when Amazon proposed a solution. Instead, SpaceX demanded Amazon stop launching at this orbit height, a change that Amazon claimed would delay the next few Ariane-6 launches by months.

Despite these claims, Amazon then backed off:

Even so, Amazon Leo has made significant operational changes in response to SpaceX’s concerns. Working with Arianespace, Amazon Leo has committed to lowering its target insertion altitude, beginning with its fourth Ariane mission. Similarly, Amazon Leo is working with its other launch providers to determine if they can lower insertion altitudes without impacting Amazon Leo’s schedule.

In other words, Amazon will do as SpaceX requests, but only do so after it completes three more Ariane-6 launches at this higher orbit.

The FCC now has a choice. If it demands Amazon immediately concede SpaceX’s point, this will likely cause a delay in three Ariane-6 launches of approximately 100 Leo satellites. Amazon’s FCC license requires it to launch 1,616 Leo satellites by July 2026, and at present it only has a little more than 200 satellites in orbit. Because Amazon doesn’t expect to meet this goal, it has already asked the FCC for a time extension.

Thus, it appears this dispute with SpaceX might actually benefit Amazon. If the FCC denies Amazon’s request to launch the next three Ariane-6 missions at this higher orbit, it will also be agreeing to a delay in Leo satellite launches. It will thus be forced to grant Amazon’s request for that time extension. And even if it does allow Amazon to launch at the higher orbit, requiring the two companies to work out any orbital conflicts, that permission will confirm the FCC is going to grant Amazon’s time extension request as well.

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SpaceX launches 29 more Starlink satellites

11:01 pm

The beat goes on: Even as everyone (including myself) was focused on NASA’s Artemis-2 lunar mission, SpaceX remained centered on its own space effort. This evening it placed another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The first stage completed its 15th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic only 23 days after its previous flight.

Below is the leader board for the 2026 launch race, which I had forgotten to include in the previous two launches by SpaceX and NASA. Those posts have now been updated to include it.

41 SpaceX
16 China
5 Rocket Lab
3 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

Chinese pseudo-company Space Pioneer was also scheduled today to do the first demo launch of its Tianlong-3 orbital rocket, which appears in many ways to be a Falcon 9 copy. At this moment there are no reports out of China of what happened, though Jonathan McDowell reports on X of speculation that it was a failure. We will know more in a day or so.

Space Pioneer is the pseudo-company that in 2024 had this rocket’s first stage do an unplanned launch during a static fire engine test. That incident delayed this launch attempt by at least one year.

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SpaceX files initial paperwork for going public

8:54 am

SpaceX logo

SpaceX yesterday filed the first confidential paperwork the the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its initial public offering (IPO) of public stock, now targeting a June-July time frame.

The filing was reported by Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and Reuters, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The SEC said it had no comment on the matter. The filing will lead to a sale of shares by June or July, according to the published reports. Confidential filings are used by companies to share information with the SEC and investors before they have to disclose to the broader public.

How much SpaceX plans to raise through a sale of some of its shares are not yet available due to the confidential nature. But CEO and principal shareholder Elon Musk is expected to control a majority of voting shares once the details are revealed. And it could make Musk, already the world’s richest person, that much richer.

SpaceX was valued at $800 billion and xAI $230 billion at their most recent funding round in January according to PitchBook, a research firm that tracks the valuation of private companies. That puts the combined companies’ worth at more than $1 trillion.

SpaceX also now includes X (formerly Twitter) that Musk bought for $44 billion, so the combined company is actually even larger. We still do not know any details, such as the number of shares to be sold as well as the initial sale price. One rumor has indicated that SpaceX wants to reserve 30% for sale to individuals, a number much higher than usual. Other rumors say that Musk is designing the sale to make sure he remains the majority stock-holder and thus in control of all three companies.

Stock experts have predicted this stock sale could garner SpaceX as much as $75 billion in cash, which would give it the resources to not only build its proposed million-satellite data center constellation in orbit but also develop the Starship/Superheavy infrastructure to build its own data center on the Moon. And along the way SpaceX would have the funds to do its own space program to settle Mars.

If SpaceX does raise that much, it will truly become America’s space program, doing far more that NASA and much faster — financed voluntarily by the American people.

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A 2nd Starlink satellite since December fails catastrophically

8:38 am

According to reports from two different companies (here and here) that monitor objects in orbit, a Starlink satellite broke apart for unknown reasons on March 29, 2026.

SpaceX yesterday confirmed the incident.

On Sunday, March 29, Starlink satellite 34343 experienced an anomaly on-orbit, resulting in loss of communications with the satellite at ~560 km above Earth. Latest analysis shows the event poses no new risk to the Space_Station, its crew, or to the upcoming launch of NASA’s Artemis II mission. We will continue to monitor the satellite along with any trackable debris and coordinate with NASA and the USSpaceForce.

This is the second time in just over three months that a Starlink satellite has failed suddenly. In mid-December a Starlink satellite began to tumble when fuel began venting from a tank. It burned up in the atmosphere a month later.

Considering that SpaceX has approximately ten thousand Starlinks in orbit, any failures should not be a surprise. You launch that many, some are going to fail. That the company has only had two such failures indicates instead SpaceX’s incredible quality control in manufacturing, as almost every satellite works as expected with no such failure.

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SpaceX launches first stage for record 34th time, passing shuttle Atlantis

2:25 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The first stage (B1067) completed its 34th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic, only 32 days after its previous launch. With this flight, this stage passed the space shuttle Atlantis to hold second place in the rankings of the most reused launch vehicle.

39 Discovery space shuttle
34 Falcon 9 booster B1067
33 Atlantis space shuttle
32 Falcon 9 booster B1071
31 Falcon 9 booster B1063
30 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle
27 Falcon 9 booster B1077
27 Falcon 9 booster B1078

Sources here and here.

SpaceX continues to recycle its first stages in a month or less, so expect this booster to pass Discovery before the end of the year. We should also expect all the boosters in the list above to do the same by the end of next year, though it is possible some will be retired as SpaceX begins to transition from its Falcon 9 high launch rate to using Starship/Superheavy instead.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

40 SpaceX
16 China
5 Rocket Lab
3 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

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Brownsville’s mayor: SpaceX has brought billions of dollars to the region

12:04 pm

According to Brownsville’s mayor, John Cowen, SpaceX has brought billions of dollars to the region as well as created tens of thousands of jobs, and should be unanimously hailed by everyone there.

“The aerospace giant has infused $13 billion into into the economy across Brownsville and South Texas. It has created 24,000 direct and indirect jobs across the region, with approximately 4,000 jobs on site today. It is projected that 4,000 more jobs are coming,” Cowen said.

Cowen made his remarks about SpaceX at his 2026 State of the City Address, held March 25 at Texas Southmost College’s Performing Arts Center.

“SpaceX has generated more than $305 million in tax revenue. It has managed business relationships with more than 350 suppliers, putting $147 million into the regional supply chain,” Cowen said.

None of this is a surprise, except to some local and national news outlets that like to act as PR departments for the fringe activist groups — Save RGV, the South Texas Environmental Justice Network and the fake Indian tribe dubbed the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas — that have opposed SpaceX’s Boca Chica operations from day one, and have repeatedly gone to court to try to shut it down. Those news outlets always give these activists a big bullhorn to tout their position, even though they represent practically no one in the region and likely get their funding from leftist sources outside of Texas.

Hat tip to Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.

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Two launches from China and SpaceX early today

9:42 am

Early this morning both SpaceX and China successfully launched rockets. First, SpaceX completed its sixteenth Transporter mission placing 119 payloads in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 12th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. A detailed description of the 119 payloads can be found here.

Next, China successfully completed the maiden launch of its Kinetica-2 rocket, lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China and placing three demonstration satellites into orbit. The rocket is built by the pseudo-company CAS Space, which is entirely owned by one of China’s government space agencies.

According to the developers, the rocket stands 53 meters tall, with a core stage diameter of 3.35 meters and a fairing 4.2 meters wide. At liftoff, it weighs 625 tons and produces 753 tons of thrust. It can deliver up to 12 tons to a 200 kilometers low Earth orbit or 8 tons to a 500 kilometers sun-synchronous orbit.

On this launch, the liquid-fueled core stage and two side boosters were expendable, and crashed somewhere in China. China will use this rocket to partly replace its older expendable Long March 2 and Long March 3 rockets that use very toxic hypergolic fuels, thus reducing the risk to its citizens somewhat from crashing lower stages. Eventually the plan is to make the core stage and boosters reusable, so that they no longer crash uncontrolled inside China.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

39 SpaceX
16 China
5 Rocket Lab
3 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

SpaceX has another Starlink launch scheduled for later today, using a first stage on a record 34th flight.

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Another rocket startup in India hopes to launch from its own spaceport

9:17 am

India's spaceports, active, under construction, or proposed
India’s spaceports, active, under construction, or proposed

A new rocket startup in India, dubbed Bharath Space Vehicle (BSV), is not only building a commercial rocket to launch smallsats, it hopes to establish its own private spaceport near the town of Kodinar in western India.

BSV has proposed a launch complex near Kodinar in Gujarat’s Gir Somnath district. Gujarat’s Science and Technology Minister Arjun Modhwadia told the state assembly that IN-SPACe has identified a suitable location between Diu and Kodinar for a satellite launch facility, comparable to Sriharikota.

The coastal location offers open sea access and favourable launch corridors for specialised satellite trajectories. Isro had earlier evaluated a Gujarat site for its SSLV launch complex before Kulasekarapattinam in Tamil Nadu was selected.

Sriharikota has been operated for decades by India’s space agency ISRO. Kulasekarapattinam is a new ISRO spaceport set to begin operations next year, focused on launching its Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) for commercial missions. Hope Island is a proposed private and commercial spaceport, under study.

BSV’s rocket is called Agasthya-1 and will use liquid-fueled engines. It appears to be similar in design to SpaceX’s first rocket, the Falcon-1.

Though the company’s founders are all ISRO veterans who helped develop its rockets, its website makes no mention of a launch schedule. At present, India has two rocket startups, Skyroot and Agnikul, that appear close to their first orbital launch.

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Rocket Lab launches GPS-type demo satellite for Europe

9:05 am

Rocket Lab this morning successfully placed a European Space Agency (ESA) smallsat into orbit, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of its two launchpads in New Zealand.

The smallsat, dubbed Celeste, is the first of two such demo satellites that ESA has contracted Rocket Lab to launch. They are designed to test a low Earth orbit constellation for providing global navigation and location information to users on the ground, similar to the U.S.’s GPS constellation. Celeste will work from low orbit with Europe’s medium orbit Galileo constellation, but being smaller will be cheaper and faster to build and launch.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

38 SpaceX
15 China
5 Rocket Lab
3 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

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Ispace to replace engine on its lunar lander, delaying its NASA mission to 2030

9:09 am

Ispace's old and new landers

The Japanese lunar lander startup Ispace has been forced to institute a major shake-up of its upgraded lunar lander design because a subcontractor’s engine did not meet the required specifications.

The engine, called Voidrunner and built by Agile Space Industries, was about to be installed in the lander for a 2027 launch of NASA lunar lander mission when a review found its performance to be unsatisfactory.

After closely monitoring the engine’s status and conducting careful review, Ispace has determined that a change in the development plan to incorporate a new alternative engine is necessary to ensure the successful execution of the lunar landing mission. The new engine, which will replace VoidRunner, has already been developed by the alternative supplier and has a proven track record of operation in past lunar missions.

The company has also decided to standardize its two lunar lander designs, one developed in Japan and the second in parallel by its American division. The new lander, dubbed Ultra, will use this new engine and fly all of Ispace’s subsequent missions. The image above shows the company’s original lander Hakuto-R on the left, compared to its new Ultra lander on the right.

This change will delay its planned NASA mission by three years, to 2030, though the company hopes it will not impact the schedule of two other lunar lander missions for Japan. Its new updated schedule, all using Ultra:

  • 2028: a Japanese mission funded by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
  • 2029: a Japanese mission funded by Japan’s Space Strategy Fund (designed at encouraging the private space sector
  • 2030: NASA’s mission, being built in partnership with the American company Draper

Ispace has also created a new lunar satellite program, to provide communications, location data, and satellite tracking from lunar orbit, with a goal of launching its first lunar orbiter by next year, and five by 2030.

As a lunar lander company Ispace has had a very mixed record. It has successfully flown two landers to lunar orbit and then down to the surface. Each however crashed, failing just prior to landing due to software issues. This new delay of its NASA mission is not going to please NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, who instead wants to speed up the agency’s lunar lander program, flying almost monthly beginning in 2030. It likely means Ispace is going to have problems winning any new NASA lander contracts, until it proves its new Ultra lander design.

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SpaceX launches another 25 Starlink satellites

10:02 pm

SpaceX this afternoon successfully placed another 25 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 23rd flight 39 days after its previous flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

38 SpaceX
14 China
4 Rocket Lab
3 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

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Carl Perkins & Ringo Starr – Honey Don’t

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Performed live 1985.

Hat tip Judd Clark.

Readers: I am in need of evening pause suggestions. If you’ve sent me suggestions in the past you know the drill. More suggestions are welcome! If you haven’t and want to suggest something, say so in the comments below, but DON’T provide the link to your suggestion or mention it. I will contact you to send you the guidelines so you can send it to me to schedule.

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The space station part of Isaacman’s new program is facing push back, from industry and Congress

10:37 am

The American space stations under construction
Four of the American space stations under development.
The fifth, Max Space, is a late comer and not shown.

At a hearing yesterday before the space subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, both the trade organization representing the five commercial space station projects as well as some members of Congress expressed strong reservations about NASA’s new plan to build a core module as a basis for helping these companies develop their space stations.

Dave Cavossa, President of the Commercial Space Federation (CSF) that represents these companies, outlined in his statement [pdf] to the committee the industry’s dissatisfaction, not so much because of the specifics of NASA’s plan but because it follows other sudden changes last year by the previous NASA administrator Sean Duffy, and is still uncertain in its outline.

Given the delays and possible shifts in strategy, industry has been left to continue spending resources to develop private space stations without a full understanding of what NASA will require from a private station, how the agency will structure the rest of the procurement and program, and when industry may see a return on investment. This uncertainty challenges the public-private partnership business model and puts the agency at risk of deorbiting ISS before private stations are operational.

The trade group proposed that NASA stick with its previous plan to fund two or more station projects, dropping Isaacman’s core module proposal. It also wanted Congress give the agency the funds to do so.

Cavossa also strongly disputed NASA’s claim that the market at present doesn’t support these commercial stations.
» Read more

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All space stocks soar in anticipation of SpaceX’s impending IPO

9:51 am

It appears SpaceX’s upcoming initial public offering (IPO) of publicly-traded stocks, now anticipated to raise as much as $75 billion for the company, has caused stock investors to also pour their money into a whole range of space stocks, causing them all to soar in value.

Initially, it was expected that the IPO could raise $50 billion for the company, but the latest report indicates it could raise as much as $75 billion, with a valuation as high as $1.75 trillion. The colossal figures being thrown around on Wednesday have garnered excitement among investors for other space stocks that are already publicly traded.

Here were the top gainers in the session:

  • Firefly Aerospace: +19%
  • Intuitive Machines: +11%
  • AST SpaceMobile: +9%
  • EchoStar Corporation: 9%
  • Rocket Lab Corporation: +8%

The most recent indications suggest SpaceX will file the offering’s prospectus in the next week or so. If the predictions about it are correct, and SpaceX does raise $75 billion, it would then have on hand more than three times the cash that Congress normally budgets annually to NASA, with an ability to use that money far more effectively.

As I have been saying now for more than a year, the real space program for the United States is being run by SpaceX, not NASA. Expect SpaceX to outpace NASA in their parallel and complementary efforts to build a moonbase.

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Isar’s second launch attempt scrubbed due to abort at T-0 seconds

1:35 pm

Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe
Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe

The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace was today forced to scrub its second attempt to launch its Spectrum rocket from Norway’s Andoya spaceport when the rocket aborted the launch at T-0 seconds.

The launch was then scrubbed for the day because the launch window was only 15 minutes long. An earlier hold due to a boat violating the range had used up most of the window, leaving no time to recycle the rocket to try again.

No word yet on when the company will try again. At the moment Isar is in the lead to be the first new European startup to get off the ground, though Rocket Factory Augsburg from Germany and PLD from Spain are not far behind. Isar’s first launch attempt in March 2025 had failed seconds after lift-off due to a loss of attitude control.

Andoya is also in the lead to be the first European spaceport to complete an orbital launch, though SaxaVord on the Shetland Islands hopes to see that Rocket Factory launch in the coming months.

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Intuitive Machines wins $180.4 million new NASA lunar lander contract

8:46 am

Intuitive Machines' Nova-D lunar lander
Click for original.

The lunar lander startup Intuitive Machines announced yesterday that it has won its fifth contract from NASA, a $180.4 million deal to place its larger upgraded Nova-D lander near the Moon’s south pole.

The IM-5 mission will target Mons Malapert, a ridge near the Lunar South Pole that offers continuous Earth visibility, stable illumination conditions, and access to permanently shadowed regions. These characteristics make the site a compelling location for future communications, navigation, and surface infrastructure.

The artist’s rendering to the right shows this Nova-D lander. What stands out immediately is its low-slung appearance. Intuitive Machines’ smaller Nova-C lander was tall (see this image), with a high center of gravity. In its only two landing attempts on the Moon it tipped over both times after touchdown. It appears the company has finally recognized the issue and reworked this new lander to make it more stable after touchdown.

This contract award appears to be part of the accelerated program by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman to land 30 unmanned rovers on the moon in three years, beginning in 2027. Mons Malapert is a plateau that Intuitive Machines second lander tipped over on. It is also the landing site for Astrobotics’ Griffin lander, as well as a candidate landing site for the first Artemis manned missions.

Note the small rover on the right in the graphic. While the mission will carry seven NASA science instrument payloads, it will also carry this commercial rover, built by Honeybee Robotics, a subsidiary of Blue Origin. As the company states above, the lander on this mission also has additional available payload capacity for more commercial customers.

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Lunar Gateway dead as NASA announces major changes to its future space station, lunar, and Mars plans

1:07 pm

Capitalism in space As part of the reshaping of NASA being pushed by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, the agency today announced major changes to its future programs in low Earth orbit, on the Moon, and in exploring Mars. Video of these changes can be viewed here and here.

The Moon

NASA will now focus all work in its lunar program on getting to the surface of the Moon. Lunar Gateway is “paused,” though the language of NASA’s press release suggests more strongly that it is dead, with the agency already trying to figure out ways to “repurpose” its already built components. NASA will instead ask for proposals from private industry and its international Artemis partners to ramp up as soon as possible a phased program to establish the infrastructure on the Moon needed for the lunar base. This new focus begins with “up to 30 robotic landings in three years, starting in 2027,” and at least two manned landings per year beginning in 2028.

The graph below, presented during today’s announcement, shows the basic plan for the next few Artemis missions, which will act as the manned foundation for this entire surface-focused program. The overall program will build out the lunar base in three phases, first to test some basic infrastructure using these smaller lunar landers, second to begin establishing the base’s foundational components with intermittent manned missions, and third to begin long-term human occupancy.
» Read more

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