Tag: competition

SpaceX launches NASA’s Pandora exoplanet space telescope

9:32 am

SpaceX today successfully launched a new NASA space telescope, Pandora, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

Pandora is a smallsat focused on studying the 20 stars known to have transiting exoplanets. It will look at each repeatedly to draw as much information about the star and the exoplanet as possible. Also deployed were two other NASA smaller astronomy cubesats.

The Falcon 9 first stage completed its 5th flight, landing back at Vandenberg. The two fairing halves completed their first and seventh flights respectively.

At this moment, SpaceX is the only entity to have launched in 2026. This was its fourth launch.

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Space Force awards nine launch contracts to SpaceX

1:03 pm

In announcing its next round of satellite launch awards, the Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) has awarded all nine launches (valued at $739 millon total) to SpaceX, bypassing both Blue Origin and ULA.

SSC awarded the [three] SDA-2 missions to SpaceX for launches projected to begin in [the fourth quarter of fiscal year ’26], and awarded the [two] SDA-3 missions to SpaceX for launches to begin in [the third quarter of fiscal year ’27]. SSC also awarded the [four] NTO-5 launches to SpaceX projected to occur in [the first quarter of fiscal year ’27 and the second quarter of fiscal year ’28]. The total value of these awards is $739M.

It is surprising that SpaceX got all nine contracts. Even though SpaceX charges less than ULA, and Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is not yet certified by the Pentagon for operational launches, it has been military policy in recent years to distribute this work to more than one launch provider so as to guarantee a redundancy. ULA exists today for expressly that reason. In the past it would have certainly gotten at least one of these launches.

As for Blue Origin, the Space Force could have awarded it at least one of the later launches in ’27 and ’28, contingent on getting New Glenn certified.

That the Space Force bypassed both companies entirely speaks volumes. It appears it has decided to simply go with the best product now available, and to heck with redundancy.

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French rocket startup MaiaSpace announces its launch schedule

12:36 pm

The French rocket startup MaiaSpace is now planning to launch a suborbital test rocket in 2026 to be followed by its first orbital flight in 2027.

As the company works toward the commencement of commercial operations in 2027, it is planning to launch an initial suborbital demonstration flight in late 2026 to validate key elements of the Maia launch system. The rocket will be launched in its full two-stage configuration and will carry a reduced propellant load, with MaiaSpace aiming for a minimum altitude of 100 kilometres. … “For what concerns our first flight, we will deploy a minimum viable product designed to test critical phases (lift-off, stages separation, engine ignition of the second stage, …) and to validate the key features required for our first orbital flight.”

Maiaspace is a wholly owned subsidiary of ArianeGroup, the Airbus-Safran partnership that builds the Ariane-6 rocket for Arianespace. Its goal with Maiaspace is to quickly develop a small reusable rocket that can compete with the other new European startups in Germany (Isar and Rocket Factory Augsburg) and Spain (PLD).

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FCC approves SpaceX request to expand Starlink by 7,500 satellites

12:21 pm

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) yesterday approved SpaceX’s request to both expand its Starlink constellation by 7,500 satellites as well as use additional bands of spectrum.

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday approved SpaceX’s request to launch an additional 7,500 of its Starlink Gen2 satellites, bringing the total allowed Gen2 constellation to 15,000. The agency also granted the company’s request to operate in additional spectrum bands and to operate at higher power in other bands between 10.7-30 GigaHertz (GHz), pending the completion of an existing FCC rulemaking where the question is being considered.

…The order also allows SpaceX satellites to use lower orbits, down to 340 kilometers, and provide direct-to-cell service. The company is seeking approval for a separate 15,000-satellite constellation that would provide upgraded direct-to-cell service using spectrum it’s purchasing from EchoStar.

The article notes that under the Trump administration has also revamped the FCC’s grant program, that under Biden canceled an $886 million grant, claiming absurdly that Starlink did not provide service to rural areas. Under the new program “SpaceX is set to serve the most locations of any ISP under the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program after new Trump administration rules that made it easier for satellite providers to compete for funding.”

Not that SpaceX or any of the other constellations need this government grant. Trump would serve the country better to shut the program down.

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SpaceX launches 29 Starlink satellites

2:47 pm

The beat goes on: SpaceX today successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

This was SpaceX’s third launch in 2026. It remains the only entity globally to complete a launch so far this year.

The first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket (B1069) flew for its 29th time, passing the space shuttle Columbia in the rankings of the most reused launch vehicles:

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

Sources here and here.

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Isaacman okays flying Artemis-2 manned, despite heat shield questions

1:53 pm

According to an article posted today at Ars Technica, after a thorough review NASA administrator Jared Isaacman has decided to allow the Artemis-2 mission — set to launch sometime before April and slingshot around the Moon — to fly manned with four astronauts despite the serious questions that still exist about its heat shield.

The review involved a long meeting at NASA with NASA engineers, several outside but very qualified critics, as well as two reporters (for transparency).

Convened in a ninth-floor conference room at NASA Headquarters known as the Program Review Center, the meeting lasted for more than three hours. Isaacman attended much of it, though he stepped out from time to time to handle an ongoing crisis involving an unwell astronaut on orbit. He was flanked by the agency’s associate administrator, Amit Kshatriya; the agency’s chief of staff, Jackie Jester; and Lori Glaze, the acting associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. The heat shield experts joined virtually from Houston, along with Orion Program Manager Howard Hu.

Isaacman made it clear at the outset that, after reviewing the data and discussing the matter with NASA engineers, he accepted the agency’s decision to fly Artemis II as planned. The team had his full confidence, and he hoped that by making the same experts available to Camarda and Olivas, it would ease some of their concerns.

My readers know that I have been strongly opposed to flying Artemis-2 manned, an opposition I expressed in an op-ed at PJMedia only yesterday. However, after reading this Ars Technica report, my fears are allayed somewhat by this quote:
» Read more

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Chinese pseudo-company building 3/4 billion dollar rocket factory

9:07 am

Though the Chinese pseudo-company Space Epoch has yet to launch any orbital rockets, it has announced it will spend $740 million on a factory for building its reusable rockets, intended to land on a platform at sea.

The 5.2 billion yuan ($740 million) project, led by Beijing-based space launch company Space Epoch, got underway on January 7. According to Hangzhou Daily, it will produce medium-to-large liquid-fueled rockets capable of reuse, high payloads, low cost and sea recovery. The facility, when ready, will manufacture up to 25 of these rockets a year. “A reusable rocket is like a taxi, satellites are the passengers, and a constellation of satellites is a busload of tourists,” Wei Yi, founder and chairman of Space Epoch, told local newspaper Hangzhou Daily.

The cost of space launch vehicles for mainstream rockets in China is approximately 80,000 to 100,000 yuan per kilogram ($11,000 to $14,000), Wei Yi explains. With Space Epoch’s “stainless steel + liquid oxygen and methane” solution, the cost is expected to be slashed to 20,000 yuan per kilogram, he adds.

The only flight tests that Space Epoch has publicly admitted to was a successful hop of a small scale Grasshopper-type prototype in May 2025. This new construction project suggests it has been able to raise the money to build its full scale rocket. I suspect some if not all of that money came from the Chinese government.

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South Korean rocket startup Innospace signs deal with Portugal’s Santa Maria spaceport

12:44 pm

Santa Maria spaceport

The South Korean rocket startup Innospace, which just last month attempted its first launch out of Brazil, has now signed a deal to launch its rocket from Portugal’s proposed Santa Maria spaceport in the Azores, located about 900 miles west of the European mainland.

Through this agreement, INNOSPACE has secured priority and long-term access to the Malbusca Launch Center, located on Santa Maria Island in the Azores, Portugal, for a five-year period starting in 2026. The company plans to gradually establish key launch infrastructure required for initial operations, including launch pads, operations and control systems, and testing facilities, with the goal of conducting its first commercial launch in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Despite the launch failure last month, Innospace has been aggressive about obtaining agreements for launching its rockets from multiple locations. That first launch occurred at Brazil’s long unused Alcantera spaceport on its eastern coast, and the company will use it for its second launch attempt later this year. It has also signed agreements with two spaceports in Australia (Southern Launch and Equatorial Launch), though the latter spaceport is not yet operational and might never exist.

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Billionaire to fund construction of an orbiting optical telescope larger than Hubble

10:42 am

Lazuli
Figure 1 from the proposal paper [pdf].

Schmidt Sciences, a foundation created by one of Google’s founders, announced yesterday it is financing the construction of four new research telescopes, one of which will be an orbiting optical telescope with a mirror 3.1 meters in diameter, larger than the 2.4 meter primary mirror on the Hubble Space Telescope.

Today at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Schmidt Sciences, a foundation backed by billionaires Eric and Wendy Schmidt, announced one of the largest ever private investments in astronomy: funding for an orbiting observatory larger than NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, along with funds to build three novel ground-based observatories. The project aims to have all four components up and running by the end of the decade.

“We’re providing a new set of windows into the universe,” says Stuart Feldman, president of Schmidt Sciences, which will manage the observatory system. Time on the telescopes will be open to scientists worldwide, and data harvested by them will be available in linked databases. Schmidt Sciences declined to say how much it is investing but Feldman says the space telescope, called Lazuli, alone will cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Eric Schmidt was once CEO of Google, and in recent years has been spending his large fortune (estimated to exceed $50 billion) on space ventures. For example, in March 2025 he acquired control of the rocket startup Relativity.

While the three new ground-based telescopes will do important work, the Lazuli space telescope is by far the most important, not only scientifically but culturally. » Read more

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An excellent summary of Europe’s rocket companies, both established and startups

11:21 am

Link here. This list is a great summary of all the rocket companies in Europe, most of which are startups that haven’t yet launched. It also includes the two companies that are already established, ArianeGroup and Avio.

With each company the report provides a nice quick status overview. It ranks some lower than I (Rocket Factory Augsburg), but the analysis is based on all the same stories I’ve posted here on Behind the Black in the past year, plus a few extra details about companies I had not yet heard of.

Based on this review, it appears that at least three European startups are gearing up for a first launch in 2026. It would be surprising if all three succeed in getting off the ground, but the momentum is definitely building towards a lot of excitement in the next year or two.

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Rocketdyne to reappear with sale by L3Harris of its civilian rocket engine division

9:30 am

The name Rocketdyne is about to rise from the ashes with the sale by L3Harris of its civilian rocket engine division to the private equity firm AE Industrial Partners.

The firm is selling a 60 percent stake, worth $845 million, and maintaining about a 40 percent share of the space propulsion business unit, which focuses on technologies related to NASA and civil space activities. For example, its products include nuclear power systems for future missions to the moon and Mars, and the RL10 engine that powers the upper stage for United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan heavy lifter.

That said, the RS-25 rocket engine business is excluded from the sale; the engine is the primary propulsion system on NASA’s Space Launch System being designed to send crews to the moon under the Artemis mission.

When L3Harris purchased Aerojet-Rocketdyne in 2023, the names of these two companies from the very beginnings of the space age vanished. It now appears that AE is going to bring one back.

AE Industrial ― which previously has invested in commercial space companies including York Space Systems, Redwire and Firefly — said in an announcement today that the new entity will be named Rocketdyne “in recognition of its heritage and longstanding innovation within space propulsion technology.”

Aerojet-Rocketdyne had been in trouble for years prior to is purchase, and it remains uncertain whether the engine part of this new Rocketdyne company can compete. Its main business right now is building the engines used by the SLS rocket, which in the long run has a limited future.

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A UK law professor and news outlet prove the UK is not the place to launch rockets

9:27 am

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

If I had any remaining hopes that the United Kingdom might finally begin to reform its Byzantine space regulations that bankrupted one rocket company and has blocked any launches from its proposed spaceports for almost a decade — allowing other spaceports in Europe to attract rocket companies and leap ahead — those hopes vanished in reading an article in the Shetland Times today, in which a professor specializing in UK space law described its red tape as “very good,” drawing “on best practice from other industries and jurisdictions.”

Alexander Simmonds of the University of Dundee says a balance should be struck to avoid launch operators being put off by strict regulatory requirements. The lecturer in space law and writer behind The Space Legislation of the United Kingdom says UK regulation of the space industry is “very good” and draws on best practice from other industries and jurisdictions.

Licences are in place for SaxaVord to host the first vertical satelite launch in 2026, and Dr Simmonds says operators have taken responsibilities “very seriously”. But he fears future operators could look elsewhere if compliance becomes too much of a problem and more cost-effective alternatives are available.

“My own view is we’re in a very good place at the moment, as regards to regulation,” Dr Simmonds told The Shetland Times. “I think that the legilsators have been cautious with this and have been very entitled to be, given the nature of what we are dealing with.”

Both this so-called expert and the journalist interviewing him appear entirely ignorant about the history of past decade. While red tape in the UK has blocked or seriously delayed launches, rocket startups have “looked elsewhere,” signing deals and launching from Norway’s long established Andoya spaceport that has now gone commercial with enthusiastic government support. At the same time, new spaceport projects have begun at three other locations, all of which appear to also have support from their local governments in Sweden and Germany. While the UK government has choked off business, the governments at these other spaceports have moved aggressively to ease regulation.

The cluelessness of both Simmonds and the Shetland Times reporter indicates there is absolutely no urgency in the UK to fix things, and in fact it appears they aren’t even aware their emperor is wearing no clothes.

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The space station race: Startup Max Space to establish factory at Kennedy in Florida

8:56 am

Thunderbird, with cut-out showing interior and person for scale
Max Space’s proposed Thunderbird station, with cut-out showing
interior and person for scale. Click for original images.

The space station startup Max Space has apparently decided to establish its manufacturing facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and expects to hire its first 30 to 50 employees there this year.

Currently working with Space Florida, Max Space is moving toward setting up operation in Exploration Park on Space Commerce Way, and has already begun hiring. While the company already has a address in Exploration Park, they are seeking to set up in an existing 20,000 to 30,000 square-foot manufacturing facility. This is where the large space habitat modules will be manufactured.

While Space Florida confirmed Max Space’s intentions to move into the area, no further details were provided. Max Space said they expect to bring 30 to 50 new hires onboard within the first half of 2026.

The company had previously positioned itself as the builder of modules that any one of the four other commercial private space stations could buy and add to their stations. It now appears it has decided to enter the competition as its own station, proposing Thunderbird as its bid. It is gearing up to fly a smaller demonstration mission in ’27 to prove its inflatable design that is based on the same technology used by the modules built by the now-defunct company Bigelow.

With this in mind, I have now added Max Space to my rankings of the commercial stations under construction, and have placed it ahead of Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef station, based on my impression of where both projects presently stand. Essentially, they are tied for last place, but I put Max Space ahead because it seems to have positive momentum, while the partnership of Blue Origin and Sierra Space appears to be faltering.
» Read more

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Innospace releases preliminary results of launch failure

8:35 am

The South Korean rocket startup Innospace last week released its first preliminary results of its investigation into the December 22, 2025 failure during the first orbital launch attempt of its Hanbit-Nano rocket.

Based on video footage and preliminary data available to date, the vehicle achieved approximately 30 seconds of nominal ascent. During its passage through cloud layers, communication between the vehicle and ground systems was lost. Subsequently, the vehicle sustained structural damage of an undetermined cause, leading to separation into multiple sections and indications of first-stage engine thrust termination. As a result, the vehicle lost propulsion and attitude control and entered free fall, separating into the first stage, second stage, and smaller debris fragments.

As the calculated Instant Impact Point (IIP) remained within the launch site’s designated safety perimeter, and to prevent debris dispersion and residual hazards, the Flight Termination System (FTS) was activated in accordance with procedures pre-coordinated with Brazilian safety authorities. The launch vehicle was detonated at the point of ground impact, resulting in early mission termination.

In plain language, the rocket broke up about 30 seconds after lift-off, and as its pieces hit the ground engineers activated the self-destruct software.

The company says it hopes to try again in ’26, launching once again from Brazil’s Alcantera spaceport. I suspect it will take longer than that to pin down the cause of the rocket’s “structural damage” and fix it. The data so far suggests a fundamental flaw that require a major redesign.

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Review of SpaceX’s 2026 Superheavy/Starship test flights

11:22 am

Link here. The article begins by reviewing the work SpaceX is doing at both Boca Chica in Texas and Cape Canaveral in Florida. In the end, the company is aiming to have two Starship launchpads at Boca Chica and three launchpads in Florida, with both locations have extensive manufacturing facilities capable of building ships and boosters almost continually.

It then provides a nice review of all five Superheavy/Starship test flights that took place in 2025, a review that makes it very clear how much was accomplished, and indicates the possibilities for ’26. If SpaceX could manage almost one flight every two and a half months last year, despite two test stand explosions, the odds are excellent it will exceed that pace this year.

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SpaceX launches 29 more Starlink satellites, plus a review of its Falcon 9 first stage fleet

12:10 am

The beat goes on: SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

This was SpaceX’s second launch in 2026. At this moment the company is the only one to have launched anything this year.

The rocket’s first stage was on its first flight, landing successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic. As new boosters are now introduced so rarely, I decided to look back at how many new stages SpaceX has been introducing each year to get a sense of the size of its fleet. The rough chart below is based on the data on this Wikipedia page. It begins in 2018 because that is when SpaceX introduced the Block 5 version of the stage that it still uses, and says is designed to do as many as 40 flights.

New stages introduced each year:
—————————————–
2018: 6 (all now deactivated or expended)
2019: 7 (all now deactivated or expended)
2020: 4 (all now deactivated or expended)
2021: 3
2022: 7 (5 deactivated or expended)
2023: 9 (5 deactivated or expended)
2024: 9 (3 deactivated or expended)
2025: 8

According to that webpage, SpaceX has approximately 25 active stages in its fleet. The numbers above suggest the company has been increasing the size of its fleet steadily. In fact, since 2022 it appears the company has added 23 stages to the fleet. In 2025 it appears it added a new stage about every 20 launches.

This estimate is rough and is almost certainly not precisely accurate. For example, several stages listed as active have flown only once, or have not flown in awhile.

Nonetheless, this rough count helps explain how SpaceX can launch so frequently. It now has a robust fleet of Falcon 9 boosters to draw on, and it is growing that fleet to meet its needs. All it needs to do is make sure it can manufacture enough upper stages and satellites to fill its launch manifest.

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SpaceX completes first launch in 2026

12:36 am

The beat goes on! SpaceX tonight successfully placed an Italian Earth observation satellite into orbit, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

The satellite’s data will be used by Italy for both military and civil purposes. The rocket’s first stage completed its 21st flight, landing back at Vandenberg. The two fairings completed their 2nd and 23rd flights respectively.

At this moment, SpaceX has the only launch in 2026.

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SpaceX doing trial runs of specialized barge for transporting Starship/Superheavy from Boca Chica to Florida

9:32 am

SpaceX has now confirmed that it is doing trial runs of a barge specifically designed for transporting Starship/Superheavy from the manufacturing facility in Boca Chica to its Florida launchpads.

[SpaceX’s Vice President of Launch, Kiko] Dontchev also clarified that both the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage would be tilted to a horizontal position for maritime transit, in response to an artist’s rendering of a Starship traveling vertically aboard a vessel. “Initial deliveries are a single booster or ship per trip, with the plan to move to multiple vehicles per transit sooner than later,” he wrote. “You’ll thank me later.”

These barge trials, combined with the fact that SpaceX has already shipped significant Starship/Superheavy components to Florida even as it builds rocket manufacturing facility there, strongly suggest the first Florida launches are not too far in the future, possibly even this year.

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ESA funds Danish lunar orbiter

9:16 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) has agreed to fund the first Danish-built interplanetary probe, a smallsat lunar orbiter dubbed Mani that will launch in ’29 and map the Moon’s surface.

The Máni mission is a lunar mission that will use a satellite to map the Moon’s surface with high-resolution images and create detailed 3D maps. The goal is to make it safer for astronauts and lunar rovers to land and move around on the Moon. The satellite will orbit the Moon’s north and south poles, which are key areas for future human missions.

The mission will also map how light reflects from areas on the Moon that are used to study Earth’s ability to reflect sunlight onto the lunar surface – the so-called earthshine. This knowledge could improve our understanding of how Earth’s climate will evolve.

The University of Copenhagen leads the mission and is responsible for the mission’s Science Operations Center, which will plan which areas to map and analyze the vast number of images generated.[emphasis mine]

I love how this European press release about a lunar orbiter somehow makes its most important mission studying climate change on Earth. Utterly idiotic.

Mani will use the changing shadows to create detailed topographic maps. As it is unlikely it will be capable of providing better data than produced over the past sixteen years by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), this mission is mostly an engineering demo by Denmark and the Danish startup, Space Inventor, that is building the satellite for a consortium of universities. If successful the satellite will possibly be able to replace LRO (which is going to fail sooner or later), and provide data on any lunar surface changes that occur in the future.

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SpaceX to do a major orbital reconfiguration of its Starlink constellation

9:03 am

According to a X post yesterday by Michael Nicholls, SpaceX’s Starlink engineering vice-president, the company over the next year will be lowering the orbits of more than 4,000 satellites in its Starlink constellation, in order to allow the company to more quickly de-orbit them if they fail.

We are lowering all Starlink satellites orbiting at ~550 km to ~480 km (~4400 satellites) over the course of 2026. The shell lowering is being tightly coordinated with other operators, regulators, and USSPACECOM.

Lowering the satellites results in condensing Starlink orbits, and will increase space safety in several ways. As solar mininum approaches, atmospheric density decreases which means the ballistic decay time at any given altitude increases – lowering will mean a >80% reduction in ballistic decay time in solar minimum, or 4+ years reduced to a few months. Correspondingly, the number of debris objects and planned satellite constellations is significantly lower below 500 km, reducing the aggregate likelihood of collision.

Nicholls notes that it presently has only two dead satellites in the present fleet of 9,000 satellites, but decided to do this move regardless, as it also apparently will reduce collision risks with other satellites as well.

Not surprisingly, China’s state-run press and our anti-capitalism propaganda press immediately tried to give China credit for this change, while lambasting SpaceX. That China is contributing to the risk of collision with its own multiple giant satellite constellations and is doing nothing on its own is apparently irrelevant to both. Our nice of them.

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The global launch industry in 2025: The real space race is between SpaceX and China

8:01 am

In 2025 the worldwide revolution in rocketry that began about a decade ago continued. Across the globe new private commercial rocket companies are forming, not just in the United States. And across the globe, the three-quarters-of-a century domination by government space agencies is receding, though those agencies are right now pushing back with all their might to protect their turf.

Dominating this revolution in 2025 in every way possible however were two entities, one a private American company and the second a communist nation attempting to imitate capitalism. The former is SpaceX, accomplishing more in this single year than whole nations and even the whole globe had managed in any year since the launch of Sputnik. The latter is China, which in 2025 became a true space power, its achievements matching and even exceeding anything done by either the U.S. or the Soviet Union for most of the space age.
» Read more

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Turkey and Somalia confirm spaceport plans

9:14 am

Somalia

In a public meeting of the presidents of Turkey and Somalia in Istanbul yesterday, Turkish President Recep Erdogan confirmed that Turkey has begun construction of a spaceport in Somalia.

Astrophysicist Umut Yildiz said the project, announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and detailed by Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacir, offers Türkiye significant geographic and technological opportunities.

…President Erdogan said the first phase of the three-stage project has been completed and construction has begun under the Türkiye Space Agency, adding that the goal is to establish significant infrastructure in space launch and satellite technologies.

Minister Kacir said the spaceport will become a strategic, revenue-generating infrastructure for Türkiye through growing commercial satellite launch services, testing activities and integration processes, while also contributing to Somalia’s development.

This spaceport plan had first been revealed by Turkish officials two weeks ago, but yesterday’s press conference now makes it official.

No press release from Turkey’s state-run press however revealed the spaceport’s precise location in Somalia. Nor is it confirmed that any actual construction has begun. I suspect it will be a very long time before anything actually launches from the site.

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Space Force requests proposals for new Vandenberg launchpad for heavy and super-heavy rockets

8:07 am

Vandenberg Space Force Base

The Space Force on December 29, 2025 released a request for information (RFI) from the private sector for building a new launchpad at the southern-most tip of Vandenberg Space Force Base, for use by “new” heavy and super-heavy rockets.

The Space Force said it prefers to use the site for new vehicles rather than ones that already have launch sites at Vandenberg, to “increase launch diversity” at the base. The service is also interested in vehicles with “unique capabilities,” such as point-to-point transportation or the ability to return payloads.

The RFI emphasizes the need for “technically mature” vehicles capable of operating from SLC-14 within five years of signing a lease agreement. Companies must also provide details about their operations to address safety concerns and minimize impacts on other launch operators at the base.

You can read the actual RFI here. The map to the right, taken from the RFI and annotated to post here, labels the area under consideration as “Sudden Flats”. SpaceX’s two launchpads are indicated, with SLC-6 presently under development.

Though the description of the request appears to favor SpaceX, it could also apply to Blue Origin’s New Glenn as well as the company’s proposed larger versions of that rocket.

The request asks for proposals within 30 days.

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China launches two satellites for “new technology verification for space target detection”

7:55 pm

China today successfully launched two technology test satellites designed to do “space target detection”, its Long March 7A rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport.

China’s state-run press provided no other information. It also appears the drop zones for the rocket’s lower stages were once again in Philippino waters, requiring that government to warn its citizens to avoid those zones and subsequent any rocket debris.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

168 SpaceX
90 China (a new record)
18 Rocket Lab
17 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 168 to 150.

At this moment no other launches are scheduled before the end of the year, thus closing out the 2025 year in rocketry. I will publish my annual global report in the next few days. Stay tuned.

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The up and down tale of two rocket startups, Vector and Phantom

11:01 am

Jim Cantrell and cars
Jim Cantrell at Vector in 2017, shown in front of
one of his side businesses, fixing and refurbishing race
cars and rare luxury sports cars (located then at Vector).

The tales of rocket startups are often fraught with ups and downs of all kinds, often traveling in circles that no one can ever predict. This is one such tale.

In the mid-2010s there was a rocket startup called Vector, based here in Tucson, founded by a guy named Jim Cantrell. At that time Cantrell pushed the company in the style of Elon Musk, going very public for publicity and to raise investment capital.

He was remarkable successful at both. Unfortunately, his engineers were not as successful at engine building. After years of effort they all realized that their rocket engines were under-powered, and wouldn’t be able to get the rocket into orbit. In 2019 the company’s biggest investor backed out, Cantrell left the company, and new owners took over, hoping to rebuild.

Flash forward to 2021, and Jim Cantrell has reappeared with a new rocket company, Phantom Space, also based in Tucson, raising $6 million in seed capital. In the next four years he obtained a small development contract from NASA, completed two more investment rounds raising first $22 million and then around $37 million, and began development of a new orbital rocket, dubbed Daytona. The company also began work on its own small satellite constellation, PhantomCloud (more on this later).

As for Vector, there was little to report during those four years. The only update said the company was buying engines from the rocket engine startup Ursa Major, the same company Phantom was using.

It is now the end of 2025, and the fate of these two companies has once again intertwined, in a most ironic manner. Last week I learned from Jim Cantrell that Vector had closed shop, and that its last remaining assets, some of which Cantrell himself had helped develop when he headed Vector, had been bought by Phantom. This includes several unused rocket stages, the vertical rocket test stands, a lot of computers, and hardware.
» Read more

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European Space Agency hacked

8:43 am

It appears some of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) servers have been hacked, with some of its internal data placed for sale on the web.

On 26 December, reports began to emerge on X claiming that ESA had suffered a significant data breach, with a hacker using the alias “888” offering more than 200 gigabytes of data for sale. According to the hacker’s listing, the allegedly compromised data included source code for proprietary software, sensitive project documentation, API tokens, and hardcoded credentials.

ESA has since issued a statement claiming the data breach was limited, but according to information posted on X, the breach included “Confidential internal documents (Airbus Defence & Space, Thales Alenia Space)” and “sensitive technical information related to space programs.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if China is bidding for this information right now. Then again, Europe’s space effort is so unimpressive compared to China that China might not see the information worth much.

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Russia’s early warning satellite constellation is apparently no longer functioning

8:32 am

The satellites in Russia’s constellation for giving its military early warning of missile attacks, dubbed EKS, have been one-by-one failing in recent years, and it now appears the last one has now experienced a malfunction as well.

After the launch of the 6th Tundra satellite in 2022, the Russian military seemingly gave up on the effort to deploy the EKS early warning constellation or, possibly, the industry was simply unable to build new satellites due to technical problems associated with the Western sanctions and/or financial problems. No fresh satellites were launched into the network in the following three years, while, according to an analyst of the Russian strategic nuclear forces Pavel Podvig, the orbital tracking indicated that from March 2025 to December of the same year, the number of operational Tundra satellites fell from three to just one, possibly as a result of in-orbit failures.

…As of December 2025, Kosmos-2552 (EKS-5) was the only satellite within the EKS system which did not show a clear sign of failure, according to Podvig, but the spacecraft did miss a maneuver expected in November 2025, based on the usual pattern of its detectable orbit adjustments.

None of this is a surprise. Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine has not only isolated the country, it has crippled it in numerous ways, both financially and technologically. It no longer has access to many western high tech components it had relied on, and the loss of all its international launch customers has left its rocket industry devoid of hard currency.

Thus, when Russia makes any grandiose claims about its future space plans, it is wise to harbor great doubts.

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China launches Earth mapping satellite

8:20 am

China yesterday successfully placed what it called a “geographic mapping” satellite, its Long March 4B rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

Its state-run press provided no additional information about the satellite, nor did it provide any information about where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

168 SpaceX
89 China (a new record)
18 Rocket Lab
17 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 168 to 149.

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SpaceX pulls Starlink service from Papua New Guinea

9:23 am

SpaceX has now withdrawn the Starlink services it informally had provided customers in Papua New Guinea after a volcano eruption in 2021 due to regulatory demands by the government there.

It’s been two and a half years since a volcano eruption tore apart Tonga’s underwater internet cables, and a sympathetic Kiwi MP pleaded to Elon Musk for help on their behalf. Musk, CEO of SpaceX, would answer Shane Reti’s call, offering his Starlink technology in aid of their reconnection to the world.

Starlink’s Pacific debut came with limited trials in American-owned Guam and the Northern Marianas, followed by the Cooks in April 2021. But for the wider Pacific community, its deployment in Tonga captured hearts and minds. The service, provided by a special satellite network, has been hailed as “transformational” in numerous island nations, broadening internet coverage to remote areas, some for the first time.

That is, unless, you’re in Papua New Guinea. Starlink’s attempts to gain licensing in PNG have been tied up since December 2023, with the Ombudsman Commission challenging the government over Starlink’s reliability. The Commission blocked licensing efforts in February 2024, and have argued that existing regulations may not be adequate to manage potential risks to public interest and safety.

In-fighting within Papua New Guinea’s government continues to block Starlink license approval, so it appears SpaceX has decided the best way to get a positive decision is to walk away, hoping the ensuing pressure from its customers might force action from the government.

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