Tag: competition

Amazon to begin commercial availability of Leo internet service in mid-2026

9:21 am

Amazon Leo logo

In an annual letter [pdf] to shareholders, Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy announced the company plans on inaugurating its Leo internet constellation to customers in “mid-2026,” assuming the company can get a significant more satellites in orbit in the next few months.

Jassy’s wording was interestingly vague, however, suggesting this target date is very uncertain.

Over the last seven years, we’ve built a low Earth orbit satellite network (Amazon Leo) and put more than 200 satellites into space (which is the third-largest low Earth orbit network operating today). With a few thousand more satellites launching in the coming years, the constellation is expanding rapidly.

…While Amazon Leo is officially scheduled to launch in mid-2026, we already have meaningful revenue commitments from enterprises and governments.

To be precise, Amazon presently has launched 241 satellites, out of the 1,616 it needs to launch by July 2026 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. The entire first generation constellation is supposed to have 3,232 satellites, so it seems unlikely Amazon will be able to provide internet service by mid-2026, as promised. It won’t have enough coverage with less than a fourth of its constellation in orbit.

Leave a comment

India conducts another parachute drop test for its Gaganyaan manned capsule

9:03 am

Gaganyaan drop test
Click to watch video of drop test.

India’s space agency ISRO today successfully completed its second helicopter drop test of a dummy capsule, testing the parachute release system that its Gaganyaan manned capsule will use on return to Earth.

In this test, a simulated Crew Module, weighing about 5.7 tonnes, that is equivalent to the mass of the Crew Module in the first uncrewed Gaganyaan mission (G1), was lifted by an Indian Air Force Chinook helicopter to an altitude of about 3km and released over a designated drop zone in sea, near to Sriharikota coast.

Ten parachutes of four types were deployed in a precise sequence during the descent of the Crew Module, gradually reducing the velocity for safe touchdown. Subsequently, the simulated Crew Module was successfully recovered in coordination with Indian Navy. The IADT-02 test validated the parachute-based deceleration systems in the Crew Module.

The manned mission is presently scheduled for early next year, after a series of unmanned orbital test flights are completed in ’26. This schedule is significantly later than ISRO’s original schedule. When the program was first proposed in 2018, ISRO said the manned mission would happen in 2022.

2 comments

China launches another set of satellites for its Guowang internet constellation

8:52 am

China yesterday successfully completed the 21st launch for its Guowang (Satnet) internet satellite constellation, its Long March 6A rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China.

Though China’s state-run press provided no information on the number of satellites in the payload, all previous launches using the Long March 6A had carried five satellites. If so, that would mean the constellation now has 164 satellites in orbit, out of a planned 13,000. This fits with the information in the article at the link, which states the constellation now has “nearly 170 satellites” in orbit.

China’s state-controlled press also made no mention about where the rocket’s core stage (using very toxic hypergolic fuels) and its four solid-fueled strap-on boosters crashed inside China.

Another launch attempt today by the German rocket startup Isar Aerospace was scrubbed due to “a leak in a composite overwrapped pressure vessel (COPV).” COPV tanks are used inside the main tanks. As the propellant in that main tank is used, the COPV releases helium to maintain the tank’s pressure. No new launch date has been announced.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

42 SpaceX
18 China
5 Rocket Lab
4 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, 42 to 32. It has another Starlink launch scheduled for this evening.

Leave a comment

Now on Starlink!

9:37 pm

Starlink logo

My posting this afternoon today was interrupted because I was spending the day going up and down from my roof as I and friend Ken worked to install my new Starlink antenna.

As always with these kinds of jobs, there were moments that reminded me of a motto of mine when I used to assembly Ikea furniture as a part-time job: “It’s ‘Do everything twice day!'” In the end, the problems were minor and quickly solved, such as discovering that the Starlink ethernet cable from the power supply to the router could only be plugged in in one direction. The plugs on either end looked identical, but we struggled for almost twenty minutes trying to get the plug to click into the router, to no avail. Then a light bulb went off, and we decided to flip the cable. Lo and behold, both ends clicked in instantly.

Setting up the account and the Wi-Fi and the computers went very quickly, mostly thanks to my lovely wife Diane. Starlink only allows you to do this stuff on a smart phone, and I won’t touch one of those with a 200-foot pole. She got it all going within a very short time.

I had hesitated doing this for the past two years, mostly because it involved a lot of other non-Starlink-related time-consuming stuff too boring to describe but that we both wanted to avoid. We finally got that stuff taken care of in the past month and could make the switch.

The Zimmerman household is linked to the world, through space. Seems entirely appropriate.

12 comments

European Union to restructure its space bureaucracy

10:38 am

The European Union
This label would be more accurate if it read
“NOT made in the European Union”

The European Commission of the European Union (EU) announced earlier this week that it is renaming its “European Union Agency for the Space Programme” to the “European Union Space Services Agency (EUSPA)”, with the new agency aimed at running the EU’s various satellite projects, including its Galileo GPS-type constellation, its proposed communications constellations, and its various European security satellite projects.

The proposed regulatory document can be read here [pdf]. More details can be found here:

In the text of the draft regulation, the Commission says the agency is expected to play a crucial role in implementing Union space systems and wider space policy from 2028 to 2034 as part of the European Competitiveness Fund. That places the agency firmly inside the next generation of EU planning for satellite navigation, Earth observation, secure connectivity, space situational awareness and related civil and defence applications.

One of the clearest elements in the proposal is the agency’s planned renaming. The draft regulation states that the current European Union Agency for the Space Programme would become the European Union Space Services Agency. The Commission says this is meant to reflect more accurately the body’s current and future role as an operational actor supporting the delivery of Union space systems rather than simply administering a programme framework. That change in title is therefore intended to signal a broader institutional shift rather than a cosmetic rebranding.

The language above as well as the actual regulation itself I think illustrates well why the European Union is increasingly falling behind the rest of the world in space. The wording is obtuse, complex, and jargon-filled, often aimed at making things seem more significant than they really are.

The number of different bureaucracies involved is also a bad sign. On top is the EU. Under that is the European Commission. Below that is this new agency EUSPA. On the side is the European Space Agency, which though it will have a representative at all EUSPA meetings the division of responsibilities between it and EUSPA is very unclear.

All told, everything about this document and the government bureaucracies involved seems designed to do things slowly and in a manner guaranteed to cost more.

No wonder many member nations of the EU and ESA have decided to go their own way, even as they politely maintain membership in these organizations. Germany, France, Spain, and Italy are all now pushing the development of new commercial independent space companies within their borders, all attempting to launch similar space assets, but with the ability to eventually do it faster and cheaper.

I would expect those new private companies will soon eclipse anything proposed by EUSPA in the coming decade.

5 comments

ESA paid Arianespace about $96 million for an Ariane-6 launch

9:24 am

According to a story today on European Spaceflight, the European Space Agency (ESA) paid its commercial division Arianespace €82 million [about $96 million] for its Ariane-6 launch in November 2025 of ESA’s Earth observation Sentinel-1D satellite.

The European Space Agency has disclosed that launching the Sentinel-1D Earth observation satellite aboard an Ariane 62 rocket in November 2025 cost €82,070,773. As part of its involvement in the development of the European Union’s Copernicus Earth observation satellite constellation, ESA is responsible for placing contracts with European industry for the development, launch, and operation of satellites. As part of this responsibility, the agency publishes an annual list of all contracts awarded with a value of more than €15,000. In 2025, this included the disclosure of the cost of launching Sentinel-1D aboard an Ariane 6 rocket in its two-booster variant [dubbed Ariane-62].

This is the first time ESA or Arianespace have revealed any price figures for using Ariane-6, and shows that Arianespace is attempting to price Ariane-6 competitively with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. The article notes that SpaceX charged ESA about $90 million for an earlier Sentinel launch.

Because Falcon 9 is mostly reusable, SpaceX’s profit margin is far higher than Arianespace’s. Ariane-6 is expendable, and thus costs more. Thus, if necessary SpaceX could significantly lower its price, but hasn’t because it hasn’t yet felt any competitive pressure to do so. When the new reusable rockets from Stoke Space and Rocket Lab begin launching sometime this year, then launch prices will drop considerably, and Ariane-6 will find itself very over-priced, with no way to lower its cost enough to compete.

3 comments

Saxavord spaceport lost about $7 million in both ’23 and ’24; Andoya launch scheduled for today

9:00 am

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

According to a report in the Times of London yesterday, the Saxavord spaceport on the Shetland Islands lost about $7 million in both ’23 and ’24.

Annual accounts for Shetland Space Centre, the SaxaVord operating company, show a near 32 per cent rise in revenue to £2.5 million for 2024. The document, recently lodged at Companies House, shows a £5.4 million [$7.25 million] pre-tax loss, compared to £5.1 million [$6.85 million] in 2023.

The spaceport is controlled by billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen, who had been instrumental in using the courts to block launches from the other proposed spaceport in Sutherland, Scotland. Saxavord meanwhile was first proposed about four years ago, but it has also not yet had its first launch. In both cases, the major obstacle has been the United Kingdom’s regulatory bureaucracy run by its Civil Aviation Authority, which has taken years to issue permits and licenses. Those delays have bankrupted two rocket companies, Virgin Orbit and Orbex, because they were unable to launch as scheduled.

Saxavord hopes its first launch will occur later this year, from the German rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg. That company had hoped to launch in 2024 — after more than a year delay due to red tape — but an explosion during the final static fire test of the first stage ended those plans.

Meanwhile, the first orbital launch from Norway’s Andoya spaceport is now expected later today by the German rocket startup Isar Aerospace. This will be the second launch of its Spectrum rocket, the first failing just after lift-off in 2025. This second attempt had been scrubbed in January and March, and is now scheduled for 1 pm (Pacific) today. I have embedded its live stream below.
» Read more

One comment

Russia’s latest plans for its post-ISS space station

8:12 am

The present Russian plans to transition from ISS to its Russian Orbital Station
Click for full resolution image.

Anatoly Zak yesterday posted the picture to the right, showing a presentation by Russian officials of Roscosmos’ latest plans for its transition from ISS to their own Russian Orbital Station (ROS). Though it is in Russian, I think I can glean from it some significant take-aways about Russia’s future space plans.

First, if these plans proceed as planned (doubtful based on Russia’s track record in the past three decades), at some point in the next four years they will attach a new module to ISS, docking with the Prichal docking hub, launched in 2021. Then in 2030 they will undock this new module as well as Prichal and the Nauka module, which also launched in 2021, and use these three modules as the core of their new station.

That 2030 date is significant, as it is an admission by Russia that it intends to stay with ISS until then. Up till now Roscosmos has only committed to ISS through 2028, even though NASA and its partners at ESA and Japan have set 2030 as ISS’s present retirement date.

Second, they plan to add more modules to this core station, beginning in 2031, and by 2034 to have completed a four-module cross-shaped station with Prichal as the central hub. That completion date is one year later than the timeline Russia announced in 2024, when it claimed ROS would be completed in 2033. That 2024 timeline also said ROS’s first module would be launched in 2027, but the graphic to the right no longer gives any date for that launch. I suspect 2027 is extremely unlikely.

Finally, don’t expect the new modules promised in the 2031-2034 timeframe to launch on schedule either. As I note above, all Russian space projects in this century have routinely been delayed repeatedly, with most never launching at all.

This plan also makes no mention of an agreement with India in December 2025 to coordinate the construction of its station with Russia’s, flying both in the same inclination presently used by ISS. This is not really a surprise, as both projects will operate independently, so that delays in one do not impact the other.

Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay.

One comment

China launches 18 more Qianfan internet satellites

5:16 pm

Earlier today China successfully placed 18 more Qianfan internet satellites into orbit, its Long March 8 rocket lifting off from its coast Wenchang spaceport.

This was the seventh launch for this Starlink competitor, which is also called Spacesail or G60, bringing the total number of satellites launched to 137, out of a planned constellation of as many as 10,000. The first phase of the constellation however only requires 648. Though China hopes to reach that number before the end of this year, it will be a year late, based on the constellation’s international licensing requirement. Moreover, there have been stories suggesting this project is short of cash.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

42 SpaceX
17 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, 42 to 31.

China was supposed to do another launch this afternoon, but as of posting there is no report announcing it.

2 comments

Update on SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy launchpad improvements at Boca Chica

9:35 am

Link here. The article provides many details about the design improvements and testing that SpaceX is doing at the Boca Chica launchpad prior to the next Starship/Superheavy orbital test flight, now expected sometime in mid-May.

All the improvements appear designed to allow for quicker reuse of the pad, including protecting it better when both Starship and Superheavy return to be captured by the chopstick towers. For example:

On the tower, work has progressed on the Ship Quick Disconnect (SQD) arm, which connects to the Starship upper stage for propellant loading. This week, technicians added steel reinforcements to the lower side of the arm’s shoulder section. These additions are believed to strengthen the structure while enabling the arm to retract more quickly during launch.

A faster swing-out reduces the risk of damage from the intense exhaust plume of Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines at liftoff. This improvement should minimize post-launch refurbishment and contribute to a higher launch cadence. The core work on the SQD arm itself appears largely complete, and scaffolding may soon be removed as final preparations continue.

Other work includes a new tower roof structure to protect it from the rocket’s engine exhaust, and other work on the pad itself to facilitate faster fueling. These additions have been accompanied by testing to make sure they work.

All this work appears intended to make it possible to launch frequently once the next test launch is completed.

9 comments

Orbital repair startup Starfish raises $100 million in private investment capital

9:13 am

Remora rendezvous
Images taken by Starfish’s camera.

The orbital servicing startup Starfish Space has now raised an additional $100 million in private investment capital, in addition to the $29 million raised previously.

Seattle-based Starfish announced April 7 it closed a Series B round led by Point72 Ventures, raising more than $100 million. Activate Capital and Shield Capital co-led the round, with major participation from Industrious Ventures and NightDragon. Several other new and existing investors were also part of the funding round.

…The company, which raised $29 million in November 2024, says the funding will enable it to scale up production of its Otter line of spacecraft designed for in-space servicing of other spacecraft. The company has won several contracts from government and commercial customers for missions to extend the lives of satellites or deorbit defunct satellites.

Starfish has already won contracts to do a variety of demo and satellite repair missions with the military (see here, here, and here) totaling about $144 million.

This financial success has occurred despite the fact that Starfish’s Otter servicing robot has yet to dock and repair any satellite. It has done two rendezvous and proximity demo missions, the second of which was supposed to do a docking but could not when the owner of the target satellite backed out of the project. The Otter-2 robot is still working in orbit, but the company has not been able to find a new target spacecraft to dock to. The company has also demonstrated its camera on another company’s orbital tug, as shown by the images above.

One comment

Astroscale to fly mission to rendezvous and inspect two different satellites

8:01 am

Screen capture of ISSA-J1 operations around ALOS
Click for full animation.

The Japanese orbital tug company Astroscale this week announced a 2027 mission to fly an inspector satellite to rendezvous and inspect closely two different defunct satellites in different orbits.

The ISSA-J1 mission will inspect two retired Japanese satellites launched in the early 2000s. By approaching them in orbit, ISSA-J1 will observe their current condition more than 20 years after launch, including their attitude, rotation behavior and signs of degradation. The mission will conduct close‑range observations of multiple objects, closer than traditional monitoring methods, demonstrating new possibilities for on‑orbit inspection services.

The screen capture graphic to the right shows ISSA-J1’s proximity flight path around the first defunct satellite, ALOS, which was an Earth resource satellite that operated from 2006 to 2011. After completing its inspection of ALOS, it will then move into a higher orbit to inspect ADEOS‑II, another Earth observation satellite that operated in 2003.

Astroscale has already demonstrated it can do these kinds of inspection missions with its ADRAS-J mission, which flew within fifty feet of an abandoned rocket upper stage. Its eventual goal is to do space junk removal missions, grabbing this kind of space junk and de-orbiting it.

Leave a comment

Northrop Grumman’s Minotaur-4 rocket launches three payloads for War Department

8:40 am

Northrop Grumman early this morning successfully placed three experimental payloads into orbit for the War Department’s Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), its Minotaur-4 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

NRL’s payloads included the Lasersheet Anomaly Resolution and Debris Observation (LARADO) instrument; the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Orbiting Situational Awareness Sensor (GOSAS); and the Gadolinium Aluminum Gallium Garnet (GAGG) Radiation Instrument (GARI-1C).

The first is testing new methods for tracking space junk, the second improved GPS-type location and navigation for military operations, and the third new gamma-ray detection technology for tracking nuclear tests.

This was Northrop Grumman’s first launch in 2026, so the leader board for the 2026 launch race remains unchanged:

42 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.

3 comments

Firefly signs deal with modular sea launch startup Seagate

8:02 am

The startup Seagate, which is building a modular sea launch platform for any rocket company, has now signed a partnership deal with the rocket company Firefly to jointly develop that sea platform.

Seagate Space Corporation announced today a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Firefly Aerospace to collaborate on the development of an offshore launch platform that enables a sea-based launch capability for Firefly’s Alpha rocket. This collaboration marks a significant milestone in expanding responsive, resilient launch solutions for the rapidly growing space economy.

Under the MOU, Seagate Space is working closely with Firefly to mature the design of an integrated offshore launch system capable of supporting the unique requirements of liquid-fueled orbital rockets. Central to this development is the integration of Seagate Space’s Gateway Series, the industry’s first purpose-built offshore spaceport designed specifically for launch operations.

Firefly presently has one operational launchpad, at Vandenberg, though it has a deal to launch its Alpha rocket from Sweden’s Esrange spaceport as well as a lease for a pad at Cape Canaveral. It has also been studying launching from a proposed commercial spaceport in northern Japan. Apparently, the company wants more spaceport options, and a sea platform gives it the most flexibility.

4 comments

SpaceX launches 25 Starlink satellites using new first stage

7:58 pm

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

This was the first flight for the first stage, which landed safely on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race.

42 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.

Leave a comment

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.

2 comments

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.

One comment

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.

One comment

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.

12 comments

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.

19 comments

Russia launches classified military payload; China has a launch failure

9:11 am

There were two additional launch attempts yesterday by China and Russia, with mixed results.

First, the Chinese pseudo-company Space Pioneer attempted the first launch of its Tianlong-3 rocket, designed essentially as a Falcon 9 copy. China’s state-run press provided no details of the failure, but video of the launch appeared to show uneven engine thrust beginning at about 33 seconds after launch, and the rocket terminating its flight about two minutes later.

Next, Russia placed a classified military payload into orbit, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northwest Russia. It is believed this could be a military communications satellite, but this is also unconfirmed. The rocket dropped its lower stages and fairings at several different places inside Russia.

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.

2 comments

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.

7 comments

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.

One comment

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.

11 comments

Watching the launch of the Artemis-2 mission

9:28 am

Artemis-2 mission flight path
The Artemis-2 flight path. Click for full animation.

The countdown for the launch of the 10-day Artemis-2 manned mission around the Moon continues, with the launch scheduled for 6:24 pm (Eastern) today.

For updates from NASA, go here. So far all is proceeding as planned. A step-by-step outline of the countdown itself can be found here.

A day-by-day detailed description of the planned mission can be found here. For the first day the crew will remain in Earth orbit in order to test the operation of their Orion capsule. To reiterate, the capsule’s life support system has not been flown in space previously, so this first day is critical. If there are any issues, the astronauts are still close to Earth and can return relatively quickly.

If no problems are detected during that first day, on day two the crew will fire the spacecraft’s engines and head to the Moon. At that point everything must function as planned for nine days as they travel out to the Moon, swing around it without going into orbit, and head back to Earth.

The return to Earth remains the most dangerous moment for this flight. During the 2022 unmanned test flight around the Moon, the heat shield design on Orion did not work as planned, with chunks breaking off in a manner that was unexpected and very concerning. NASA spent two years contemplating the issue, and decided to live with the same heat shield design for this mission, since replacing the shield would have delayed the launch at minimum two years. It has adjusted the return flight path in a way it thinks will mitigate the problem. As its engineers are only guessing at what caused the issue and could be wrong — having done no real life tests — we will not know if they are right until Orion splashes down.

We must pray that they are right.

I have embedded NASA’s live stream below.
» Read more

22 comments

India’s space agency requests proposals for building landing legs for its next new rocket

8:59 am

NGLV as proposed in November 2025
NGLV (the two rockets in the middle) as proposed
in November 2025. Click for bigger image.

India’s space agency ISRO has issued a request for bids from the country’s commercial aerospace sector to build landing legs for its next new rocket, dubbed the Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV).

The tender, titled “Fabrication of Landing Leg Hardware with materials for Advanced Development Module for In-situ Reusable Technologies (Admire) VTVL (10 units)”, seeks industry participation in developing critical components for a vertical take-off, vertical landing (VTVL) test vehicle under the ADMIRE programme.

…According to ISRO’s tender documents, the selected vendor will be responsible for end-to-end development, including procurement of raw materials, manufacturing, quality control planning, and final delivery of landing leg hardware. The project has been structured into three distinct phases spanning approximately 12 months.

The NGLV rocket was first approved by the India government in September 2024. Since then ISRO has completed the preliminary design of its methane engine, but has also revised the rocket’s design twice, in October 2024 and again in November 2025. This new landing leg contract suggests the agency hopes to do some test hops of a first stage prototype a year from now.

2 comments

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.

3 comments

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.

10 comments

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.

6 comments
1 2 3 … 310