Tag: competition

Boeing wins $2 billion satellite contract from Space Force

9:05 am

In what appears to be the first major space contract Boeing has won in awhile, the Space Force yesterday awarded it a $2 billion contract to build two new military communications satellites, part of the War Department’s MUOS constellation.

The Boeing Co., El Segundo, California, has been awarded a maximum $2,002,862,607 fixed-price-incentive-firm-target contract for the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) service life extension Phase II effort. This contract provides for the design, development, build, launch support, and on-orbit test support of two MUOS satellites. Work will be performed in El Segundo, California, and is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2035. [emphasis mine]

Boeing won the contract competition over Lockheed Martin, which had built the previous MUOS satellites.

I highlight the fixed-price nature of the contract. Boeing’s space-related division in the past two decades has had trouble dealing with such contracts, its corporate culture having become spoiled with cost-plus contracts, which are essentially blank checks. Its fixed-price Starliner contract is the best example, but the company’s repeated inability to stay under budget or get things done got so bad that by 2020 NASA announced it would no longer entertain any contract bids from the company, a policy that it still follows.

For Boeing, making this fixed-price contract work is literally a make-or-break situation. It needs to beginning producing such contracts on-budget and on-time, or else it will die.

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Some details about SpaceX’s secretive Starfall demo mission

8:40 am

Artist's rendering of Starfall provided during today's live steam
Artist’s rendering of Starfall provided during the launch live steam

In reading every report in the past day about SpaceX’s Starfall demo mission, in which it tested a returnable capsule capable of doing manufacturing in space or point-to-point transportation of cargo, the only one that appeared to provide any details about the mission itself was this article at NASAspaceflight.com.

And even those details are unconfirmed and somewhat sparse:

The Starfall demonstration vehicle stayed attached to the Falcon 9 second stage in LEO [low Earth orbit] for around 1.5 orbits. The second stage then deorbited itself and the Starfall capsule, after which Starfall was jettisoned and prepared for reentry. SpaceX released limited information about the mission, and it is unknown whether the Starfall demonstration vehicle carried any payloads, though instrumentation was likely used to measure reentry forces.

Following reentry, Starfall separated its two halves, deployed its parachutes, and splashed down in the Pacific, approximately 1,300 km off the west coast of the United States.

That’s all we presently know. Based on SpaceX’s tight-lipped approach, this mission was probably paid for by the War Department. In 2021 the Air Force had issued the company a $47.9 million contract to test point-to-point cargo transport by rocket “anywhere on the Earth in less than one hour, with a 100-ton capacity.” That cargo requirement suggested the rocket had to be Starship. It is very possible the contract was later amended to fit the 20 ton capability of Falcon 9, and this flight was the first demonstration of this cargo transport capability.

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Namibian government rejects Starlink

10:52 am

The Namibian government today announced it has rejected SpaceX’s application to provide Starlink to that country, apparently because the company will not comply with its laws that require ownership by Namibia citizens.

As a result, the regulator upheld its earlier ruling, stating that Starlinkโ€™s application remained non-compliant with the ownership and control requirements contained in Section 46 of the Communications Act, No. 8 of 2009. CRAN acknowledged that Low Earth Orbit satellite technology has the potential to improve connectivity across Namibia but stressed that all telecommunications operators must comply with the countryโ€™s legal and regulatory framework.

The authority also clarified that exemptions from the ownership requirements under Section 46(2) of the Communications Act can only be granted by the Minister of Information and Communication Technology and cannot be determined by CRAN through a reconsideration process.

In Africa such ownership laws almost always include a racial quota, requiring a certain percentage of ownership go specifically to blacks. SpaceX across the board refuses to do this.

The government apparently got 624 comments from the public asking it approve SpaceX’s application, but the regulators threw out all but 2 of those comments for what appears to be minor language or procedural issues.

My guess is that SpaceX refused to bribe these petty dictators, and so they denied the application.

Namibia, like South Africa, is making a foolish decision here, and as a result it is making itself a backwater, likely to trail the world in economic growth and prosperity for decades to come.

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SpaceX to raise $20 billion more by selling bonds

9:49 am

As part of its need for cash both to support its planned major capital projects and partly it appears to pay off some debt, SpaceX now plans to sell bonds in order to raise an additional $20 billion more.

The proceeds from the bond offering will mostly be used to refinance a $20 billion bridge loan SpaceX took in March as it prepared to go public. Such loans basically ensure that companies planning to go public have the money they would need to wait out an unfavorable turn in market conditions.

As the article at the link notes, however, SpaceX is hardly cash poor, having on hand over $100 billion after its initial public offering (IPO) of stock two weeks ago. On the surface this bond sale seems unnecessary, but I suspect its purpose is merely refinancing some already existing debt in order to save the company some money.

The propaganda press has been making much in the past week about the drop in SpaceX’s stock price following its original burst during the IPO, often spinning the drop as proof that SpaceX is not that valuable a company (see this NBC report for example). After raising to above $200 per share from its initial price of $135, it has since dropped to about $160. All of this is entirely normal. New stocks that capture the public’s interest all do this. The stock is simply now finding its natural market price, which by the way is still higher than that initial price.

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China’s Shenlong X-37B copy deploys a satellite

9:33 am

Shenlong in orbit shortly after launch
Shenlong in orbit shortly after launch.
Click for source.

According to data from the space surveillance company LeoLabs, China’s Shenlong mini-reusable shuttle — similar to the X-37B — deployed a object sometime before June 22, 2026.

At 02:30 UTC on 22 June 2026, LeoLabs detected an unknown object in the vicinity of the Chinese Shenlong reusable spaceplane.

This object did not correlate to any other object in our catalog. It was first observed by our Tracker radar in New Zealand.

This is not the first time a Shenlong in orbit released an object. On two previous flights in 2023 and 2024 it did the same. The Shenlong in orbit now was launched on February 7, 2026, the fourth mission of this X-37B copycat.

Overall, China has released very little information about Shenlong. We have no idea if the same or multiple Shenlongs have launched on the four known missions. No official pictures have ever been released, though the image of it to the right was apparently captured in orbit by amateur astronomers shortly after that February launch.

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Two launches by China and SpaceX

8:29 am

Since yesterday there were two more launches by the global rocket industry.

First, China placed a “communication technology experimental satellite” into orbit, its Long March 7A rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport. No other information was provided.

Artist's rendering of Starfall provided during today's live steam
Artist’s rendering of Starfall provided during today’s live steam

Next, SpaceX launched in the early morning the first demo mission for its Starfall recoverable capsule, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The company has released little information about this project, including not showing the deployment or splashdown of Starfall in the launch broadcast. Its short description of Starfall during the live stream made it sound very similar to Varda’s recoverable capsule, though larger. According to Wikipedia,

Starfall has a circular, disk-shaped form measuring 10′ in diameter and 2′ 6″ in height. Its empty mass is 2,100 kg (4,600 lb). Starfall carries up to 1,000 kilograms of payload in a volume of 2.5 by 0.5 meters and a total mass of about 3,100 kilograms. The vehicle consists of a top plate with maneuvering thrusters and a heat shield that jettisons before a parachute assisted splashdown. Starfall reaches orbit as a payload on Falcon 9 or Starship. The design focuses on precision delivery to specific locations, supporting rapid delivery for critical cargo.

The company has at this time provided no information about the results of this demo mission.

The rocket’s two fairings completed their 24th and 36th flights respectively. The first stage (B1078) completed its 29th flight (29 days after its previous mission), landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. With this flight this booster moved past the space shuttle Columbia into a seventh place tie in the rankings for the most reused launch vehicle:

39 Discovery space shuttle
35 Falcon 9 booster B1067
34 Falcon 9 booster B1071
33 Atlantis space shuttle
33 Falcon 9 booster B1063
31 Falcon 9 booster B1069
29 Falcon 9 booster B1077
29 Falcon 9 booster B1078
28 Columbia space shuttle

Sources here and here.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

75 SpaceX
41 China
9 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
8 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 75 to 70.

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Canada’s second proposed spaceport opens first rocket factory

9:03 am

Proposed Canadian spaceports
Proposed Canadian spaceports

The Canadian rocket startup Nordspace, which also hopes to operate the Atlantic Spaceport in Newfoundland, last week announced the opening of a new headquarters where it hopes to begin building its smallsat Tundra rockets.

The 60,000 square foot advanced manufacturing campus is dedicated to the production of the company’s light and medium-lift orbital launch vehicles alongside its space systems division, and represents a 10x expansion over NordSpace’s previous headquarters.

In reading between the lines of the press release, it appears this facility is mostly the company’s administrative and operations headquarters, though it is large enough to assembly two Tundra smallsat rockets at the same time, designed to put about three times more payload into orbit than Rocket Lab’s very successful Electron rocket.

Unlike Spaceport Nova Scotia, which was first proposed more than a decade ago and after years of struggle was leased in March by the Canadian government for $200 million, Nordspace has only been around since 2024 and has received a relatively small grant from the government, some portion of a $8.3 million program to support three Canadian rocket startups.

With both spaceports, there has been a lot of blarney spouted. Thus, separating the sizzle from the steak is difficult. No launch dates for Tundra have been provided, though the company says it has purchased the land for an even larger manufacturing facility, though once again it provides no timetables.

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Rocket Lab and SpaceX complete launches

9:49 am

In the past two days both Rocket Lab and SpaceX successfully completed launches.

I am reporting the Rocket Lab launch two days late because it was unannounced and remains officially unconfirmed by the company two days after lift-off. [UPDATE: Rocket Lab finally confirmed the launch on June 22, 2026.] According to two different launch tracking websites (here and here), the company’s Electron rocket lifted off successfully from one of its two New Zealand launchpads on June 19, 2026, placing a Rocket Lab payload into orbit dubbed Puma, a Space Force satellite designed to rendezvous with a target spacecraft dubbed Jackel that was built by the company True Anomaly and launched on an earlier SpaceX launch.

The mission secrecy was also for a second purpose, as outlined by Rocket Lab:

The $32 million contract includes a Rocket Lab spacecraft, configured for the unique requirements of the VICTUS HAZE mission, that will launch on Electron within just 24 hoursโ€™ notice. The mission is designed to improve Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) processes and timelines to demonstrate the SSCโ€™s ability to respond to on-orbit threats on very short timelines.

SpaceX then followed up today with a launch of 24 more Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage (B1063) completed its 33rd flight (70 days after its previous mission), landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. With this flight this booster moved into a tie with the space shuttle Atlantis for fourth place in the rankings for the most reused launch vehicle:

39 Discovery space shuttle
35 Falcon 9 booster B1067
34 Falcon 9 booster B1071
33 Atlantis space shuttle
33 Falcon 9 booster B1063
31 Falcon 9 booster B1069
29 Falcon 9 booster B1077
28 Columbia space shuttle
28 Falcon 9 booster B1078

Sources here and here.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

74 SpaceX
40 China
9 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
8 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 74 to 69.

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Katalyst’s Link rescue satellite goes airborne in advance of launch

9:26 am

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

Katalyst’s Link rescue satellite — that will attempt to grab the Gehrels-Swift space telescope and raise its orbit — began its journey to its launch area over the south Pacific on June 18, 2026 when Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus rocket that will launch it was taken airborne by company’s Stargazer L-1011 airplane.

Stargazer, a modified L-1011 operated by Northrop Grumman, took off for Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. Attached to the belly of the aircraft was one of the companyโ€™s Pegasus XL rockets with LINK inside.

…Stargazer will carry Pegasus and LINK to Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific Ocean with stopovers in California and Hawaiโ€™i.

Sometime later this month Stargazer will go to its launch area, climb to 40,000 feet, and release the Pegasus rocket, which will then ignite its engines to carry Link into orbit. Link will then attempt to rendezvous with Gehrels-Swift, using its robot arms to catch it (the telescope has no grapple attachment). If successful, it will then raise the telescope’s orbit so that it can resume observations for years to come.

The mission is daring in more ways than just described. Katalyst has never done this before. It is a startup that reconfigured its first demo mission into this rescue mission.

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SpaceX launches classified payload for National Reconnaissance Office

8:09 am

SpaceX in the early morning today successfully launched a classified payload for National Reconnaissance Office, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The number of satellites in the payload was not disclosed. The rocket’s two fairings completed their 3rd and 35th flights. The first stage completed its 3rd flight (29 days after its previous flight), landing back at Vandenberg.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

73 SpaceX
40 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 73 to 68.

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Update on rocket startup Relativity and its Terran-R rocket

9:38 am

Link here. With NASA awarding it a major contract yesterday to launch and operate a Mars orbiter by 2028, this detailed report today on the status of the company’s Terran-R rocket and its launchpad at Cape Canaveral is very well timed.

The report provides details on the testing status of the rocket’s first and second stages. It also describes the construction at the launchpad, with the horizontal assembly building just about finished. The key paragraph in the report however is the last:

With the second stage on its way to Stennis for testing, the first-stage qualification article preparing for structural load testing, and LC-16 rapidly approaching its final configuration, Relativity Space is entering the pivotal final phase of Terran R development. If this pace holds, the company will remain on track for a maiden flight by the end of 2026 โ€” introducing a new heavy-lift launch system with a payload capacity significantly higher than SpaceXโ€™s Falcon 9.

In addition to Relativity, there are a lot of companies that hope to do the first launch of a new rocket this year, including the American companies Rocket Lab and Stoke Space, the German companies Isar and Rocket Factory Augsburg, the Spanish company PLD, the South Korean company Innospace, the Australia company Gilmour, and the India company Skyroot. It is also possible I have missed one or two, there are so many.

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The suborbital spaceplane company Dawn Aerospace raises $25 million in private capital

9:19 am

The crew and Mk-II Aurora
The crew and Mk-II Aurora

According to a press release issued June 16, 2026, the suborbital spaceplane company Dawn Aerospace has now raised an additional $25 million in private investment capital, more than doubling the amount of money raised by the company.

Dawn Aerospace today announced the close of its Series B funding round, raising $25 million at a $195 million post-money valuation. The round was led by US-based VC, Balerion Space Ventures.

Since its Series A in 2022, Dawn Aerospace has become the leading provider of non-toxic chemical propulsion worldwide with 200 thrusters in space on more than 50 satellites. Dawn has also flown supersonic with the Aurora suborbital spaceplane, making it the first privately developed aircraft to fly supersonic since the Concorde, and one of only two supersonic UAVs operating globally today.

…Commercially, revenue has grown from less than $3 million in FY22 to well over $15 million with growth of over 90% in the last 12 months and cash-flow positive operations.

The company has not only been flying its supersonic small MK-II Aurora spaceplane numerous times successfully, including doing so at least once twice in one day, it has been successfully selling space on those flights.

None of those flights however have been to space. The company says it launch a bigger version of Aurora within the next 12 months with the capability of reaching suborbital space, and plans to begin regular suborbital spaceplane flights from Oklahoma in 2027. It also hopes to demonstrate in orbit a refueling system for satellites by 2028.

If it succeeds, it will likely grab the market share that Blue Origin’s has abandoned when it shut down its New Shepard suborbital capsule, and that Virgin Galactic has lost by not flying for the past few years. Moreover, even if these companies resume suborbital operations, because Dawn’s spaceplanes are not designed for human flight, they are likely much cheaper to fly, and will grab more business.

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France changes the companies to use its old Diamant shared launchpad

9:00 am

French Guiana spaceport
The French Guiana spaceport. The Diamant launchsite is labeled “B.”
Click for full resolution image. (Note: The Ariane-5 pad is now the
Ariane-6 pad, and the Soyuz pad is now controlled by rocket startup
MaiaSpace.)

France’s CNES space agency, which manages the French Guiana spaceport France owns, has now made some major changes in the rocket startups it will let share use of its old long unused Diamant launchpad.

In 2021, CNES opened a call for interest in a new commercial launch facility that it would build on the grounds of the old Diamant launch site at the Guiana Space Centre. On 25 July 2025, the agency announced seven companies that had been shortlisted: HyImpulse, Isar Aerospace, PLD Space, Rocket Factory Augsburg, Latitude, MaiaSpace, and Avio.

Since that announcement, Avio and HyImpulse have been removed from the list, with CNES offering no explanation. MaiaSpace voluntarily gave up its space after CNES, in September 2024, selected the company to assume control of the former Soyuz launch facility, now renamed ELM2.

The story today is that another new European rocket startup, Sirius Space, has been selected as a user of this pad. Thus, this shared launchpad will now be used by five companies, PLD, Isar, Rocket Factory, Latitude, and Sirius.

Of those five, the first three appear closest to launch, though only PLD intends to use this pad at present. Isar hopes to launch its Spectrum rocket from Norway’s Andoya spaceport on June 20th (after numerous scrubs). Rocket Factory has requested a launch license from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to launch its RFA-1 rocket in July from the Saxavord spaceport on the Shetland Islands, but that remains to be seen, considering the CAA’s past slow behavior.

Meanwhile, PLD has committed โ‚ฌ35 million to the Diamant site to prepare it for its own first launch of its Miura-5 rocket, presently expected before the end of 2026. How it will get reimbursed when those other companies begin using the launchpad facilities it built and paid for is not clear.

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One more launch yesterday for China

9:00 pm

UPDATE: China finally confirmed the launch today (June 18, 2026).

Original post:
————————–
Though China has still not issued any official update, it appears the Chinese pseudo-company Expace successfully placed seven satellites into orbit yesterday, its Kuaizhou-11 solid-fueled rocket lifting off from China’s Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

The launch itself was observed by locals, and later spent stages were found in “established hazard zones” in China. No announcement of any kind however has been released by China. There were rumors of a failure of the upper stages or the payloads, but according to Space Force tracking data, the launch itself appears to have been a success.

Tracking data from the U.S. Space Force suggests that Kuaizhou-11 achieved orbit and deployed seven satellites, then performed a deorbit burn. Based on the orbital inclination, 55 degrees, and source chatter, those satellites likely belong to Future Navigationโ€™s positioning service, being its third deployment of them.

The lack of any announcement so far from China suggests some or all of the satellites had issues.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

72 SpaceX
40 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 72 to 68.

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NASA awards Relativity the launch and management contract for new Mars orbiter

4:31 pm

NASA today awarded the rocket startup Relativity the contract to provide the service module, rocket, and operations for the launch of its proposed four instrument Aeolus Mars orbiter, focused on studying the Martian atmosphere.

NASA will provide the Aeolus atmosphericโ€‘science instrument payload suite, while Relativity Space supplies the spacecraft, rocket, and cruise operations necessary to deliver the instruments to Mars.

…Aeolus, scheduled to launch in 2028, is a NASAโ€‘developed suite of four complementary instruments designed to provide the first integrated, daily, global view of Martian winds, temperatures, dust, and clouds. By improving models for dust, winds, temperature, and seasonal atmospheric behavior, Aeolus will generate the detailed environmental knowledge required to reduce risk for future crewed and uncrewed landings. These measurements will directly inform entry, descent, and landing systems and support safer, more predictable mission planning for astronauts.

…NASA will support operations of science instruments for at least one Martian year, while Relativity Space maintains the spacecraft.

The announcement made no mention of contract price. Relativity meanwhile has only launched once, a failure of its small Terran-1 rocket in 2023, after which the company abandoned that 3D-printed design to focus on its larger Terran-R rocket, which it hopes to launch for the first time before the end of this year.

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Gwynne Shotwell: Starship flight 13 in about a month, flights monthly thereafter

3:26 pm

According to a short clip from an interview with SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell earlier this week, she stated the company expects to fly the next Superheavy/Starship mission, #13, in about a month, and will then begin monthly test flight thereafter.

Full orbital flights should begin with #14, “and then from there on out.”

She also expressed certainty about an operational Starship in orbit before the end of the year. That likely includes a deployment of Starlink satellites, as well as a likely refueling test mission involving two Starships. In an October 2025 Starship update SpaceX described this mission, noting it was targeting a late 2026 launch:

It will start with a Starship launched from Starbase to spend an extended time on orbit, gathering data on vehicle propulsion and thermal behavior on an extended duration mission, including long duration propellant storage and boil-off characterization. A second Starship will then launch to rendezvous with the first to demonstrate ship-to-ship propellant transfer in Earth orbit.

All the evidence continues to suggest the company is going to meet this schedule, or only miss it by a few months at most.

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Tianwen-2 appears to be correctly approaching its target asteroid Kamo-oalewa

9:41 am

Though China has made no official update on the status of Tianwen-2, its first asteroid sample return mission, the spacecraft’s maneuvers that amateurs have been tracking suggest it is approaching its target asteroid Kamoสปoalewa as planned, with a rendezvous set for July.

Despite the lack of official updates, the observed maneuvers fit the approach sequence described in Tianwen-2โ€™s mission design. According to a paper by Zhang Rongqiao and colleagues published in SCIENTIA SINICA Physica, Mechanica & Astronomica, the spacecraftโ€™s approach to Kamoโ€™oalewa follows a planned sequence of phases, including the June 7 rendezvous, concluding when the probe has closed to within 20 kilometers of the asteroidโ€™s surface, marking the starting point for close-proximity science operations. This will include global mapping and surveying and sample site selection.

A mission engineer, delivering a presentation on behalf of Zhang He at the 35th Meeting of the NASA Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG) June 11, confirmed Tianwen-2 is scheduled to arrive at Kamoโ€™oalewa in July, without providing details on current distance from the asteroid.

The mission is somewhat similar in concept to NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex and Japan’s Hayabusa-2 asteroid missions, both of which rendezvoused with an asteroid and grabbed samples to return to Earth. China however has posted little information about Tianwen-2, including few pictures. One can’t help wondering if this reticence is because the spacecraft’s design its stolen, and China doesn’t want to make this obvious. It is known that China hacked into the computer systems of JPL, NASA, and Japan’s space agency JAXA.

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The satellite repair startup Katalyst raises $12 million in private investment capital

9:23 am

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

The startup Katalyst, which aims to become a major robotic satellite servicing company and is about to launch its first mission to rescue NASA’s Gehrels-Swift space telescope, has just completed a funding round where it raised $12 million in private investment capital.

Katalyst Space raised $12 million to develop Katalystโ€™s Nexus robotic spacecraft and expand satellite servicing to multi-orbit, multi-mission operations. … Itโ€™s a space robot that will reposition, repair, refuel, refit satellites post-launch, and build the next generation of space infrastructure.

The funding round was led by Geodesic Capital, with significant participation from Fortitude Ventures and other investors.

Nexus’ first mission in 2027 will be to geosynchronous orbit, though it is not yet determined what satellite the spacecraft will service. The company appears to be in negotiation with both the government and commercial satellite operators.

Meanwhile, Katalyst’s Link spacecraft is now integrated within Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus rocket, awaiting a planned launch later this month. That rescue mission, only awarded to Katalyst by NASA in November 2025, will attempt to capture Gehrels-Swift, which has no capture mechanism, and raise its orbit.

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Four launches, two by China, one by SpaceX, and one by Arianespace

8:01 am

The beat goes on. Since yesterday the global rocket industry completed four separate launches on three separate continents.

First, China’s Long March 3B rocket placed “an experimental satellite” into orbit, lifting off yesterday from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China. The state-run press provided no information as to where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

China followed up with the launch of another nine satellites in the Guowang (Satnet) internet constellation, its Long March 12 rocket lifting off today from its coastal Wenchang spaceport. This was the 22nd launch for this constellation, bringing the total number of operational satellites in orbit to 175, according to the report at the link, which also added this:

This year, it is planned that 310 satellites will be deployed, followed by 900 in 2027, and 3,600 every year beginning in 2028 to sustain and grow the constellation. In the 2030s, up to 13,000 satellites could be in operational orbit.

Though launched over the ocean, the rocket’s lower stages fell within the territorial waters of the Philippines, requiring its space agency to issue a warning to local residents and boat owners.

Next SpaceX in the early morning hours successfully launched three Bluebird satellites for AST SpaceMobile’s cell-to-satellite constellation, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. AST now has 10 satellites in orbit. It needs to launch 45 to become operational, something it now hopes to achieve by early 2027.

The rocket’s two fairings completed their 16th and 33rd flights respectively. The first stage (B1077) completed its 29th flight (27 days after its previous flight), landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. With this flight the stage moved past the space shuttle Columbia, putting it in seventh place in the rankings for the most reused launch vehicle:

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

Sources here and here.

Finally, several hours later Arianespace launched 36 Leo satellites for Amazon, its Ariane-6 rocket lifting off from French Guiana. This launch was the most powerful configuration of Ariane-6 yet launched and the third in Arianespace’s 18-launch Amazon contract. With this launch, Amazon now has 367 satellites in orbit. It needs to get 3,232 in orbit by July 30, 2029 to meet its FCC license requirements.

This was Arianespace’s third launch this year. The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

72 SpaceX
39 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 72 to 67.

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