Tag: competition

Giant SpaceX barge for transporting Starship/Superheavy arrives in Texas

10:19 am

SpaceX's Starship barge
For scale, note the tiny people watching on
shore. Click for source.

The giant specially designed barge that SpaceX plans to use to transport Starships and Superheavys from Boca Chica to Florida, dubbed “You’ll Thank Me Later”, arrived in Texas last week.

Avid Space, a Starbase streaming outlet part of Labpadre, captured the barge’s arrival, posting images, of which the one to the right is a screen capture. From the first link:

The retrofitted barge Marmac 31, nicknamed “You’ll Thank Me Later” by Elon Musk’s space firm, arrived at the Port of Brownsville last week. It will be used to carry Starship megarockets built at Starbase to Florida and eventually other destinations.

The Starbase-headquartered company has said it would use barges to float the rockets to Florida for launches from there until the Starship factory that it’s building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is complete. The company has been in talks with port officials about a 50-year lease for an 83-acre site that would be used as a terminal for the 400-foot-long rockets. Those negotiations are ongoing.

This barge’s arrival in Texas not only makes Starship launches from Florida more likely in the near future, it gives SpaceX the option to buy other launch sites along the Gulf coast, such as that rumored purchase in Louisiana.

10 comments

NASA abandons core module idea for its commercial space station program

8:56 am

The American space stations under development

Bowing to the unanimous opposition by the three most advanced commercial space station startups, NASA official Bethany Stevens yesterday announced that it is abandoning its proposed core module space station concept and returning its commercial space station program to its original plan, whereby the private stations all compete independently.

Industry has provided extensive feedback making the case for a sustainable commercial market in which NASA is one customer among many, along with assurances regarding available transportation capabilities. The industry position will now shape the path forward as NASA proceeds with the original commercial strategy.

Over the coming weeks, NASA will work with stakeholders and industry to refine flexible requirements and acquisition plans, with a draft RFP expected later this month.

The original plan was for the private sector to compete for one or two major construction contracts from NASA. The core module approach, put forth under NASA administrator Jared Isaacman’s leadership in March, instead made them all part of a government space station, like ISS, at least initially. Under that plan the new commercial space stations would attach their first modules to a government-built core module that NASA would first build and own. Isaacman proposed this because he and NASA believed it didn’t have the budget to finance more than one commercial station, and that the agency didn’t think there was sufficient market to make up the difference.

Officials from Vast, Starlab, Axiom and elsewhere all expressed opposition to the core module plan, insisting there was sufficient market to finance their stations, even without NASA. They also opposed the core module plan because it would require major changes in their present designs, and they had great doubt NASA could build that core module quickly enough for their financial purposes.

Isaacman and NASA apparently listened to these objections, and were convinced their idea was a mistake and the industry was right. It is now reviewing its budget and will decide whether it can do what it originally hoped, award two stations a major contract.

Either way, the recent news from all these three stations suggests they are increasingly in a strong position, whether or not they win that NASA contract.

6 comments

France buys two manned missions from space station startup Vast

8:30 am

Haven-1 with docked Dragon capsule
Artist rendering of Haven-1 with docked
Dragon capsule

In a major deal that solidifies its future space station plans, the space station startup Vast yesterday announced that the French government had agreed to fly two Vast manned missions, first to ISS and then to its Haven-1 single module space station scheduled for launch in 2027.

Today at the Choose France Summit, created by the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, Vast announced its commitment to establish its European headquarters in Paris and an agreement with the Government of France, for two missions involving two French astronauts: the sixth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station and the Haven-1 test flight, the first crewed mission to Vast’s Haven-1 commercial space station scheduled to launch in 2027.

…Both missions are expected to last approximately two weeks and are planned for 2027, with transportation provided by SpaceX on a Dragon spacecraft launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.

For the ISS mission, the astronaut will be rookie Arnaud Prost. For the Haven-1 mission, the astronaut will be veteran Thomas Pesquet, who has flown twice to ISS with a cumulative total of just under 400 days in space.

Vast had previously signed preliminary deals with Lithuania, Colombia, Uzbekistan, Japan, the Czech Republic, and the Maldives, but none of those deals had committed to a manned mission. I had speculated that these nations were waiting for Haven-1 to launch and be declared operational. France has decided not to wait.

This deal is also a major coup for Vast over its space station competitor Starlab, which had previously signed a deal with the European Space Agency and Airbus in an effort to position itself as Europe’s future space station. That deal however had not included any actual missions.

UPDATE: Vast appears to have also signed an agreement with the United Kingdom to fly one of its astronauts to Haven-1. And in this case the astronaut, John McFall, is a former paralympian who lost one leg in a motorcycle accident. This would would make him the first person with disabilities ever to fly in space.

My present ranking of the five stations under development, with Vast now in the lead and Starlab and Axiom tied for second.
» Read more

7 comments

Blue Origin CEO: “We will fly again before the end of this year.”

8:01 am

New Glenn launchpad damage
New Glenn launchpad damage. Click for
video source.

In a tweet on X late yesterday, Blue Origin’s CEO David Limp gave a generally positive report of the damage to the launchpad and facilities after last week’s explosion during a static fire test of its New Glenn rocket.

The propellant farm, oxygen, liquid hydrogen and LNG tanks are all in good shape. This is good luck because these are very long lead items. The water tower is also good. The big support tower is damaged, but it can be repaired in place rather than torn down and replaced. The booster “Never Tell Me The Odds” [first stage] and the three GS-2s [upper stages] that were onsite in the integration facility also look good.

…In addition, we had already been working for some time on eliminating our transporter-erector in favor of an alternative vertical conop, and we’ll now go directly to that; so we don’t need a new transporter-erector.

He added that they will proceed quickly in launching the present design of New Glenn, instead of upgrading to the proposed more powerful version, as some in the space community have speculated. He then said what I quote above: “We will fly again before the end of this year.”

While many in the space community appear skeptical of this possibility, I am not. Getting the launchpad rebuilt and workable again based on this report does not seem a gigantic challenge. If the Russians can rebuild their Soyuz pad in just over three months there is no doubt an American company with the financial and technical resources of Blue Origin can do as well if not better. Moreover, except for the replacing the strongback with a vertical mobile transporter, the rest of the work requires no redesign.

The big question however will be tracing the cause of the explosion and fixing that. But even here, I can’t see this taking more than seven months. I might have said so three years ago, before Limp took over from Blue Origin’s previous very bad CEO, but Limp has made a decided effort to quicken Blue Origin’s operational pace. I think he will make this happen.

I also think there is a potential very bright silver lining to this failure. If Limp does what he should, Blue Origin is going to recover from this incident a much better company. By forcing quick action, Limp is going to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff in his staffing, and weed out the bad eggs in the company.

15 comments

China successfully completes maiden launch of its Long March 12B rocket

9:09 am

China today successfully completed a surprise and unannounced first launch of its new Long March 12B rocket, lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. Video of the launch (courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay) can be viewed here.

The launch was unusual in several ways. First, no prelaunch “notices to airmen” were provided to warn them how to avoid the rocket’s flight path. This violates all standard procedures.

Second, this first test flight was also an operational one, placing a batch of Qiafan (SpaceSail) satellites into orbit. This internet constellation is meant to compete with Starlink and Leo, and will eventually have as many as 12,000 satellites in orbit. At present it is aiming to get 648 in orbit by the end of the year. China’s state-run press however did not reveal the number of satellites launched. After the previous launch in mid-May it was estimated there were about 170-180 satellites already in space, suggesting the count has now exceeded 200.

Third, and in line with the first two items, China’s state-run press provided no information about where the rocket’s first stage crashed. Though this rocket uses much less toxic kerosene as its fuel, it is still a big object falling uncontrolled. China says it plans to make the first stage reusable, thus eliminating this problem.

This rocket itself is powerful, designed to put 20 tons in orbit, and gives China an increased capability to put mass into space.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

64 SpaceX
32 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 64 to 57.

3 comments

FAA releases more information about SpaceX’s proposed Starfall recoverable capsule

8:41 am

Back in July 2025 it was reported that SpaceX was developing its own recoverable capsule design — dubbed Starfall and comparable in concept to Varda’s capsules.

Under the plan, internally called Starfall, SpaceX’s Starship rocket would bring products such as pharmaceutical components to space in small, uncrewed capsules, said one of the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is confidential.

Starship would then deploy the capsules, which would spend time in orbit before reentering the atmosphere, where they could be recovered back on Earth, the person added.

Starfall concept

The FAA has now released an environmental assessment of the design that provides more information, including the first proposed demo missions. The graphic to the right is from that assessment, and provides a simplified illustration of the capsule’s size and shape.

The FAA decision approves two reentries of Starfall capsules in the Pacific Ocean about 1,300 kilometers off the coasts of California and Mexico. The capsules would launch on either Falcon 9 or Starship vehicles, going into orbit before reentry or flying a direct suborbital trajectory to the landing zone.

The capsules are disk-shaped, 0.75 meters tall and 3.1 meters in diameter at the top. The capsules have cold-gas attitude control thrusters but no other propulsion system and do not have the ability to deorbit on their own. The vehicle consists of two parts: a top plate and a heat shield. The top plate is an aluminum structure partially wrapped in an unspecified thermal protection material and weighs 1,400 kilograms. The heat shield is a carbon-fiber structure covered in thermal protection material and also contains nitrogen gas bottles used for the thrusters and other systems. It weighs about 700 kilograms.

The vehicle would slow its descent using a single main parachute, along with pilot and drogue parachutes, with the heat shield jettisoned before splashdown. The FAA documents state that SpaceX will use boats to recover all elements of the spacecraft after splashdown.

No timeline for these tests was provided. It appears SpaceX wants to manufacture and fly these in large numbers, using Starship. It also appears it would be in direct competition with Varda and a host of other startups that have raised capital and are developing their own capsules. In the U.S. Varda, Inversion Space, and Sierra Space have raised money for doing such orbital work. In Europe, The Exploration Company in France, Atmos in Germany, PLD in Spain, Genesis in Croatia, and Space Cargo in Luxembourg have also raised capital. So far, Varda is the only company to successfully fly capsules.

Because all would be depended on other rocket companies to launch their capsules, including SpaceX, Starfall raises some legitimate antitrust questions. SpaceX’s ability to undercut its rivals in this area, as both capsule and rocket provider, would be unmatched, and could easily wipe out all competition.

The competitive need for more launch providers at low cost is becoming increasingly critical.

10 comments

China launches satellite to test cell-to-satellite communications

9:12 am

China today successfully launched a satellite to test “direct broadband connectivity of mobile phone with satellite”, its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China.

China’s state-run press released no information about where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

64 SpaceX
31 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 64 to 56.

0 comments

Space Force awards SpaceX a $4.16 billion satellite contract, the second this week

2:17 pm

The Space Force yesterday awarded SpaceX a $4.16 billion contract to build a satellite constellation to track all flying objects, in addition to the $2.29 billion contract it awarded the company earlier in the week for a different data/communications constellation.

The $4.16 billion Other Transaction Authority agreement is for the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator (SB-AMTI) program, which aims to develop and field a network of satellites carrying sensors that can continuously detect and follow airborne targets. The deal will allow the Space Force to field an AMTI constellation by 2028, Space Systems Command said in a press release.

Space Force officials also noted that this contract is only the first, and that it does not intend to rely just on SpaceX for this tracking constellation. It intends to use “a highly diversified pool of traditional and non-traditional vendors, each bringing various capabilities” to the system.

Regardless, SpaceX’s satellite division this week won two Pentagon contracts worth more than $6 billion. Not bad work if you can get it.

10 comments

SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites

1:07 pm

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

The first stage completed its 22nd flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

64 SpaceX
30 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 64 to 55.

12 comments

ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket launches 29 Leo satellites for Amazon

5:26 pm

ULA this evening successfully placed 29 more Leo satellites into orbit for Amazon, its Atlas-5 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

ULA is in the process of retiring the Atlas-5 rocket. It now has only seven Atlas-5 rockets left in stock, with one 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). Because its Vulcan rocket, intended to replace Atlas-5, is presently grounded, the company appears to be accelerating Atlas-5 launches, with the last few launches space only about a month apart.

With this launch, Amazon now has 331 Leo satellites in orbit, out of the 1,616 it needs to launch by July to meet its FCC license requirement. It is not going to meet that requirement, because two of the five rockets it contracted for launches are presently grounded (ULA’s Vulcan and Blue Origin’s New Glenn), and only one launch is presently scheduled before July, by Arianespace’s Ariane-6. Furthermore, ULA has only one more Atlas-5 scheduled for Leo, and the ten launches Amazon had purchased from SpaceX are not scheduled. For these reasons, Amazon has asked for a time extension, which the FCC is presently considering.

As this was only the fourth launch by ULA in 2026, the leader board for the 2026 launch race remains unchanged:

63 SpaceX
30 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 63 to 54.

3 comments

SpaceX launches another 29 Starlink satellites

11:19 am

SpaceX this morning successfully placed 29 more Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force station in Florida. The first stage completed its 16th flight (57 days after its last flight), landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

63 SpaceX
30 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 63 to 53.

ULA has an Atlas-5 launch scheduled for this evening to launch 29 Leo satellites for Amazon, but at the moment the weather does not look promising.

2 comments

Firefly announces new stock sale aimed at raising more than a half billion in new funds

11:08 am

The publicly traded rocket/lunar lander company Firefly yesterday announced a new public offering of stock, totalling more than 12 million shares, with the goal of raising more than a half billion for “general corporate purposes.”

Firefly Aerospace (Nasdaq: FLY), a market leading space and defense technology company, today announced the pricing of its public offering of 4,000,000 shares of its common stock and 8,000,000 shares of common stock by certain selling stockholders (the “Offering”) at a public offering price of $48.00 per share. In addition, the selling stockholders have granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,800,000 shares of common stock at the public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions. The Offering is expected to close on June 1, 2026, subject to customary closing conditions.

Firefly intends to use the net proceeds from the Offering for general corporate purposes, including to support growth of core business and recently awarded programs and initiatives. Firefly will not receive any of the proceeds from the sale of shares by the selling stockholders.

Firefly's stock history
Click for source.

Simple math says this offering hopes to raise $576 million dollars, assuming the $48 per share price holds.

The graph to the right shows the full price history of Firefly’s stock since the initial public offering in 2025. After an initial high around $60, the stock sagged to around $20, and only has recovered back into the $40 to $50 range in the past few months. It appears therefore that the company has well timed this new offering.

2 comments

South Korean rocket startup Innospace signs up another American satellite launch manager

8:20 am

Less than five seconds after launch
Hanbit-Nano less than five seconds after launch and
just prior to its failure in December 2025.

The South Korean rocket startup Innospace has signed a deal with the American company Ensemble Commercial Services to help obtain satellite contracts and manage the integration and deployment of these payloads.

This marks INNOSPACE’s second launch service distribution agreement in the U.S., following its agreement signed in August last year with Texas-based Arrow Science and Technology, LLC. By securing multiple local partners in the U.S., INNOSPACE plans to enhance customer accessibility in the North American market and accelerate its efforts to identify satellite launch demand and expand sales activities.

Under the agreement, Ensemble will identify potential customers in the U.S., including satellite companies, space startups and research institutions, and connect them with launch service opportunities offered by INNOSPACE for small satellites. Ensemble will also provide regular market updates on the U.S. satellite industry, launch demand trends and potential customer activities, supporting INNOSPACE’s sales activities in the U.S. market.

…With this agreement, INNOSPACE has now secured launch service distribution partners across nine companies in seven countries, including Taiwan, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, the U.S., Germany and the United Kingdom.

Innospace has made one failed attempt in December 2025 to launch its Hanbit-Nano rocket. It hopes to try again in the third quarter of this year.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

2 comments

Blue Origin’s next New Glenn rocket explodes during static fire test on the launchpad

8:30 pm

New Glenn explosion

During a static fire test of the first stage tonight in preparation for the next launch scheduled for June 4), Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded just as the test began, destroying the first stage and much of the only launchpad the company has to launch this rocket.

The link above is cued to just before the explosion, shown in a screen capture to the right. BtB’s stringer Jay just sent me a link to a different video view, from farther away but is in some ways as spectacular. According to Blue Origin’s statement, all workers are accounted for, so fortunately there were no fatalities.

The rocket was to launch 48 Amazon Leo satellites. As those satellites were not on the rocket during this test, they are safe and can be launched elsewhere.

The failure will likely prevent any further New Glenn launches by Blue Origin for at least three to six months. Not only does the company have to determine and fix the cause of the failure, it will need to rebuild the launchpad. At best I expect the company will at best manage one test launch before the end of the year.

As for Amazon, this puts it in a big bind. It has only 302 satellites in orbit, but is required to have launched 1,616 by July, according to its FCC license. It has requested a waiver but the FCC has not yet responded. At the moment of the four companies it has hired to launch the satellites, two are now grounded:

  • ULA’s Vulcan rocket: 39 launches [GROUNDED]
  • Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket: 24 launches (reduced from 27) [GROUNDED]
  • Arianespace’s Ariane-6 rocket: 18 launches (2 completed)
  • SpaceX’s Falcon-9: 13 launches (3 completed)
  • ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket: 8 launches (6 completed)

There is no timeline for when Vulcan and New Glenn will fly again. Arianespace hopes to do four to six more launches in ’26, but only one is an Amazon Leo launch, in June. ULA has six additional Atlas-5 rockets in stock, purchased by Boeing to launch its Starliner capsule to ISS. It is very possible a deal could be arranged with Boeing to switch some of those flights to Leo, since at present there are no plans to launch Starliner in the near future.

All in all, Amazon’s only remaining option is SpaceX. Of the ten unflown launches in the SpaceX contract, none are as yet scheduled. It is now likely Amazon will negotiate a deal with SpaceX to accelerate that schedule. While SpaceX’s own launch manifest is quite crowded (launching its own Starlink constellation), making such a deal difficult, the company has also demonstrated its willingness to help competitors. It launched OneWeb satellites when that company’s deal with the Russians fell through. And it quickly launched those first three Leo missions, faster than anyone else.

This also will impact NASA’s just announced unmanned lunar lander program. One mission planned for this year, Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark-1 unmanned lander, was scheduled to launch on a New Glenn. In addition, a second New Glenn was set to launch NASA’s Viper rover next year. Neither will happen as scheduled.

68 comments

FAA grounds Starship/Superheavy pending completion of SpaceX’s investigation

8:01 am

According to an announcement yesterday by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Starship and Superheavy are presently grounded pending the completion of SpaceX’s investigation of the engine failures in the Superheavy booster.

After a thorough assessment of the operation, the FAA has determined the May 22 SpaceX Starship Flight 12 launch resulted in a mishap. The mishap involved the Super Heavy booster as it flew back to the Gulf of America after stage separation. There are no reports of public injury or damage to public property. 

The FAA is requiring SpaceX to conduct a mishap investigation. The FAA will oversee the SpaceX-led investigation, be involved in every step of the process, and approve SpaceX’s final report, including any corrective actions.

The propaganda press will make of more this than it should. Based on the FAA’s procedures since Trump took over from Biden, the agency is not going to slow things down. It mostly just observes closely the investigation after any mishap, and as soon as the company is itself satisfied with the solution and has instigated its planned fixes, the FAA issues its stamp of approval and allows flights to proceed immediately.

For example, it acted in this manner for the Starship/Superheavy tests in 2025. It also did the same for Blue Origin in its investigation of its recent New Glenn failure. In both cases there were no delays waiting for the agency to retype the company’s conclusions. The approval was immediate. Expect the same now.

3 comments

Space Force awards SpaceX $2.29 billion contract for military data constellation

9:13 am

In what is intended as an upgrade to the Starshield military variation of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, the Space Force yesterday awarded SpaceX a $2.29 billion contract to launch a “data transport constellation in low Earth orbit (LEO) for the Space Data Network (SDN), which the service is developing as its central communications network to link sensors to shooters.”

Under the Other Transaction Authority agreement, the company is to deliver “a fully operational prototype capability by the end of 2027,” Space Systems Command (SSC) said in a press release.

The SDN Backbone, formerly known as MILNET and based on SpaceX’s Starshield militarized variant of its commercial Starlink constellation, will serve as the backhaul data transport layer for the broader SDN. While the award to SpaceX is thus not a surprise, the size of the contract is.

It appears that the Pentagon has been so satisfied with its use of both Starlink and Starshield that it was quite willing to give SpaceX this new larger contract.

The good part of this story is that SpaceX is providing good service to the American people, through the Pentagon. The bad part of this story is that it is getting so little competition from the rest of the aerospace industry. This was work that Amazon could have won, had its Leo constellation been operational and competitive. It is not, as yet, and so it loses business. As the saying goes, “He who hesitates is lost.” And sadly a lot of old and even new aerospace companies have been hesitating.

9 comments

A review of what happened and what’s next for Starship/Superheavy

8:06 am

Link here. This article is a very nice and thorough review of what happened during SpaceX’s 12th test flight of Starship/Superheavy last week. What I like about it most is that it outlines what happened with very little speculation. No one outside of SpaceX is in a position to do this properly, and some speculation has been I think over the top. The article at the link avoids this.

It also provides a quick and reasonable summary about what is likely to happen next:

Next up will be Booster 20 and Ship 40 for Flight 13. This mission may launch in the July-August timeframe, pending testing and any mitigation efforts relating to the issues found during Flight 12. The launch pad appears to be in good shape, removing it from being a potential bottleneck to Booster 20’s Static Fire test, although that is not expected for weeks.

The article also provided this added news item that SpaceX revealed during last week’s test flight that has mostly fallen under the radar among news outlets (including here):

SpaceX also revealed plans for a lunar Starlink constellation using laser-linked relay satellites and confirmed that Fram2 commander Chun Wang has signed up for Starship’s first crewed interplanetary mission — a two-year Mars flyby. Wang will first fly with Dennis and Akiko Tito on the previously contracted crewed lunar flyby, potentially as early as 2034.

That’s two Starship missions apparently paid for by Wang, one around the Moon followed by a Mars fly-by. With the lunar fly-by targeting 2034, the Mars fly-by is likely a decade away, at the earliest.

7 comments

German rocket startup signs deal with Nova Scotia spaceport

7:50 am

Proposed Canadian spaceports
Proposed Canadian spaceports

The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace, which has not yet had a successful launch, has now signed a launch agreement with Maritime Launch Services, the company that has been trying to create a spaceport in Nova Scotia for more than a decade without success.

Space company Isar Aerospace and Spaceport operator Maritime Launch Services (MLS), have signed a Letter of Intent to advance sovereign orbital launch readiness from Nova Scotia, Canada. The agreement brings together Isar Aerospace’s orbital launch system and MLS’s launch site, Spaceport Nova Scotia, which is strategically located for launches to support reliable access to mid- to high-inclination and polar orbits for Earth observation and communication satellites and constellations, supporting commercial and government missions

Isar’s Spectrum rocket failed seconds after launch in its first attempt in 2025, launching from Norway’s Andoya spaceport. Since January the company has tried again several times but was forced to scrub each time. At present the launch is tentatively scheduled for June.

MLS’s history is even more convoluted. Initially a decade ago it partnered with a Ukrainian rocket company to offer launch services at Spaceport Nova Scotia. After years of delays that deal ended for good when Russia invaded the Ukraine. Since then MLS has tried to interest both satellite and rocket companies, all to no avail. This new deal was probably made possible due to financial help from the Canadian government, which in March 2026 signed a 10 year deal with MLS worth $200 million, with the intent to encourage a “sovereign orbital capability” for Canada. Since there are no rocket companies in Canada capable of doing this, it appears that capability will now come from Germany.

4 comments
1 2 3 4 … 472