Tag: freedom

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 €35 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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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 atmospheric‑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 NASA‑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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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 Katalyst’s Nexus robotic spacecraft and expand satellite servicing to multi-orbit, multi-mission operations. … It’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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SpaceX demolishes SLC-6 launchpad at Vandenberg

3:16 pm

The SLC-6 launchpad during my 2015 tour of Vandenberg
The SLC-6 launchpad during my 2015 tour of Vandenberg

As part of its plan to launch both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, SpaceX today demolished the SLC-6 launchpad there that had been built in the 1980s for space shuttle launches (but never used) and then leased to ULA for its Delta rocket (now retired).

Below the fold is a video showing the controlled demolition. The quality is very poor, as it was taken on a smart phone looking at a live stream of the demolition, broadcast inside a nearby auditorium. Vandenberg officials did not allow anyone access to any nearby location to watch live.

SpaceX will now rebuild the pad for its own Falcon rockets. Once completed, it will have two launchpads at Vandenberg, allowing it to up its launch rate there to as much as 100 launches per year.

To get a sense of the size and scale of SLC-6 prior to today, see the photos from my 2015 tour of Vandenberg. The picture to the right attempts to capture it, with its mobile launch tower on left and larger assembly building on the right. As I wrote then when taken inside the rocket assembly building:

I can sum up the experience however in one word: Big! The interior space was incredibly large, so large they have repeated problems chasing birds and raccoons from within it. When we took the elevator to the 20th level, almost the highest point inside, the room echoed with the sounds of birds whistling away. I wonder how they react when a rocket takes off.

It is now gone. It will however be replaced by something better. The history of SLC-6 was that of a largely expensive and under-used facility. SpaceX intends to change that.

Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay.
» Read more

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SpaceX gets an additional $10 billion from its IPO, bringing total raised to $85.7 billion

9:05 am

SpaceX logo

SpaceX yesterday announced that it has raised an additional $10 billion from its initial public offering (IPO) because its original private investors have decided to exercise their option to purchase stock, bringing the total raised to $85.7 billion.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (“SpaceX”) today announced the closing of its initial public offering of an aggregate 638,888,888 shares of its Class A common stock, including the full exercise by the underwriters of their overallotment option to purchase an additional 83,333,333 shares of Class A common stock from SpaceX. The issuance of all shares closed on June 15, 2026, bringing the gross proceeds from the initial public offering to SpaceX to approximately $85.7 billion. The shares of Class A common stock began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market and Nasdaq Texas on June 12, 2026, under the ticker symbol “SPCX.”

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Barclays, Deutsche Bank Securities, RBC Capital Markets, UBS Investment Bank, and Wells Fargo Securities acted as book-running managers for the offering. Cantor, Needham & Company, Raymond James, Societe Generale, Stifel, William Blair, BTG Pactual, ING, Macquarie Capital (USA) Inc., Mirae Asset Securities, Mizuho, and Santander acted as co-managers.

The actual cash raised for the company is less than $85.7 billion, as the various financial institutions listed in the second paragraph above get a cut for managing the IPO, which is only 0.75%, the lowest percentage for an IPO since 2010. Thus, SpaceX raised more than $85 billion for its own use.

As I noted a few days ago, this nest egg of cash is only part of the company’s resources. It presently earns about $31 billion in revenue yearly from Starlink and its computer hardware divisions. That number is also certain to rise in the coming years.

Meanwhile, subsequent trading of the company’s stock on Wall Street remains brisk, with the price continuing to rise. It is presently trading at over $200 per share. Though this higher price doesn’t mean more money to SpaceX (as it only represents resales of the stock), it does tell us that the market considers the stock more valuable than its initial price. Thus, the predictions of many financial experts that the IPO was over-valued are so far turning out to be wrong.

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Two launches so far today, with a third only hours away

9:29 am

Since last night there were two launches globally, by China and SpaceX, with a third launch scheduled several hours hence by the rocket startup Isar Aerospace.

First, China’s launched eight classified “high-resolution optical remote sensing” satellites, its solid-fueled Kinetica-1 rocket (also called Lijian-1) lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. Such satellites are almost certainly for military reconnaissance. China’s state-run press provided no other information, nor did it mention where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China. Kinetica-1 is also built by the pseudo-company CAS-Space, which happens to be wholly owned by a government agency.

Next, SpaceX launched 24 more Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage completed its 14th flight (45 days after its previous flight), landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

Finally, a third launch is scheduled for 1 pm (Pacific) by the rocket startup Isar Aerospace. It will be making its second attempt from Norway’s Andoya spaceport to launch its Spectrum rocket, the first having failed seconds after launch in March 2025. I have embedded the live stream below, and will post a separate report after the launch. UPDATE: Scrubbed due to ground issues.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race (prior to Isar’s launch attempt):

71 SpaceX
37 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, 71 to 64.
» Read more

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SpaceX’s IPO sets the stage for the colonization of the solar system — by private enterprise

1:01 pm

Elon Musk during the IPO
Elon Musk at the IPO opening.

While most news reports have focused trivially on Elon Musk’s status as the first trillionaire resulting from SpaceX’s successful initial public offering (IPO) last week, the real story of that IPO has to do with SpaceX itself and how that company’s extremely bright future is going to change human history.

Let me run some numbers.

The day’s earnings

First, the IPO was designed to raise capital for SpaceX by selling about 555 million shares of stock, with an opening price of $135. Once IPO opened however that price immediately jumped to $150, rising as high as $176 during the day, and by closing time settled at $160.95.

If we pick a conservative average sale price of $155 per share, this means SpaceX raised more than $86 billion in investment capital on this one day. The actual number will be less, because the brokerage houses that ran the IPO get a cut, but I would guess SpaceX will walk away with at least $75 billion once all accounts are settled.

To give this some context, NASA’s annual budget for the past two decades has been around $24 billion. NASA however cannot use that cash very efficiently, because it is required by Congress to have a huge unneeded labor force in many centers scattered around the country, to create jobs in specific congressional districts and states.

SpaceX doesn’t have that problem. For the company, this is real money. It can focus its use very precisely and efficiently for what needs to be done, and thus get a lot more bang out of the buck.

Annual earnings

SpaceX however is not limited to just the capital raised in the IPO.
» Read more

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Two launches today by Japan and SpaceX

8:47 am

The beat goes on! Even as SpaceX proceeds today with the largest initial public offering of stock ever, raising an expected $75 billion in cash for its long term plans, the global launch industry marched on with two launches today.

First, Japan’s space agency JAXA successfully launched its H3 rocket on a test flight following a launch failure in December 2025. The rocket lifted off from JAXA’s Tanegashima spaceport in southern Japan, using its simplest configuration, with no solid-fueled strap-on boosters. Though the rocket deployed some cubesats, its main payload was a dummy satellite to test the rocket’s deployment system, which caused the 2025 failure by not holding its satellite in place. On today’s launch, the deployment system worked as planned, which means JAXA can now resume operational launches with H3.

This was Japan’s first launch in 2026.

Next, SpaceX placed another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The first stage completed its 27th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic (58 days after its previous flight).

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

70 SpaceX
36 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, 70 to 63.

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Two orbital launches today by China and SpaceX, plus a suborbital hypersonic launch by Rocket Lab

10:45 am

The beat goes on! Since last night both China and SpaceX successfully completed orbital launches.

First, China used its most powerful operating rocket, the Long March 5, to place what its state-run press called “a new communication technology test satellite” into orbit, the rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport. As the Long March 5 can haul very large payloads into orbit, it suggests this one satellite is unusually heavy.

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

The first stage (B1071) successfully completed its 34th flight (38 days after its previous flight), landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. With this flight the stage moved past the space shuttle Atlantis, putting it in third 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
28 Columbia space shuttle
28 Falcon 9 booster B1077
28 Falcon 9 booster B1078

Sources here and here.

Though it was not an orbital launch and thus isn’t added to my launch totals, Rocket Lab also launched last night, using its HASTE suborbital version of its Electron rocket to do a suborbital hypersonic test for the War Department, as part of its $190 million contract to do twenty such test flights. This appears to be the first of those launches.

UPDATE: The HASTE launch appears to have actually been an orbital one, with a second stage and kick stage, both of which reached orbit. No information has been released on the status of the classified payload, which I suspect was a test hypersonic missile that was accelerated to orbital speeds by that second stage and kick stage, but then flew a guided high speed planned suborbital test flight. Since this launch did place objects in orbit, and appears to have been 100% successful as planned I am including it in my launch totals below.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

69 SpaceX
36 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, 69 to 62.

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Another unsuccessful suborbital launch from proposed Nova Scotia spaceport

9:44 am

Proposed Canadian spaceports
Proposed Canadian spaceports

For the second time in less than seven months the Canadian startup company T-Minus unsuccessfully attempted a suborbital test launch from the proposed Spaceport Nova Scotia, owned and operated by the company Maritime Launch Services and funded mostly by a major $200 million lease by the Canadian government.

The launch was conducted from Spaceport Nova Scotia under approved regulatory and safety frameworks. The demonstration strengthened coordination among launch site teams and partners while refining launch operational procedures and the safety and security systems that govern all activities at the spaceport.

While two suborbital flights had been planned for today’s demonstration, the decision was made to conclude operations following the first flight in order to review mission data and incorporate lessons learned into future testing activities. The demonstration featured the launch of the Barracuda, a hypersonic, single-stage, solid-fuel suborbital vehicle capable of carrying payloads of up to 40 kilograms to altitudes of approximately 80 kilometres.

Full analysis of the flight data will continue over the coming weeks. However, initial data indicate that the vehicle operated nominally during the powered phase of flight before experiencing an anomaly late in the boost phase.

In other words, the first launch did not operate as expected, which forced the cancellation of the second launch. T-Minus had a similar result in its November 2025 test, making its record 2-for-2 in failures.

This launch was really designed as a PR event, not a space launch. Maritime invited numerous government officials and celebrities to watch, even as the leftist Carney government has tried to falsely sell its spaceport lease as a way to establish a sovereign launch capability for Canada.

Maritime itself has been trying to get this spaceport off the ground since 2016, with no success. Only in the last year it has come back to life due to that $200 million government lease. With that financing, Maritime has been able to sign up two different rocket startups to consider launching from Spaceport Nova Scotia, the German company Isar Aerospace and the South Korean company Innospace.

However, no orbital launches are presently scheduled, and it is likely none will occur before 2028. And when or if it happens, it will not be by a Canadian rocket company.

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Stoke Space successfully completes all tank tests for 1st stage of its Nova rocket

9:24 am

Stoke's Nova rocket
Stoke’s Nova rocket, designed to be
completely reusable.

The rocket startup Stoke Space announced earlier this week it has successfully completed all tank tests for 1st stage of its Nova rocket, thus increasing the odds that the rocket’s first launch will occur before the end of this year.

During this campaign, the team filled both tanks above their maximum expected pressure conditions, demonstrated automated pressure control across a range of fill levels, and operated the vehicle through challenging environmental conditions, including hurricane-force winds and a severe lightning storm. More than just a successful structural test campaign, the result was a broader demonstration that Nova’s hardware, software, ground systems, and operations approach are maturing together.

The company noted that it is not unusual for new rockets to experience explosions and other failures during this testing phase, thus making its complete success without a failure “a significant achievement.”

Stoke has consistently refused to set a launch date as it has been developing its rocket. It approach has been simply “We will launch when we are ready.” It has had this luxury in that it has successfully raised $1.34 billion in private investment capital, attracted to the company because of its rocket’s radical design that will allow both its first and second stages to be reusable. The first stage will land vertically, as does SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

The second stage uses a revolutionary nozzle design that makes its return possible. Instead of a single central nozzle, the engine has a ring of small nozzles on the outside edge of its heat shield. The stage will then return to Earth like a capsule, with those nozzles adding force to control and slow its descent.

The rocket itself has a smaller payload capacity than a Falcon 9, but its ability to be completely reusable means its second stage is far more capable. It can fly multiple times, thus lowering the launch costs for its customers. It can also provide an orbital manufacturing site, like a Varda capsule, which will attract a much larger customer base.

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India takes first step to privatize its largest rocket, the LVM3 or Bahubali

9:21 am

LVM3 launching a set of OneWeb satellites in 2022
LVM3 about to launch a set of OneWeb satellites in 2022

IN-SPACe, the agency assigned the job for shifting India’s space effort away from its space agency ISRO and to the private sector, yesterday released an Expression of Interest (EOI), asking India’s private aerospace industry for bids to take over operations of ISRO’s LVM3 rocket (also called Bahubali), its most powerful rocket that ISRO plans to use for its future manned and interplanetary missions.

The invitation for EOI, released on Tuesday, invites eligible Indian private companies or industry consortia to acquire and operationalise LVM3 technology from ISRO. The LVM3, often referred to as ISRO’s ‘Baahubali’ rocket, is the agency’s heaviest operational launch vehicle and is behind key missions including Chandrayaan 2 and 3. The selected private entity will receive technology transfer and extensive support from ISRO to absorb the technology and begin manufacturing and launching LVM3 vehicles commercially.

The EOI invitation also lays down the eligibility criteria for the applicable private entities. ISRO’s handholding and infrastructure support is proposed for a defined period of 42 months or until the realisation and launch of two LVM3 vehicles by the selected entity, whichever comes earlier.

The eventual goal is for the private sector to market LVM3 for commercial purposes, outside of ISRO’s Gaganyaan and space station manned program. While ISRO will continue to operate the rocket to launch manned missions as well as the country’s proposed Bharatiya Antariksh Space Station (BAS), the private company that takes over LVM3 will sell it to the international market for profit. As this is a powerful rocket, it can compete directly with SpaceX’s Falcon 9, ULA’s Vulcan, Blue Origin’s New Glenn, and Arianespace’s Ariane-6.

IN-SPACe has already begun this process with ISRO’s smallsat SSLV rocket, transferring operations in June 2025 to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). There are also indications it is trying to do the same with ISRO’s mid-sized PSLV rocket. If all three transfers go through, almost all of ISRO’s rockets will be operated by the private sector.

Don’t expect this transition to the private sector to happen quickly. As we have seen in the U.S., the shift away from a government-run space program to a chaotic free capitalist space industry can take many years, decades even. And its eventual success is never guaranteed, as government agencies fight hard to protect their turf, and they have the power of government coercion to back them up.

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NASA announces crew and flight plan for Artemis-3 Earth orbit mission next year

12:22 pm

Artemis logo

NASA today unveiled both the four-person crew that will fly its Artemis-3 Earth orbit mission next year as well as the mission’s basic plan, assuming both SpaceX and Blue Origin can get their respective lunar landers ready in time.

Crew assignments are as follows:

  • NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, commander
  • ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano, pilot
  • NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, mission specialist
  • NASA astronaut Andre Douglas, mission specialist

… NASA astronaut Bob Hines was named as a backup crew member.

Except for Douglas, all are veterans.

The mission details were also announced:

Artemis III includes launching the world’s most powerful rockets in short order. Blue Origin’s lander pathfinder, which is able to stay in orbit for multiple weeks, will launch first and await the crew. NASA will send the astronauts aboard Orion by SLS to orbit Earth, before rendezvousing in space with the company’s lander test article and spending about two days docked together for tests and technology demonstrations, including entering the lander.

After completing docked operations with Blue Origin, Orion will detach and await Starship. SpaceX’s Starship pathfinder will launch and meet up with Orion to spend about a day connected for checkouts and testing. After that, Orion and its crew will undock and return home, splashing safely down in the Pacific Ocean where a team from the U.S. Navy and NASA will recover the astronauts.

In total, the crew is expected to remain in space for about two weeks, with exact mission length to be determined in real-time based on launch, rendezvous, and docked operations.

All of this assumes that New Glenn has been fixed and is operational by late 2027 and can launch the Blue Moon Mark-2 manned lunar lander. It also assumes the lunar lander version of Starship is ready and operational and man-rated. It also assumes NASA can get SLS stacked and ready for launch much faster than previously expected.

All are big assumptions.

Other issues: Orion will be testing its docking system and its newly redesigned heat shield for the first time, with humans on board. As the return will be from low Earth orbit, the stress on the heat shield will be relatively light, reducing the risk considerably. Similarly, if the docking system fails they simply won’t dock, and can return to Earth instead. Both should work, however, as neither is cutting edge technology.

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Update on SpaceX preparations at Boca Chica for next Starship/Superheavy test flight

10:54 am

Link here. The key news is that SpaceX has moved Superheavy prototype #20 — the booster that will carry Starship prototype #40 on the 13th orbital test flight — to the test stand to begin tank and engine tests.

Cryogenic testing on B20 will focus on verifying the structural integrity of the liquid oxygen and methane tanks under extreme cold temperatures, while also checking the performance of internal systems, including COPVs, piping, valves, and sensors. This phase is critical for ensuring the booster can safely handle propellant loads before any engine firings.

Based on the article’s overall estimate of what still needs to be done, it is projecting a July-August time frame for the 13th flight. While that will be only two to three months after the 12th flight, significantly less than the seven months between the 11th and 12th flights, it still is longer than required. In order to get Starship certified for a manned Artemis-3 Earth orbit mission next year, a lot of test flights will have to occur in quick succession, on a monthly basis. For the lunar missions the company also has to start flying refueling missions in Earth orbit, which will require the launch of multiple Starships within several weeks.

SpaceX has indicated in intends to do that refueling mission before the end of the year. To do that however this 13th flight must fly in the summer and largely achieve most of its engineering goals.

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Orbital tug startup Quantum raises $300 million by merging with a SPAC

10:40 am

Quantum's proposed Ranger tug
Quantum’s proposed Ranger tug

The orbital tug startup Quantum Space has gone public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), raising $300 million in the process.

Quantum Space announced June 8 that it will merge with Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. VI, a SPAC traded on the Nasdaq exchange. The companies expect the deal to close in the fourth quarter, with Quantum Space then trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol QSPC.

The deal includes a $300 million investment, known as a private investment in public equity, or PIPE, by Inflection Point into Quantum Space. The SPAC also has $253 million in trust that would go to Quantum Space, assuming none of its shareholders redeem their shares. The deal would value Quantum Space at more than $1.1 billion if there are no SPAC redemptions.

The company’s press release is here. Quantum gets extra press because its CEO is Jim Bridenstine, former NASA administrator. The company is developing a tug it labels Ranger, designed with the War Department in mind, capable of not only moving satellites around but also maneuvering to other satellites for reconnaissance and surveillance.

The company however is a latecomer to the orbital tug field. There are several tug and satellite servicing companies (Impulse, Starfish, Momentus, to name just three) that have already flown their tugs and done actual missions. Another, Katalyst, will be launching its first mission in about a month, to rescue the Gehrels-Swift space telescope.

It will be interesting to see if Bridenstine can succeed in playing catch up.

4 comments

German rocket startup Isar raises $312 million; sets new launch date

9:06 am

Proposed or active spaceports in north Europe
Proposed or active spaceports in north Europe

The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace today announced in has raised $270 euros ($312 million) in a new funding round, bringing the total investment capital the company has raised to just under one billion, about $914 million.

The round is backed by new investors Island Green Capital and Molten Ventures with strong participation from existing investors HV Capital, Lakestar, UVC Partners with co-investor KfW Capital, and others, with substantial contributions from European stakeholders – underscoring Europe’s continued strong commitment to the company’s strategic role in providing space sovereignty and technological leadership.

This total does not include the funding provided by the European Space Agency, which is likely in the range of $20 to $40 million, though the actual number has not been published.

Isar's first launch attempt fails
Spectrum falling seconds after its launch
in March 2025

The company also announced a new launch window for its second attempt to complete the first orbital mission of its Spectrum rocket. The new window runs from June 15 to 21, lifting off from Norway’s Andoya spaceport. The previous attempt failed less than a minute after launch. The company tried to do this second attempt in January, but scrubbed the launch several times due to technical issues.

If successful, this launch will make Isar the first new commercial rocket startup from Europe to complete a launch. Two others, PLD from Spain and Rocket Factory Augsburg from Germany, are saying they will launch this year, but no actual launch dates have been set.

All these new startups are small rockets, comparable to Rocket Lab’s Electron. Thus they will not compete with SpaceX initially. All however are aiming to move to larger versions as they gain experience and data.

The launch will also make Andoya the first commercial spaceport in Europe to successful complete an orbital launch.

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SpaceX’s IPO: A quick look at the financial world’s present take

9:23 am

SpaceX logo

As SpaceX and the Wall Street gear up for the June 12, 2026 initial public offering (IPO) of SpaceX stock, there have been a number of articles published in the past week expressing skepticism about it, mostly aimed at trying to predict what will happen in order to advise potential buyers.

Much of this is guesswork, but the people speaking are people who do this for a living, so it might be worthwhile to take a look at what what they have to say. Below are a few examples.

First, the New Yorker published a detailed article questioning the overall $1.75 trillion valuation of SpaceX listed in its IPO. It doubts the reality of the company’s AI division, its plan to launch a constellation of data satellites, and notes that Starlink and the launch divisions don’t make up the difference. Overall, its analysis concludes the valuation is over-rated, and should be approached with caution.

Business Insider also posted an article expressing reservations about the IPO’s unusual requirement that 30% of all shares be reserved for the retail market, made up of small individual buyers.

Here’s how it’s instead been interpreted by the retail-investor commentariat: They’re capitalizing on trader excitement and relying on it to supplement demand from institutions. The heavy allocation is essentially setting up retail to hold the bag after longer-term shareholders take profits.

I myself have had this analysis confirmed by one source, that the major big stock buyers are themselves planning to hold back their purchases for at least the first few months, believing the stock price will be pumped up initially by this flood of small enthusiastic buyers. They will wait for it to drop — as they expect — and then buy, taking their profits then.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal posted two articles with contradictory conclusions:

The first article is very optimistic. The second is less so, approaching the situation more carefully.

For my readers who wish to invest, I strongly suggest you read them all, and consider them all. Investment here might not be as great as you think.

For SpaceX and the future of space exploration however the situation is excellent, whether or not buyers are going to make money on its IPO. The company is certain to bring in more than $75 billion, maybe as much as $86 billion, giving it the capital to do everything it wants in the next few years. It will build Starship. It will send it to both the Moon and Mars. It will have the resources to fuel Elon Musk’s fundamental dream, building a major human civilization throughout the solar system.

In this alone the IPO will be historic, as it lays the groundwork for the human colonization of space. History begins now, and it does so under the aegis of capitalism and freedom.

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Czech Republic buys seat on Vast mission to ISS

8:37 am

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

In its continuing effort to sign customers (and earn income) outside of NASA funding, the space station startup Vast today announced it has signed a deal with the Czech Republic to fly one of its astronauts to ISS on its planned mission there in 2027.

This agreement builds on the memorandum of understanding that Vast, and the Czech Republic signed in 2024. Subject to Multilateral Crew Operations Panel (MCOP) review and approval, Aleš Svoboda, one of the 12 members of the astronaut reserve selected by ESA in November 2022, will serve as the mission pilot. The MCOP’s decisions are reached through a consensus among representatives from all five space station partners: NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency. Pending approval, Aleš Svoboda will become the first Czech astronaut to visit the International Space Station. Svoboda is planned to join ESA Astronaut Thomas Pesquet who is the named Commander for the mission.

Pesquet is a French astronaut flying under the deal France signed with Vast only two weeks ago.

Unlike the Starlab and Axiom stations, Vast is building its single module demo station, Haven-1, with no government funds. It is not only flying this private two-week mission to ISS, it is also planning four two-week missions to Haven-1 during if three year mission, once it launches next year. All will use SpaceX’s Falcon 9 as a launch provider, with one of its Dragon capsules for crew transport.

Below is my updated ranking of the five American space stations presently under development:
» Read more

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