Early this morning Rocket Lab successfully placed into orbit two satellites for the satellite company Open Cosmos, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of the company’s two launchpads in New Zealand.
The satellites appear to be test satellites designed to demonstrate Open Cosmos’s capabilities.
The 2026 launch race:
9 SpaceX
5 China
1 Rocket Lab
Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe
The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace yesterday canceled its second attempt to launch its Spectrum rocket from Norway’s Andoya spaceport, citing an issue with a “pressurization valve”.
We are standing down from today’s launch attempt to address an issue with a pressurization valve. The teams are currently assessing the next possible launch opportunities and a new target date will be announced shortly.
The update also stated the company is moving to a “new launch window” without noting the dates of that window. This statement however suggests that no new launch attempt will occur for at least a month. And considering it is winter at Andoya in the high north, it is quite possible the launch will be delayed until March.
Meanwhile, Andoya continues to lead the race to become the first spaceport in Europe to achieve an orbital launch. Sweden’s Estrange spaceport is limited because of its interior location. The two sea platforms proposed for the North Sea are not yet ready.
And the United Kingdom has effectively eliminated itself from the competition. Its bureaucracy and Byzantine regulations have now put two rocket companies out of business, and that same red tape (combined with location opposition) has essentially shut down the Sutherland spaceport. I doubt there are any rocket companies willing to deal with the UK at this point.
In a long interview released yesterday, the CEO of the French smallsat rocket startup Latitude revealed that they expect to do the first launch its Zephyr rocket no later than early ’27, and that launch will not take place in French Guiana, where it is presently developing facilities for launches.
The spaceport at French Guiana is developing a single launchpad designed to serve multiple rocket companies, and so it can’t handle Latitude’s planned launch rate. Thus the company is presently negotiating with other spaceports for its first launch, to give it more flexibility.
Zephyr will also not be reusable, as the company has determined that it isn’t profitable for small rockets.
Latitude has deliberately chosen not to pursue first-stage reusability for Zephyr, a decision Maximin defended with detailed economic analysis. “Our calculations show that with that size, it is not economically viable,” he stated, noting that even with parachute recovery, the maintenance costs and performance penalties outweigh manufacturing savings for a rocket of Zephyr’s class. He pointed to Rocket Lab’s paused reusability efforts as validation: “They have stopped it, despite having done everything. I think it’s not that profitable, if not at all.”
If the company upgrades to a larger rocket in the future it plans to revisit this issue.
Video of the interview is available here.
Artist’s rendering of Neutron’s first stage fairings opening
to deploy the payload with the second stage engine.
According to an update posted yesterday, during a pressure test of a first stage tank for Rocket Lab’s new Neutron rocket, the tank ruptured.
As the company pushes Neutron to the limits and beyond to qualify its systems and structures for launch, qualification testing of the Stage 1 tank overnight resulted in a rupture during a hydrostatic pressure trial. Testing failures are not uncommon during qualification testing. We intentionally test structures to their limits to validate structural integrity and safety margins to ensure the robust requirements for a successful launch can be comfortably met.
There was no significant damage to the test structure or facilities, the next Stage 1 tank is already in production, and Neutron’s development campaign continues while the team assesses today’s test outcome.
The team is reviewing the Stage 1 test data, which will determine the extent of the impact to Neutron’s launch schedule.
The company was aiming to do Neutron’s first launch in the first quarter of this year. Though the press release is vague on this point, its language suggests the rupture did not occur at the expected maximum pressure, but took place sooner, at a lower pressure level. If the tank failed at maximum pressure, then there would be no need to reconsider the launch schedule. A failure at lower pressures would require changes in tank design, and thus a launch delay.
The company says it will provide an update in February, which further suggests a launch in the first quarter is now unlikely.
In what appears to confirm the story yesterday that the rocket startup Orbex was about to be bought out by the French startup The Exploration Company — thus likely ending operations in Great Britain — there was a second follow-up story later in the day that claimed Orbex’s Danish subsidiary is about to file for bankruptcy.
On 20 January, more than 15 Orbital Express Launch ApS employees announced at around the same time on LinkedIn that they were looking for work. Since then, European Spaceflight has received confirmation from three independent sources, who wished to remain anonymous, that the subsidiary has dismissed its entire workforce, with the company expected to officially file for bankruptcy on 22 January.
The article notes that this subsidiary had been losing millions in the past two years, and was entirely reliant on cash from its parent company. Unfortunately, Orbex has had no incoming revenue itself, because red tape in the United Kingdom had prevented it from launching for the past four years.
If true, this story confirms that Orbex’s negotiations with The Exploration Company is likely an attempt to make as much money from its remaining assets as possible before closing down.
Congratulations to the United Kingdom, the land where rocket companies go to die!
Images taken by Starfish’s camera during rendezvous
maneuvers.
The orbital tug startup Starfish Space yesterday announced it has been awarded a $52.5 million contract from the Space Force’s Space Development Agency (SDA) to use its Otter tug to de-orbit satellites when they have reached their end-of-life.
Under the contract, Starfish Space will build, launch, and operate an Otter spacecraft in low Earth orbit (LEO) to safely and efficiently dispose of SDA satellites at the end of their operational lives. The mission begins with an initial deorbit, with options for multiple additional deorbits, enabled by Otter’s significant capacity and ability to service several satellites in a single mission. The mission is targeting launch in 2027.
While a number of contracts have been issued in the U.S., Europe, and Japan to demonstrate de-orbit technology, this is the first operational contract ever issued. Moreover, I don’t think any of those other demo missions have actually achieved a de-orbit as of yet. Starfish itself has only successfully demonstrated rendezvous and proximity capabilities on two missions, with a third a failure. In the most recent late last year (as shown by the image on the right), Impulse’s Mira tug used Starfish software and camera to move within 1.2 kilometers of another Mira tug.
As for docking, its Otter Pup tug has flown two missions. The first failed in 2023 when both spacecraft began spinning unexpected. The second was supposed to achieve a docking, but after completing rendezvous maneuvers the company has provided no new updates. As far as we know, the docking never occurred or was a failure.
Nonetheless, it appears Starfish’s overall recent performance convinced the Space Force it could handle this new de-orbit contract.
SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 25 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The first stage completed its 10th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The 2026 launch race:
9 SpaceX
5 China
Go here and here for the original images.
It appears the solar conjunction that has blocked all communications with the rovers and orbiters for the past three weeks around Mars has now fully ended, with the first new images appearing today from both Curiosity and Perseverance.
The two images to the right were downloaded today. The top image was taken on January 20, 2026 by Curiosity’s front hazard avoidance camera. It appears to be looking uphill in the direction the rover is soon to travel, climbing Mount Sharp. If you look closely you can see the mountain’s higher ranges on the horizon, just to the right of the rover itself.
The bottom picture was actually taken on January 15, 2026 by Perseverance, but was only downloaded today. Both science teams had programmed their rovers to take images throughout the conjunction, scheduled for download when communications resumed.
The picture was taken by Perseverance’s left high resolution camera located on top of the rover’s mast. It looks down at the ground near the rover at the pebbles and rocks that strewn the relatively smooth surface of the terrain west of Jezero crater.
Neither image is particularly ground-breaking. What is important however is that both images prove the rovers are functioning as expected. Expect a lot more data to arrive in the next few days, all gathered during three weeks of blackout.
Artist rendering of Haven-1 with docked
Dragon capsule
According to Vast’s CEO, Max Haot, the launch of its single module Haven-1 space station has now been pushed back to the first quarter of ’27.
Last Saturday (January 10) we reached the key milestone of fully completing the primary structure, and some of the secondary structure; all of the acceptance testing occurred in November as well. Now we are starting clean room integration, which starts with TCS (thermal control system), propulsion, interior shells, and then moving on to avionics. And then final close out, which we expect will be done by the fall, and then we have on the books with NASA a full test campaign at the end of the year at Plum Brook. Then the launch in Q1 next year.
Until recently the company had been targeting a launch in the first half of 2026. This is a delay of almost a full year, and suggests the previous launch date has not been a serious target for quite some time.
Haot at the article at the link provides some new details about the manned missions to the station. It will launch unmanned, and after check-out in orbit that could last two weeks or longer, a professional SpaceX Dragon crew will fly a two-week mission there to do further check-outs.
After this up to three more two-week missions are planned, with Vast already having a deposit for the first. It also is willing to do more during Haven-1’s three year lifespan.
More and more it appears to me that in my rankings below of the five commercial space stations presently under development, the top three space stations are practically tied. And of the five stations, three are hoping to begin launching modules in the ’27-’28 time frame.
» Read more
The prototype of Orbex’s never-launched Prime rocket,
on the launchpad in 2022
In what appears to be a direct consequence of British red tape blocking Orbex from launching in the past four years, it is now in negotiations to sell its assets to the French startup The Exploration Company.
On 21 January, Orbex published a brief press release stating that a letter of intent had been signed and that negotiations had begun. The company added that all details about the transaction remain confidential at this stage. A statement from Orbex CEO Phil Chambers suggests that the company’s financial position factored into its decision to pursue a buyer. “Our Series D fundraising could have led us in many directions,” said Chambers. “We believe this opportunity plays to the strengths of both businesses, and we look forward to sharing more when the time is right.”
Let me translate: In 2022 Orbex had set up a factory close to the proposed Sutherland spaceport on the north coast of Scotland, had signed a 50 year lease with that facility to launch its Prime rocket there, had built a launch platform and tested a prototype of the rocket, and was poised to do its first launch. All it needed was license approvals from the United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
And then it waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. By 2024 it gave up on Sutherland, because the authorities (local and national) kept rejecting its spaceport license for environmental and political reasons. It switched its launch site to the SaxaVord spaceport on the Shetland Islands, pushing back that first launch to 2026. Along the way the UK gave it a $25 million grant, likely to keep the company above water because the UK was blocking its ability to launch.
All for naught. It is very clear Orbex has run out of cash waiting, and is now looking to salvage its work by selling everything to the French company, which so far has focused on building a cargo capsule to supply the upcoming commercial space stations.
If the sale goes through, do not be surprised if Orbex’s assets exit the UK entirely. And at that point, the CAA’s red tape can be given credit for destroying a second rocket company, following Virgin Orbit.
JAXA yesterday released the preliminary results of its investigation into upper stage failure during the December 2025 launch of its H3 rocket.
Previously the agency had indicated it believed the cause was linked to the separation of the rocket’s payload fairings. This new report changes that conclusion:
After liftoff, the No. 8 H3 rocket sustained damage to the section where the Michibiki No. 5 positioning satellite was mounted, when the satellite cover, called fairing, was separated.
In addition, the fuel tubing of the rocket’s second-stage engine was damaged, presumably causing combustion to stop earlier than planned, JAXA said in a progress report on its investigation into the failure at a meeting of a subgroup of a science ministry panel.
As the section was damaged, the satellite was no longer attached to the second stage of the rocket. The satellite fell off when the first stage separated.
In other words, as the fairings released, the satellite apparently deployed, damaging the fuel feed to the upper stage engine. It is as yet unclear whether the deployment system worked as intended, but did so prematurely, or if it failed entirely, allowing the satellite to fall away once the fairings separated.
At the moment Japan has no launch capability. Both of JAXA’s rockets, the H3 and the Epsilon-S are grounded due to launch failures. Meanwhile, the country has only recently begun to develop private launch companies, none of which are ready to launch.
The uncertainty of science: In attempting to explain why the polar vortexes of Jupiter and Saturn are so different, scientists running large computer simulations have found that the difference could be because Jupiter’s interior is “softer” than Saturn’s.
The two images to the right illustrate the different polar vortexes of both planets. Jupiter’s (top) is made up of multiple chaotic small storms that form a hexagon-like ring around the pole. Saturn’s (bottom) is a single very coherent hexagon-shaped storm.
Over multiple different simulations, they observed that some scenarios evolved to form a single large polar vortex, like Saturn, whereas others formed multiple smaller vortices, like Jupiter. After analyzing the combinations of parameters and variables in each scenario and how they related to the final outcome, they landed on a single mechanism to explain whether a single or multiple vortices evolve: As random fluid motions start to coalesce into individual vortices, the size to which a vortex can grow is limited by how soft the bottom of the vortex is. The softer, or lighter the gas is that is rotating at the bottom of a vortex, the smaller the vortex is in the end, allowing for multiple smaller-scale vortices to coexist at a planet’s pole, similar to those on Jupiter.
Conversely, the harder or denser a vortex bottom is, the larger the system can grow, to a size where eventually it can follow the planet’s curvature as a single, planetary-scale vortex, like the one on Saturn.
If this mechanism is indeed what is at play on both gas giants, it would suggest that Jupiter could be made of softer, lighter material, while Saturn may harbor heavier stuff in its interior.
This conclusion however runs completely counter to what we should expect. Jupiter has a much great mass, and one would assume from this that its interior would therefore be denser and thus harder.
