February 15, 2025

SpaceX Launches Falcon 9 Rocket for Record Time Saturday From Florida (Source: Florida Today)
SpaceX launched a record-setting rocket early Saturday. This rocket was flying for the 26th time, as SpaceX continues to push reusability to new records. The first-stage booster landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas drone ship. This shattered the record this particular booster set back in January for launches and landings. As SpaceX continues to push the reusability of its boosters, it remains to be seen just how many refights its Falcon 9 booster can reach. (2/15)

Former SpaceX Engineer Files to Challenge Sen. Susan Collins (Source: WMTW)
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is up for reelection in 2026, and there is already someone making moves to challenge her. Phillip Rench filed paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission this week to run as an independent for Collins' seat. As an independent, he would not face a primary.

Rench is a former senior engineer at SpaceX and played a key role in the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Commercial Crew programs. He is currently a member of the Maine Space Commission Board of Directors and is owner of the Ossipee Hill Farm & Observatory in Waterboro. (2/14)

Future of U.S. Space Policy Unclear as National Space Council Might Close (Source: Washington Times)
Rumors are circulating that President Trump might shutter the National Space Council as his administration moves to slash federal spending, a move that could have wide-ranging effects on U.S. policy toward the stars. The council helps craft space policy directives and has been significantly involved in U.S. space activities in national security and commercial space. The council is chaired by the vice president. (2/4)

Alabama Poised to Gain as Spy Satellite Launches Ramp Up, but Questions Remain (Source: AL.com)
With the Defense Department moving to put more satellites into orbit this year, the stakes are rising for two space launch companies with millions invested in north Alabama. One of them, United Launch Alliance, has a long history of carrying satellites into orbit under the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program, which funds the launch of high-value military and intelligence satellites. The company assembles some of its rockets in a 2-million-square-foot facility in Decatur.

The other, Blue Origin, is a relative newcomer, but one that has built a large and growing footprint in Huntsville. In the past month, Blue Origin has launched the 29th mission of its suborbital New Shepard rocket and completed the first successful orbit of its New Glenn heavy-lift platform. (2/15)

Whitesides/Begich Aims to Advance NASA Missions to Mars, Beyond (Source: Alaska Watchman)
Alaska Congressman Nick Begich, a member on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, introduced The Dept. of Energy and NASA Interagency Research Coordination Act, a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by California Congressman George Whitesides, to formally strengthen collaboration between the DOE and NASA.

The bill aims to ensure continued U.S. leadership in space exploration and energy innovation by codifying a long-standing partnership between the two agencies with the ultimate aim of long-term exploration of the Moon and a future mission to Mars. (2/14)

Musk and Space Travel Skewered in S. Korean Director Bong's Latest (Source: Hindustan Times)
Interplanetary space travel and the vanities of tech billionaires like Elon Musk are the subject of acclaimed South Korean director Bong Joon Ho's satirical new film "Mickey 17" which will be shown at the Berlin film festival on Saturday. The writer and director of the Oscar-winning 2019 hit "Parasite" returns to screens with a darkly comic take on the sci-fi genre starring British actor Robert Pattinson as Mickey, an intrepid but accident-prone space explorer.

The plot revolves around a megalomaniac billionaire with a resemblance to Musk played with brio by "Avengers" star Mark Ruffalo who boards a spaceship travelling to colonise an icy planet in a not-too-distant future. Mickey is a struggling working-class passenger known as an "expendable" who is chosen to undertake all the most dangerous missions aboard the vessel.

Blue Origin Wants Fewer Middle Managers (Source: Business Insider)
Jeff Bezos' rocket company, Blue Origin, said on Thursday that it was laying off about 10% of its workers and thinning out management layers. "We grew and hired incredibly fast in the last few years, and with that growth came more bureaucracy and less focus than we needed," CEO David Limp said. "Sadly, this resulted in eliminating some positions in engineering, R&D, and program/project management and thinning out our layers of management," Limp added. (2/14)

Firefly Aerospace Picked to Launch Space Force VICTUS SOL Tactically Responsive Space Mission (Source: Firefly)
Firefly Aerospace, Inc., the leader in responsive space launch services, today announced the company was awarded a $21.81 million contract to launch the U.S. Space Force (USSF) Space Systems Command’s (SSC) VICTUS SOL Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) mission. VICTUS SOL is an early operational capability to enable the United States to rapidly respond to on-orbit needs and provide flexibility to Combatant Commanders. (2/14)

Eutelsat Logs $560M Impairment on GEO Assets in First Half of 2024-25 (Source: Via Satellite)
Eutelsat’s total revenue grew by nearly 6% in the first half of its 2024-25 fiscal year with growth in Connectivity, but the operator also took a 535 million euro ($560 million) goodwill impairment on its Geostationary Orbit (GEO) assets, expecting lower future cashflow from GEO. (2/14)

British-Backed Challenger to Musk’s Starlink Plunged Into Turmoil (Source: The Telegraph)
A venture backed by British taxpayers that is attempting to compete with Elon Musk’s Starlink has been plunged into turmoil after a €873m (£728m) loss triggered a collapse in its share price. Eutelsat, a Paris-listed satellite business which includes the British state as a key shareholder, has turned to the French government for support as it hunts for fresh funding.

Shares in the company plunged by more than 19pc on Friday after Eutelsat reported steep losses, including a €535m impairment. The British state owns around 10pc of Eutelsat following a merger with OneWeb, a UK satellite company rescued under Boris Johnson’s government in 2020. (2/14)

Texas Approves Wastewater Permit for SpaceX at Starbase (Source: San Antonio Express-News)
Texas’ environmental regulator has closed a chapter in the saga of the industrial wastewater permit SpaceX needed for its South Texas launch site. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on Thursday denied requests from a dozen area residents and several groups to reconsider the commercial space company’s permit to dump as much as 358,000 gallons of water into wetlands during tests and launches of its Starship rocket from its Starbase east of Brownsville. (2/14)

SpaceX’s First International Rocket Landing Will Be in The Bahamas (Source: Caribbean Journal)
SpaceX is making history next week with the first-ever international landing of one of its rockets. The Falcon 9 rocket will be launching from Cape Canaveral on Feb. 18, before taking an eight-minute trip over Atlantic to the Bahamas, where its first phase will be landing on SpaceX’s autonomous drone ship. The drone ship will be stationed off the coast of the Exuma archipelago of the Bahamas.

Aisha Bowe, a Bahamian-American former NASA scientist, worked with SpaceX to help develop space protocols in the Bahamas. The Bahamas has approved 18 more landings throughout 2025, subject to regulatory approval. It’s not just a rocket, though. SpaceX will also be holding quarterly STEM and space-focused seminars in the Bahamas, along with giving a $1 million donation to the University of the Bahamas for STEM education. (2/13)

Improving Spaceport Infrastructure Could Ease Strain at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg (Source: Space News)
“Amateurs talk strategy while professionals talk logistics.” The phrase, often attributed to U.S. Army Gen. Omar Bradley, highlights how newcomers to a field will promote big plans while those with more experience will focus on the nitty-gritty details needed to turn any plan into reality. That was on display at the annual Spaceport Summit, where members were given the opportunity to take two minutes to discuss what was happening at their spaceports.

Proposed spaceports in places ranging from Paso Robles, California, and Yuma, Arizona, to Nigeria and Uruguay outlined their visions to develop launch sites, offering visions of economic windfalls from capturing a portion of the growing space industry, someday. Then Dale Ketcham of Space Florida stepped up to talk about Cape Canaveral. “We’re going to do well over 100 launches to orbit this year,” he projected, a safe bet given there were 93 launches from the Cape in 2024. “Our priority is on basic meat-and-potatoes, blocking-and-tackling infrastructure.”

By infrastructure he did not mean launch pads or other facilities associated with spaceports but far more mundane, yet essential, items: “everything from wastewater and power to liquified natural gas.” Also on his list were roads, bridges and additional wharf space at Port Canaveral, a port where space companies compete with cruise lines for access. Click here. (2/14)

Musk Pulled Several SpaceX HR People Into DOGE (Source: Washington Post)
Elon Musk appeared in the Oval Office to defend DOGE, which has ricocheted across Washington identifying spending cuts, accessing public data and screening federal workers in a chaotic blitz that critics have blasted as illegal. “We are moving fast, so we will make mistakes,” Musk said Tuesday, adding that “we will fix the mistakes very quickly.” But who is “we?”

Musk asserted that no “organization has been more transparent than the DOGE organization,” but neither Musk nor Trump officials have provided much public information about DOGE’s structure, operations or workforce. DOGE staff member Katie Miller referred questions to the White House. White House spokesman Harrison Fields said its work falls under the Presidential Records Act, which shields presidential records from public disclosure until five years after the president leaves office. She declined to respond to detailed questions.

Among over a dozen DOGE employees identified through paperwork reviews, at least six have worked for SpaceX. Four of those six held human-resources roles at SpaceX: Brian Bjelde, Stephen Duarte, Christina Hanna, and Bryanne-Michelle Mlodzianowski. Mark Elez and Christopher Stanley worked in engineering at SpaceX. (2/24)

How Elon Musk Plans to Upend NASA (Source: Disconnect)
It should come as no surprise that there are concerns about what Elon Musk plans to do with NASA given the power he’s seized over the US federal government. The ranking members of the Congressional committees dealing with space and science have already sent a letter to Petro expressing concern about Musk’s conflicts of interests and the potential for sensitive NASA data to be accessed by people who run SpaceX, but that’s unlikely to stop DOGE. Despite relying so much on NASA for SpaceX contracts, Musk wants to transform the agency and better align it with his own priorities.

Jared Isaacman is poised to help Musk achieve his vision and make sure the US space program becomes more dependent on his company. NASA has long understood that to maintain its funding, it needed to keep lawmakers happy. For that reason, it has facilities in many parts of the United States and its contractors ensure production is widely distributed as well. For example, the Space Launch System (SLS) is responsible for 28,000 jobs across 44 US states, making it so many Congresspeople will defend the agency and its funding to avoid the risk of losing the work being done in their jurisdictions.

Last year, venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz called for the government to stop favoring large incumbents for contracts in favor of those associated with the modern tech industry. Musk does not want to see the United States turn its ambitions away from the stars; he just wants to see his own priorities adopted as those of the entire nation. (2/14)

Spaceport Puerto Rico: The New Exploration Frontier in the Caribbean (Source: LinkedIn)
Puerto Rico is emerging as the next pivotal hub for commercial space launches in the Caribbean. Thanks to its strategic location, robust aerospace heritage, and recent initiatives by the Puerto Rico Ports Authority (PRPA), the Island is positioning itself to host a state‐of‐the‐art spaceport at the José Aponte de la Torre Airport in Ceiba.

It is a project that promises not only to unlock new economic opportunities but also to forge a transformative partnership between public and private sectors in the realm of space exploration. Situated just off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico, the José Aponte de la Torre Airport in Ceiba benefits from proximity to the equator—a critical asset that enables efficient access to a wide range of orbital inclinations. This geographical advantage is coupled with the Island’s status as a U.S. jurisdiction, which guarantees a stable legal and financial framework and streamlined access to American markets. (2/14)