October 25, 2025

Export Development Canada Commits $10 Million to Maritime Launch to Advance Spaceport Nova Scotia Toward Orbital Launch (Source: MLS)
Maritime Launch Services announced that Export Development Canada has provided the company with a $10 million senior credit facility to accelerate the development of Spaceport Nova Scotia and advance toward first orbital launch. EDC is Canada's export credit agency and is committed to allocating strategic risk capital to developing trade-enabling infrastructure to help Canada become a more resilient, competitive, and secure global trading nation. EDC's support of Maritime Launch as it develops Spaceport Nova Scotia will strengthen Canada's position in the defense and security sector, where space is an increasingly vital domain. (10/24)

Microgravity is Revolutionizing Healthcare Research and Development (Source: Tolga Ors)
The emerging New Space sector is proving that orbital healthcare research represents not only scientific opportunity but a compelling business case. By providing the ability to conduct experiments in microgravity and return materials to Earth, these companies are demonstrating that space-based research can be both economically sustainable and transformative for Earth-based medicine. From more effective cancer treatments to advanced tissue engineering, the therapies developed in orbit promise to address some of humanity's most important health challenges—showing that the New Space can deliver tangible benefits that improve lives.

Editor's Note: As Puerto Rico explores a potential role in space, the island might focus on space-based pharmaceutical R&D and production. Puerto Rico became a pharma powerhouse in the 1970s due to U.S. tax incentives. Even after those incentives were phased out in the 2000s, the island retained a strong industrial base and skilled workforce. Puerto Rico remains home to over 30 major pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturing plants, and its Roosevelt Roads Naval Station (now José Aponte de la Torre Airport) runway is more than long enough to serve as a spaceport landing site for Dream Chaser and other spacecraft that could return pharma finished products from space-based manufactories. (10/24)

Starbase Pad 1 Ends an Era, Enters Preparations for the Next Phase (Source: NSF)
After 11 Flights and many tests, the booster test stand turned launch mount has reached the end of its life. Pad 1 propelled the Starship program through the early years and now moves toward the new phase of operations. Construction on Pad 1 began around July 2020. (10/24)

Australia's Gilmour Space 'Not Going to Give Up' as it Eyes 2nd Orbital Launch Attempt in 2026 (Source: Space.com)
The Australian company Gilmour Space aims to make a second attempt to reach space in 2026, having turned a cow paddock into a launch pad. Gilmour Space launched its first Eris rocket on July 29 from the Bowen Orbital Spaceport in coastal Queensland, but the rocket fell to Earth just 14 seconds after liftoff. Now, with infrastructure in place, and having worked with regulators, the company is plotting its return to flight for 2026. (10/24)

Lunar Rover Concepts Compete for Artemis Nod (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
It’s been more than 18 months since NASA narrowed to three the field of competitors vying to build the nation’s next moon rover. Ahead of an expected mid-November decision, the teams have completed a series of tests to prove to NASA they have the right stuff for the Artemis missions. But each company is also intent on showing off the goods, a task that put one prototype rover on display at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex recently.

Lunar Outpost came to KSC’s new Gateway exhibit earlier month for a one-week run, bringing its sleek Eagle to show off amid hardware from fellow commercial space companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin and Boeing. It has a sci-fi feel with a two-person cockpit augmented with computer display panels with a unique open front design that’s reminiscent of a roller coaster seat. Heading up the Lunar Dawn team, the company is partnered with Leidos, General Motors, Goodyear and MDA Space.

The other rovers vying for the contract include Houston-based Intuitive Machines’ Moon RACER, which stands for Reusable Autonomous Crewed Exploration Rover, partnered with AVL, Boeing, Michelin and Northrop Grumman; and the FLEX rover, which stands for Flexible Logistics and Exploration, led by Hawthorne, California, based Venturi Astrolab partnering with Axiom Space and Odyssey Space Research. (10/24)

No U.S. Strategy in the Space Race (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Dr. Namrata Goswami, a leading China space analyst, has eloquently outlined how the Chinese Communist Party’s strategic prioritization of reusable rockets, orbital logistics and lunar industrialization may allow the PRC to outpace America in space. Over the last five years​, Beijing has​ demonstrated in-space refueling, tested a fractional orbital bombardment system, and launched its own crewed space station​. Moreover, China has also landed and returned samples from the far side of the moon — a feat that the U.S. has never accomplished.

What will the world look like if China continues unchecked and is allowed to accomplish its planned space objectives over the next three decades? A number of potential crisis scenarios stand out. For instance, how would America respond if an adversary covertly disabled a U.S. satellite, or deployed an entire constellation of anti-satellite weapons? Alternatively, what would happen if a Chinese company committed corporate sabotage and interfered with a private U.S. satellite network in orbit?

Each of these possibilities requires rapid attribution, a credible retaliatory response and allied coordination. At present, however, the United States lacks anything resembling such a crisis playbook. Another looming area of competition is energy. While most of the world is focused on renewables, China is investing in space-based solar power — systems that could beam electricity from orbit — to fuel its planned $10 trillion-per-year Earth-Moon economic zone. There is also strategic real estate up for grabs: the moon. (10/19)