December 26, 2025

Bruno Joins Blue Origin, Leading National Security Team (Source: Reuters)
Jeff Bezos-founded Blue Origin said on Friday it has hired Tory Bruno, the longtime CEO of United Launch Alliance, as president of its newly formed national security-focused unit. Bruno will head the National Security Group and report to Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp and will lead the company's national security business, the company said in a post on social media, underscoring its push to expand in U.S. defense and intelligence launch markets. (12/26)

January Brings Thousands for Space Events in Florida (Source: SPACErePORT)
Florida has become a popular destination for space conferences, especially in January. The annual Space Week in Orlando includes a Global Spaceport Summit on Jan. 27, the military-oriented Space Mobility conference on Jan. 28, and the Space Congress/SpaceCom conference and exhibition on Jan. 29-30. Space Week attracted about 5000 attendees last January and organizers hope to see even more for 2026, at the huge Orlando/Orange County Convention Center.

Two weeks prior to Space Week, on January 12-16 at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) will hold its annual SciTech Forum. Catering mostly to engineers and scientists, this event will feature hundreds of aerospace-focused technical paper presentations. The AIAA event also will play host to the 36th Space Flight Mechanics meeting, co-sponsored by the American Astronautical Society (AAS). The 2025 SciTech Forum attracted more than 6,000 attendees.

Conferences in Orlando generated $94.5 billion in economic impacts in 2024, with each attendee contributing an average of $2,536 to the local economy during their visit. (12/26)

SpaceX Defends Airspace Safety Ahead of Florida Starship Launches, Substantial Flight Delays Expected (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
With plans to launch the massive Starship from Florida next year, SpaceX defended its commitment to airspace safety after a Wall Street Journal article claimed an explosive mission in early 2025 was a greater danger to some flights than previously reported. “The reporters were clearly spoon-fed incomplete and misleading information from detractors with ulterior motives,” SpaceX said. “At best, it shows a complete lack of understanding of the robust tools used by safety officials to manage airspace, which are well-defined, science-based, and have been highly effective at protecting public safety.”

SpaceX is seeking two launch sites from Florida for operational missions that could fly up to 120 missions a year if approved. Safety aside, airspace closure potential and the disruption it could cause have been a major criticism. Launch operations would close airspace over the Atlantic from 40 minutes to two hours, which could affect the Bahamas and Canada in addition to U.S. routes. That could affect 133 to 400 aircraft during peak travel periods and equates to as much as 8,800 commercial flights a year, although half the launches are expected to fall during overnight hours [when locals are trying to sleep!].

It’s the return flights, though, that could cause bigger headaches for airports, as the upper stage's west-to-east path could shut down southbound U.S. as well as international air traffic headed for Orlando, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Miami. It could also affect airspace over Mexico, Central America and Cuba. Landing approaches would prompt a minimum of 40 minutes and up to one hour of airspace closure, impacting 400 to 600 commercial aircraft during peak daily travel periods, which is from 8,800 to 13,200 per year, affecting between 900,000 and 2.3 million passengers with a collective delay of between 600,000 and 3.2 million hours. (12/23)

Lawrence Livermore Releases Open-Source Dataset Mapping 1 Million Cis‑lunar Orbits (Source: Universe Today)
When it comes to figuring out orbits in complex three-body systems, like those in Cis-lunar space, which is between the Earth and the Moon, they’d rather someone else do the work for them. Luckily, some scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory seems to have a masochistic streak - or enough of an altruistic one that it overwhelmed the unpleasantness of doing the hard math - to come up with an open-source dataset and software package that maps out 1,000,000 cis-lunar orbits.

Only 9.7% of them were “stable” over the three years the simulation was run. Others resulted in a satellite either crashing into the Moon, burning up in Earth’s atmosphere, or being ejected from the system entirely. So why is it so difficult to stay in orbit between the Earth and the Moon?

Systems where there are three bodies, each of which is both exerting gravity on, and being influence by the gravity of, the other two bodies, are known as being “chaotic”. Even one tiny change in the starting conditions of such a system or a slight deviation, such as getting hit by a solar storm, can cause massive and almost unpredictable changes in the orbital path of a satellite. Because of that chaos, its been difficult to develop orbital paths for Moon missions. That is precisely what the new dataset/software is intended to solve. (12/26)

Top 5 Launches of 2025 (Source: Payload)
The year of 2025 was also the year of the super-heavy launcher. With new milestones launched, new players in the game, and new races to watch, we’re sure that the number of minutes we spent watching launch livestreams from the edge of our seats hit an all-time high. (When is our NASA Live Wrapped supposed to drop?) Here’s an incomplete list of our biggest stories in launch from 2025. (12/26)

China Eases IPO Rules for Firms Developing Reusable Rockets (Source: Reuters)
Chinese companies developing reusable commercial rockets will have access to a fast lane for initial public offerings on the tech-heavy STAR market that exempts them from some financial requirements, the Shanghai Stock Exchange said on Friday. Beijing is seeking to address a gap in its space capabilities compared to the United States, which is currently dominant in the ability to return, recover, and reuse a rocket's first stage, or booster, after it is launched. (12/26)

The Most Exciting Exoplanet Discoveries of 2025 (Source: Space.com)
This year, the number of NASA-tracked confirmed worlds discovered beyond our solar system surpassed 6,000, and several thousand more await confirmation. The milestone, reached just three decades after the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the first planet orbiting a sunlike star in 1995, is largely the result of the planet-hunting power of NASA's Kepler space telescope and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The growing tally reflects how dramatically humanity's view of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, has expanded — and how diverse its planetary population has turned out to be. Click here. (12/26)

Starlab Announces Investment from Sumitomo (Source: Voyager)
Starlab Space has received an investment from Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank. As part of its broader initiatives to support projects addressing social and industrial challenges, including impact investments, SuMi TRUST Bank has been promoting efforts to provide financial backing for innovative ventures. The unique environment of a space station enables research and development that is difficult to achieve on Earth, offering opportunities for innovation in areas such as advanced materials and life sciences. (12/26)

Soyuz-5 Rocket First Launch Postponed (Source: TASS)
Russia’s Roscosmos State Corporation and Kazakhstan’s National Space Agency Kazcosmos have decided to postpone the first launch of the Soyuz-5 carrier rocket. The decision is based on technical grounds, Roscosmos said in a statement. They added that the launch date will be specified based on the results of all required procedures and agreed upon between the program participants.

The Soyuz-5 is an advanced Russian medium-class carrier rocket with increased lifting capacity, which is being developed under the Russian-Kazakh Baiterek project to deliver automatic spacecraft to near-Earth orbits, including with the use of upper stages. The new rocket is set to become fully operational in 2028. (12/26)

As NASA's Artemis II Prepares for Lunar Launch, Tourists Eye Space Coast (Source: Florida Today)
With NASA’s Artemis II crew set to launch around the moon in early 2026, the Space Coast looks poised for its own launch of elevated tourism numbers as spectators and media descend for the historic mission. As soon as February 6, four astronauts will lift off on NASA’s SLS rocket from LC-39B at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport on a 10-day mission which will return humanity to the vicinity of the moon for the first time since 1972. (12/26)

How China Powers its Space Endeavors (Source: Xinhua)
From manned spaceflight and the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System to the Chang'e lunar exploration program, China's space endeavors rely on comprehensive planning, long-term advancement, and collaboration among thousands of entities, all underpinned by such a system. While adhering to national strategic planning, the new system deeply integrates market mechanisms and technological innovation. Through systematic coordination, it stimulates the vitality of multiple innovators across the country. This has not only driven sci-tech innovation and breakthroughs but also provided sustained momentum for the country's overall development.

According to the developer of the Shenzhou spaceship, the China Academy of Space Technology, the window anomaly caused by the impact triggered a rapid mobilization of experts across the country. The study of window cracks alone involves experts from institutions such as Beihang University, Beijing University of Technology, the University of Science and Technology Beijing, and the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. (12/26)

China's Long March-8A Rocket Launches Internet Satellites (Source: Xinhua)
China launched a Long March-8A carrier rocket on Friday in the southern island province of Hainan, sending a group of internet satellites into space. The rocket successfully placed the payloads, the 17th group of low-orbit internet satellites, into preset orbit. (12/26)
 
Florida's Rocket Launches Break Record, Reaching Triple Digits in 2025 (Source: WUSF)
Florida's Space Coast hosted a record number of rocket launches in 2025, and for the first time ever, the number of launches reached triple digits. So far, the Space Coast's facilities have tallied 109 launches. A potential liftoff Sunday by SpaceX could bring the end-of-year number to 110, shattering last year's record of 93. The manifest was largely driven by SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket. At both its Florida facilities and pads at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, SpaceX completed 165 launches nationwide, with the potential for more by year's end. (12/26)

China: Japan's Offensive Space Policy is Extremely Dangerous (Source: China Daily)
A Chinese military spokesman on Thursday said that Japan's unrestrained development of satellite-jamming technology is accelerating the weaponization and militarization of space, and fueling a space arms race, which is extremely dangerous and unpopular. Zhang Xiaogang, spokesman for China's Ministry of National Defense, was responding to a query about Japan's claim to have made substantive progress in technologies that could disrupt satellites of other nations, as well as media analysis warning the risk of a "Pearl Harbor incident" in space. (12/25)

Pakistani Space Journey Soars, Moon Mission Planned (Source: Islamabad Post)
SUPARCO Director Shafaat Ali Friday proudly announced that 2025 will be remembered as a breakthrough year for Pakistan in space projects, with the nation’s sights already set on the Moon in 2026, backed by the collaborative support of both Pakistani and Chinese governments. While speaking with a local media channel, Director called 2025 a turning point for Pakistan, marking significant progress in space technology and exploration. He further emphasized that with continued collaboration between the Pakistani and Chinese governments, 2026 will see Pakistan make its mark on the Moon. (12/26)

Dental Health Key for Astronauts; Had Wisdom Teeth Extracted Before Space Travel (Source: The Print)
Dental health is extremely important for astronauts, Shubhanshu Shukla, the first Indian to reach the ISS has said, recalling that he had two wisdom teeth extracted while preparing for his space journey. Shukla said that although astronauts are trained to handle emergency medical situations, they cannot perform dental surgery on a spacecraft. (12/25)

Russia Launches Soyuz-2.1a Rocket with Military Satellite at Plesetsk Spaceport (Source: TASS)
The launch of the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome proceeded in normal mode, and the spacecraft was inserted into its target orbit at the calculated time, the Russian defense ministry reported. It added that the spacecraft was inserted into the target orbit at the calculated time and taken over for control by the ground assets of the Aerospace forces’ space troops. (12/26)

First Launch From Kazakhstan's Baiterek Complex is Planned for Early 2026 (Source: TASS)
Kazakh authorities plan for the first test launch of the Russian-Kazakh Baiterek project to take place in the first quarter of next year. "This is our own Kazakh launch pad, from which launches of carrier rockets between the medium-and heavy-lift classes will be carried out. Active preparations are currently underway, and the carrier rocket is already in Kazakhstan," Zhaslan Madiyev said. (12/26)

Satellite Radar Advances Could Transform Global Snow Monitoring (Source: EOS)
Runoff from deep mountain snowpacks is the primary source of much-needed water for arid to semiarid regions in the western United States as well as in many other parts of the world. Each year, water managers in these regions must balance their water budgets, which account for water gained, lost, and stored in the watersheds they oversee, affecting everything from water supply to agriculture to tourism to wildfire containment.

To do so, water managers primarily rely on established statistical models that predict the volume and timing of mountain runoff. However, the information available to feed these models comes mainly from a sparse network of snow-monitoring weather stations, as well as from snow cover maps derived from optical satellite imagery that provide information on snow extent but not on the amount of water stored in the snowpack.

Managers of some basins, typically those home to watersheds that serve major population centers and agricultural producers, can also fund efforts to collect airborne high-resolution remotely sensed snow depth and snow mass estimations (e.g., from the Airborne Snow Observatories). These data significantly improve runoff models and streamflow forecasting for local water management and dam operations. However, the significant cost of these airborne surveys prevents many jurisdictions from accessing these types of data. (12/24)

36th AIAA/AAS Space Flight Mechanics Meeting Planned Jan. 12-16 in Orlando (Source: AIAA)
The 36th Space Flight Mechanics Meeting, hosted by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and co-hosted by the American Astronautical Society (AAS), will be held in Orlando, Florida, January 12-16, 2026. The conference will be part of the AIAA SciTech forum and is organized by the AIAA Astrodynamics Technical Committee and the AAS Space Flight Mechanics Committee. Click here. (12/25)