June 21, 2026

No One Wants AI Data Centers on Earth. Do They Make Sense in Space? (Source: CNBC)
Engineering and technical issues are being solved and SpaceX now has considerably more capital, but economically, the concept remains challenging even as rocket launches become cheaper, though Jeff Bezos and Google are also chasing it. Long-term, the best argument for data centers in space may be that the cost of building them on Earth is likely to go up over time — while land use, water use, and electricity use all remain points of tension with the public — and all while the cost of building in space may come down.

Some investors contend the company has no choice but to make the idea work if it hopes to justify its public market valuations over time. “The company comes down to data centers in space,” Duncan Davidson, a partner at Bullpen Capital, said on CNBC’s “The Exchange” the week before the IPO. “That is the big, long-term play.”

SpaceX is hardly alone in what has become a race to compute in space. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has voiced similar aspirations for his rocket and AI ventures, Blue Origin and Prometheus, respectively. In March, Blue Origin submitted plans to the FCC to launch 51,600 data center satellites into low Earth orbit. Alphabet’s search giant Google has entered the race through a collaboration with Earth observation satellite maker Planet Labs on Project Suncatcher, an orbital data center initiative. (6/21)

SpaceX's Starfall Disk Capsule Bets on Orbital Manufacturing Scale (Source: Tech Times)
SpaceX is preparing to fly its first Starfall prototype on Tuesday, June 23, in a low-profile demo that could upend the economics of an entire emerging industry. The disk-shaped reentry capsule is designed to return up to 1,000 kilograms of cargo from orbit. The company has said nothing publicly about the vehicle. What is known comes almost entirely from regulatory filings with the FAA and the FCC.

The significance of Tuesday's test reaches well beyond a single flight. Every orbital manufacturing company currently operating — including Varda Space Industries, which has built the market from scratch over six missions — uses SpaceX's own Falcon 9 rideshares to get their capsules to orbit. If Starfall works, SpaceX will be competing for the cargo return contracts of customers who already depend on it for launch.

Starfall is not a scaled-down Dragon. It abandons the conical geometry that has defined reentry capsules since Apollo and replaces it with a flat, circular disk — 3.1 meters in diameter and just 0.75 meters tall. The total dry mass is approximately 2,100 kilograms, split between a 1,400-kilogram aluminum top plate and a 700-kilogram carbon-fiber heat shield. Competitors in the space-return market currently bring back dozens of kilograms per mission. Starfall, at a minimum, represents a 30-fold increase in single-flight return capacity. (6/20)

Texas Supreme Court Denies Request to Save Beach From SpaceX (Source: Independent)
SpaceX can keep closing a Texas beach to launch rockets from the company’s nearby Starbase, according to the state’s Supreme Court. The state’s highest court rejected claims brought by environmental groups that barring public access to Boca Chica Beach violated the state’s constitution. Friday’s unanimous, 24-page opinion overruled an appeals court that had sided with environmental groups and reinstated a trial judge’s decision to throw out their lawsuit.

State Attorney General Ken Paxton, who intervened in the case, praised the ruling on social media. “Texas law allows for portions of a beach to be secured for Texans’ safety, which is exactly what’s needed to ensure SpaceX has a safe and operational launch site,” wrote Paxton, who defeated Republican Sen. John Cornyn in last month’s GOP Senate primary with the help of President Donald Trump. (6/21)

Astrobotic's Sale to Voyager to Allows Rapid Scale-Up (Source: Space News)
Lunar lander developer Astrobotic decided to sell to Voyager Technologies so it could quickly scale up to meet the projected demands of NASA’s lunar base initiative. John Thornton, chief executive of Astrobotic, said the decision to sell the company to Voyager came after concluding that it was the fastest approach to scaling up the company to meet NASA’s needs after the agency announced its lunar base plans at the Ignition event in March.

“The alternate path would have been raise some money, maybe try to go IPO after that. That probably takes 18 months all in,” he said. “With the partnership with Voyager, we basically have access to public markets imminently when we close. That gives us an ability to scale now.” (6/20)

Wright-Patt AFB Set to Grow More with New Space Force Facility (Source: WDTN)
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is already the single largest employer in the state, and now it is set to generate even more jobs through a massive new investment. The base will be the home of a newly announced $370 million Space Force intelligence facility. (6/19)

Keeping Track of Human Spaceflight Numbers (Source: Space Daily)
The total number of human beings who have left Earth’s atmosphere across the entire history of spaceflight is, by current estimates, approximately 700. NASA has contributed roughly 360 of these. The Soviet and subsequent Russian programs have contributed approximately 135. The European Space Agency, JAXA in Japan, the Canadian Space Agency, the Chinese taikonaut program, and several smaller national programs account for most of the rest. The 120 commercial civilians who have flown since 2021 represent approximately 17 percent of this cumulative total, almost none of them with the professional training that defined every previous generation of spacefarer. (6/20)

South Korea Seeks Site for Second Spaceport (Source: AJP)
South Korea will open a nationwide search for the site of a second spaceport, the country's space agency said, as it prepares for an expected surge in launches driven by reusable rockets. The Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) announced Sunday it would invite bids from local governments until August 6 to host the facility, which is intended to support more than 10 reusable-rocket launches a year from the mid-to-late 2030s. The agency aims to complete the second center by 2034 on a site of about 5.6 million square meters, comparable in scale to the existing Naro Space Center, equipped with launch, landing and maintenance facilities for reusable vehicles. (6/21)

Arianespace Counts on Ariane 6 for Launch Industry Comeback (Source: Financial Times)
Ariane had a successful launch on Wednesday using its most powerful version yet to transport 36 satellites for the tech giant, showcasing the rocket’s precision and reliability. It hopes the flight will entice new customers and bolster its reputation as a homegrown option for Europe. The sceptics it wants to win back include governments in its own back yard that fund Ariane through the European Space Agency but have also used SpaceX rockets, which can be half the price.

SpaceX gained further ground as Ariane 6 production delays left the continent without a launcher for a year, forcing the EU in 2023 to pay the US company to send its Galileo satellite navigation system to space. Ariane 6 has successfully completed all its eight flights since its first mission in July 2024 after replacing its retired predecessor, a feat that executives are eager to highlight, given that SpaceX’s main launch vehicle, Falcon 9, managed just four flights in its first two years. (6/21)

Starlink Satellites are Doing a Lot More Than Providing Internet (Source: SlashGear)
Rogers Communications, a major Canadian media conglomerate, teamed up with Starlink to help spot these fires as quickly as possible, even in the most remote of regions. Starlink doesn't directly detect these wildfires, however it does connect specialized detection equipment, like Pano AI cameras, to authorities. These Pano AI devices take 360-degree pictures in short intervals and are programmed to look for signs of a fire, like smoke.

Swarm, which was acquired by Starlink in 2021, has been used by conservation organizations like Rainforest Connection, which monitors the Amazon for illegal logging operations. Using cutting-edge audio sensors, the sounds of wood cutting machines and engines are picked up in remote areas of the jungle, then transmitted over Starlink to nearby intervention teams. (6/20)

New Mexico Incentives Fuel BlackVe Expansion in Albuquerque (Source: KOB4)
New Mexico and Albuquerque will put more than $1.5 million into aerospace company BlackVe’s expansion, a project officials said will bring 152 high-paying jobs. BlackVe plans to expand its Albuquerque headquarters and add jobs over the next 10 years. The state will provide $1 million through the New Mexico Local Economic Development Act (LEDA) fund, and the City of Albuquerque will add $250,000 in local LEDA funds plus a 20-year Industrial Revenue Bond.

BlackVe also received up to $295,000 through the state’s Job Training Incentive Program to hire and train nine employees. Officials said the expansion is expected to create more than $228 million in total economic impact for New Mexico. They said BlackVe will receive the money as it meets construction and hiring benchmarks, and the city will act as fiscal agent. BlackVe, founded in 2024, makes multi-mission spacecraft and uses advanced production technology to speed up how satellites are designed, built and operated. (6/19)

Port Officials Concerned About LC-51 Development at Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Hometown News)
The proposed Launch Complex 51 would occupy a 50-acre site with supporting infrastructure and buildings. Operations from Launch Complex 46 would move there to place them farther from Blue Origin’s Launch Complex 36 blast zone, where a recent catastrophic explosion damaged the pad. However, the new complex’s location could still affect port activity.

At the June Canaveral Port Authority meeting, Port Canaveral CEO John Murray said, “It will be the closest active launch facility to the port. So, we’re looking at launch-related safety and exclusion zones that could temporarily or intermittently restrict navigation.” Murray said the port’s concerns include potential impacts on commercial, cruise and military vessel traffic, as well as disruption to the Canaveral Sand Bypass project. No decision will be made until studies address local impacts, environmental concerns and wetlands issues. Editor's Note: Development of LC-51 would clear the way for Blue Origin to develop a second launch pad at the Cape, on property currently used by the Navy and Space Florida at LC-46. (6/19)

All-Male NASA Artemis Crew Creates Backlash as Priorities Shift (Source: Bloomberg)
When NASA unveiled the four-person crew of its Artemis III mission last week, it didn’t take long for the general public to notice a common feature of the group: all four astronauts were men. NASA said the selection was not political. But it triggered a wave of disappointment from former NASA officials, space industry insiders and enthusiasts invested in the agency’s effort to put US astronauts back on the moon for the first time in more than half a century — and their hope that one of them will be a woman.

“Do I think this was chosen maliciously? Obviously no,” Emily Calandrelli, a science author who flew to space with Blue Origin, wrote on Instagram. “Do I think those in the selection process had a bias and ultimately when there were four men selected no one in the room thought it was a ‘big enough’ issue to try to correct? Yes.” Whether deliberate or by coincidence, the irony of the omission was immediately glaring. (6/19)

Do We Need a Lunar Building Code to Build Moon Bases Safely? (Source: Space.com)
Here on Earth, centuries of accumulated engineering knowhow, hard-learned lessons, and societal evolution have shaped a robust framework of building standards that govern how we build and maintain buildings today. But now, as humanity prepares to put in place a "sustained presence" on the moon, how do we guarantee the safety and integrity of structures built in an environment for which no such tradition exists?

At the 26th Space Resources Roundtable held June 2-5 on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines, one expert says what's needed is a lunar building code, the development of specific design criteria for the moon. Both NASA and China's space agency are planning to build habitats, landing pads, equipment shelters, and tall towers on the moon. But all that construction could be off to a shaky start, suggests Nerma Caluk. Caluk said there's a need to leverage terrestrial building experiences. (6/20)