June 5, 2026

Unseenlabs’ BRO-22 to Become the First Foreign Private Satellite Launched Aboard Japan’s H3 (Source: Unseenlabs)
Unseenlabs announces the upcoming launch of BRO-22, the first satellite from a foreign private company to fly aboard Japan’s H3 Launch Vehicle (H3 rocket). Scheduled for June 10, the launch will take place from the Yoshinobu Launch Complex at Tanegashima Space Center. The satellite will be integrated by Space BD. BRO-22 will strengthen Unseenlabs’ space-based RF detection constellation dedicated to maritime surveillance. (6/4)

Pesquet to Command 2027 Vast Mission to ISS (Source: Space Daily)
Frenchman Thomas Pesquet has spent close to 400 days in space across two missions, run the International Space Station as its commander, and logged more spacewalk time than any other European. In 2027 he is set to go back — not on a NASA rotation or an ESA barter flight, but at the helm of a private mission sold to the French government by California-based Vast. (6/4)

Raptor Failures Cloud Starship Readiness (Source: Space Daily)
SpaceX’s Raptor 3 engine — the powerplant the company has spent the better part of two years marketing as a simpler, more reliable replacement for the troubled Raptor 2 — failed multiple times in its maiden flight during exactly the kind of high-stress maneuver it was designed to handle. The Super Heavy booster’s engines began dropping offline seconds into a planned boostback burn, the stage lost the thrust needed to reverse course, and it fell back through the atmosphere and struck the Gulf at high speed. The FAA has now grounded Starship pending a mishap investigation.

The most-watched new rocket engine in the world failed in its debut, and it failed in the precise scenario SpaceX needs it to survive for Starship to ever become operational. The stage came down inside an FAA-activated Debris Response Area, and the agency confirmed the debris fell inside the hazard zone with no reports of public injury or damage to public property. In its own post-flight statement, the FAA reported that the event caused six departure delays and five airborne holding events, with no diversions — the kind of secondary disruption that has become a recurring concern as Starship cadence grows.

The booster failure was not the only Raptor anomaly of the day. One of the 33 Raptor engines on Super Heavy shut down roughly a minute and 42 seconds into ascent, and one of the six engines on the upper stage also cut out before its planned duration. The FAA’s determination formally classifies the incident as a mishap, triggering a federally supervised root-cause review that SpaceX must complete and have approved before another Starship lifts off from Starbase, Texas. (6/3)

The Steady Hand at SpaceX Is Not Elon Musk (Source: New York Times)
Elon Musk has dined with President Trump at the White House, lost a flashy trial where he testified against his rival Sam Altman and accompanied Mr. Trump to China for a major diplomatic summit. Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, has had a different itinerary over the last six months. She spoke at a telecom trade show in Barcelona, Spain, to boost SpaceX’s satellite internet service, Starlink; mingled with politicians in India, a potentially large market for the company; and appeared with tech executives at the White House to pledge that their data centers would not increase energy prices for Americans.

For 24 years, Ms. Shotwell has played the adult-in-the-room foil to Mr. Musk at SpaceX. While he was advising Mr. Trump and running his other companies, such as the electric carmaker Tesla, she was singularly focused on developing SpaceX’s business as the rocket and satellite maker grew into a more than $1 trillion company. That work — and her ultimate loyalty to Mr. Musk — has made her one of the world’s most powerful female executives, who is now being thrust into the spotlight as SpaceX prepares for a blockbuster initial public offering this month. Unlike Mr. Musk, Ms. Shotwell, 62, has long kept a low profile. She rarely posts on social media — usually in service of SpaceX, when she does — and makes just the occasional public appearance. (6/4)

Starship Flight 12: Damage Spotted at Starbase Integration Tower (Source: Basenor)
Post-flight inspections at Starbase are turning up an unexpected detail: what appears to be the only significant damage at the launch complex after Starship Flight 12 is localized to a single structure — one that may house the primary control system for the integration tower. Analyst Zack Golden of @CSI_Starbase flagged the finding, noting the damage pattern suggests a high-energy event occurred inside the structure rather than surface-level blast or debris impact.

The newly identified damage to the internal structure near the integration tower adds a layer of complexity to the post-flight picture. Golden stopped short of a definitive conclusion — the tweet was cut off mid-sentence — but the framing raises a real question about whether ground support systems sustained meaningful damage beyond the visible perimeter. SpaceX has not yet commented publicly on this specific finding. As the mishap investigation continues, the condition of the integration tower's control infrastructure will likely factor into the timeline for returning Pad 2 to operational status. (6/1)

Inside the Race to Build a Moon Base (Source: Politico)
NASA envisions a sprawling lunar outpost outfitted with moon buggies, drones, and landers — and a lot of those high-tech gizmos are slated to be ready before the end of President Donald Trump’s term. Those ambitions face some harsh realities: NASA, so far, doesn't have the money to pay for it all. One of the rockets NASA was banking on using to land on the moon just blew up.

And the lunar surface itself presents engineering challenges that industry is still grappling with. Here’s one of NASA’s top officials on the challenges ahead: “When you think about the lunar surface and the endeavor of building a moon base, it’s going to be extremely hard and it dawns on us every day how little we know about the lunar surface,” Carlos Garcia-Galan, NASA’s Moon Base program manager, said during a Tuesday briefing. (6/29)

NASA's Moon Base Starts Taking Shape with Rovers, Landers, and Drones (Source: Earth.com)
Three phases will structure the build, running from now through 2032 and beyond and leading toward routine crew rotations. The first phase, running through 2029, focuses on scouting and testing. NASA wants as many as 25 missions in that window, most of them robotic, hauling roughly four tons of gear to the surface to learn what survives and what fails.

Two American companies have won the job of building the first lunar vehicles. NASA awarded Astrolab $219 million and Lunar Outpost $220 million to deliver the first lunar rovers astronauts will steer across the Moon’s surface. Both teams have 18 months to finalize their designs, conduct crewed evaluations, and qualify their machines for flight. Deploying both rovers early will give NASA valuable terrain data before any astronaut steps off a lander, supporting the agency’s goal of achieving crewed surface mobility by 2028.

Getting those rovers to the South Pole falls to a separate set of landers. NASA handed Blue Origin $188 million, with an option worth another $280 million, to haul the hardware to the surface before any boots arrive. Three early flights have already been identified. The first, targeted for fall 2026 at the earliest, will use a Blue Origin lander to touch down near Shackleton Crater and measure how rocket exhaust disturbs the lunar surface. (6/3)

Physicists Propose That Our Universe May Contain Three Dimensions of Time (Source: Bright Side)
Space and time looked settled, at least in broad outline. Einstein’s special relativity gave physics a durable framework for describing motion, and for more than a century one boundary seemed firm: light speed marked the edge of what any observer could cross. A new proposal asks what happens if that edge is not treated as a hard ban. Now physicists argue that special relativity can be extended to include observers moving faster than light.

The idea does not claim such observers have been found in nature. But it does suggest that throwing them out of the theory may have hidden something important, namely a possible link between relativity and the strange rules of quantum mechanics. Their latest study, “Relativity of superluminal observers in 1 + 3 spacetime,” keeps mathematical terms that are usually discarded because they describe superluminal motion.

Those terms, the authors say, do not merely add an exotic option to relativity. They change the picture of what a particle is. They argue that the underlying mathematics contains both subluminal and superluminal branches. Usually, the faster-than-light branch is dismissed as physically meaningless. But if it is kept, they write, “the notion of a particle moving along a single path must be abandoned and replaced by a propagation along many paths, exactly like in quantum theory.” (6/3)

Honeywell to Lay Off 60 Workers Ahead of Aerospace Spinoff (Source: ABC15)
Honeywell International is cutting jobs in Arizona ahead of a planned spinoff of its aerospace division, slated for later this month. Honeywell on May 27 filed a WARN — or Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification — with Arizona’s Department of Economic Security stating it will cut 60 jobs at its Chandler facility. (6/3)

HASC Saves Next-Gen OPIR Polar (Source: Space News)
The House Armed Services Committee moved to save a Space Force missile warning satellite program planned for cancellation. The committee approved its 2027 National Defense Authorization Act after a markup Thursday, sending the bill to the full House. The bill includes language preserving Next-Gen OPIR Polar, a Northrop Grumman program under development since 2018 to provide missile-warning coverage over polar regions.

The Space Force proposed canceling the program in its 2027 budget request because satellite constellations in low and medium Earth orbits could carry out the work of Next-Gen OPIR Polar, but the committee concluded it remains a critical capability and authorized $415 million for it. The committee also raised questions about the Space Force's recent procurement contract awards for the Protected Tactical SATCOM-Global secure communications program while expressing frustration with the Pentagon's management of its positioning, navigation and timing enterprise. (6/5)

Apex Raises $200 Million to Expand in California (Source: Space News)
Satellite manufacturer Apex raised an additional $200 million. The company announced Friday a new funding round that values Apex at $2.3 billion, nearly double its previous valuation. The company, which has now raised more than $700 million, said its new round was not driven by an immediate need for capital but was instead based on interest in the company and its line of satellite buses. The funds will allow Apex to expand office space at its Los Angeles factory. (6/5)

Axiom Raises $175 Million for Space Station and Space Suit Work (Source: Space News)
Axiom Space has added more than $175 million to a funding round from earlier this year. The company said Thursday it made a final close of that funding round at more than $525 million, up from the $350 million it announced in February. The additional funding comes from existing investors as well as MUFG Bank Ltd., Japan's largest bank. The additional funds, the company said, will support work on its space station and spacesuit programs as well as its broader space infrastructure and technology advancement roadmap. (6/5)

AstroForge Completes Asteroid Probe (Source: Space News)
AstroForge announced Thursday it completed assembly of its next asteroid mission. The DeepSpace-2 spacecraft is set to launch later this year as a rideshare payload on the Falcon 9 launch of the Intuitive Machines IM-3 lunar lander mission. The spacecraft will fly by a near Earth asteroid the company will select closer to launch. DeepSpace-2 incorporates lessons learned from Odin, a spacecraft it launched last year but which malfunctioned shortly after deployment. The low-cost spacecraft is designed to support AstroForge's future asteroid mining missions as well as scientific missions. (6/5)

China Launches Qianfan Satellites on Long March 6A (Source: Space News)
A pair of Chinese launches deployed satellites for the Qianfan constellation. A Long March 6A lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center at 7:39 a.m. Eastern Thursday, followed by a Long March 8 Friday from the Wenchang spaceport. Each launch carried 18 Qianfan satellites, bringing the total number of satellites in orbit for the broadband constellation to more than 200. (6/5)

NASA Considers Different Launcher for Blue Moon Landers (Source: Spaceflight Now)
NASA is considering other launch options for Blue Origin's Blue Moon landers. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a Fox Business TV interview Thursday that NASA was "decoupling the lander from the launch vehicle" after the pad explosion of a New Glenn rocket this week. That would mean considering options other than New Glenn for the Blue Moon Mark 1 and Mark 2 landers, intended for robotic and crewed missions respectively. Moving the lander to another vehicle would require extensive engineering analysis and potentially changes to infrastructure at the alternative rocket's launch site to allow Blue Moon to be fueled with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen on the pad before launch. (6/5)

Paper Claims the “Asteroid” Japan’s Probe Is Approaching Is Actually a Derelict Spacecraft (Source: Futurism)
After successfully rendezvousing with near-Earth asteroid Ryugu in June 2018 and sending a sampled cache of rocks back to Earth, Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft is now making its long journey to its next destination, a tiny and rapidly spinning asteroid dubbed 1998 KY26. The spacecraft is expected to reach the mysterious space rock by July 2031, giving scientists plenty of time to come up with theories as to what it could find once it gets there.

But according to Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, who has spent years pondering the nature of ‘Oumuamua and its unusual behavior, 1998 KY26 could be something else entirely. As detailed in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper, Loeb and his colleagues suggest the object could instead be a long-lost relic of the Soviet space program. “In particular, we identify it as potentially a relic of a historical Russian mission to Mars, the Phobos 1 probe, which suffered a failure 2 months after the launch in July 1988, due to upload of a faulty command,” Loeb explained. (6/2)

SpaceX Conducting Third Mishap Investigation Since January 2025 (Source: MyRGV)
paceX has landed Super Heavy boosters back at the launch site on three occasions, as well as in the Gulf of Mexico, following launch and stage separation from Starship minutes into the flight. Super Heavy B19, the first Version 3 (V3) of the booster, did not manage a Gulf splashdown on May 22 as part of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12. Instead, the vehicle lost its engines prematurely, preventing a planned soft splashdown, and slammed into the waves at a high rate of speed.

“Looks like booster’s coming in hot,” noted a SpaceX live-stream commentator shortly before contact was lost with the booster. It’s not clear whether the booster self-destructed before hitting the water or did so intact. By Federal Aviation Administration standards, the incident was serious enough to warrant an investigation into why Super Heavy failed. (6/2)

Greece’s HellasSat Operator: With Diverse Revenue Base, GovSatCom and Future Optical, We’re Profitable & Debt-Free (Source: Space Intel Report)
Greece’s HellasSat telecom satellite fleet operator, once considered a clear target for consolidation and ultimately purchased by Arabsat for $280 million, now finds itself in the thick of Europe’s sovereignty-focused space picture. HellasSat, which has exclusive use of Greece’s satellite spectrum from the 39 degrees east slot, is providing HellaSat-2 and -3 capacity for the EU’s GovSatCom program alongside government satellites from France, Italy, Luxembourg and Spain. GovSatCom service began in January. (6/2)

Hatcher Takes Command at Space Forces Korea (Source: AFNS)
Leadership of U.S. Space Forces - Korea, the theater space component assigned to U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific, was passed June 2 from Col. John D. Patrick to Col. Dorian C. Hatcher at a change of command ceremony held at Osan Air Base. (6/3)

Space Force to Build New Colorado Facility, Move Acquisition Unit and Expand Officer Training (Source: Aerospace America)
As the Space Force prepares for rapid growth in the coming years, it wants to build a new operations center in Colorado Springs to support the Golden Dome program and “a lot of space testing,” according to the lawmaker representing the district. (6/4)

SSC Expands Other Transaction Authority Use By 470% (Source: Aviation Week)
Space Systems Command (SSC) is now leaning heavily on other transaction authorities (OTAs) to award key contracts, the command’s deputy chief said June 3. The U.S. Space Force’s acquisition field command has increased the number of OTA contracts it has awarded by 470% over the past year, SSC Deputy Commander Col. Andrew Menschner said. (6/3)

The Exploration Company Completes Nyx Drop Test (Source: European Spaceflight)
The Exploration Company has completed a key milestone in the development of its Nyx spacecraft after successfully conducting a drop test designed to validate the performance of its recovery system. Nyx is designed as a reusable space capsule that will be used to transport cargo and, potentially, crew to low Earth orbit. The company is currently working toward an initial demonstration of Nyx in 2028 with support from the European Space Agency. (6/4)

NRO Could Increase Commercial Satellite Buys, Nominee Says (Source: Defense Daily)
Roger Mason, nominee for director of the National Reconnaissance Office, has told Congress that the NRO might increase purchases of commercial satellites. The NRO has launched hundreds of low-Earth-orbit satellites in the past two years to supplement expensive high-end systems. "We have to look differently at our requirements," Mason says. (6/3)
 
NASA, UAH Team Up on Nuclear Propulsion (Source: Axios)
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and the University of Alabama in Huntsville are partnering to advance nuclear thermal propulsion technology for space exploration. "We've got to scale that up big time," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman says of nuclear propulsion, which he calls "the next 'giant leap' technology." (6/2)

SpaceX Now Targets $75 Billion IPO Raise (Source: Space News)
SpaceX plans to raise at least $75 billion in an IPO that would value the company at more than $1.75 trillion. The company released an updated prospectus for its initial public offering on Wednesday, disclosing it will sell more than 555.5 million shares at $135 per share. The offering includes an option to sell 83.3 million additional shares in the 30 days after the IPO, bringing the total raised to more than $86 billion. SpaceX said the proceeds would go toward various initiatives aimed at improvements in launch, satellite constellations and artificial intelligence, but with few details. The documents also showed that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk will hold more than 80% of the voting power of the company's shares, giving him control over any matters requiring shareholder approval. Shares are expected to begin trading at the end of next week. (6/4)

NASA Wants to Streamline Nuclear Propulsion Demo (Source: Space News)
NASA wants to streamline the management of a nuclear propulsion demo mission the agency hopes to launch in just two and a half years. NASA announced the Space Reactor 1 (SR-1) Freedom mission at the Ignition event in March to test nuclear electric propulsion technologies on a mission to Mars scheduled to launch at the end of 2028. Agency officials said they are working to streamline management processes to meet a timeline they acknowledge is "ambitious," but noted SR-1 Freedom will use some existing hardware, like the Power and Propulsion Element for the lunar Gateway. NASA has not disclosed a cost estimate for SR-1 Freedom, which was not included in the agency's 2027 budget request. (6/4)

Measured Pace for More ESA/China Collaboration (Source: Space News)
Prospects for future scientific collaboration between the European Space Agency and China look distant despite the successful launch of a joint mission. The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer, or SMILE, spacecraft lifted off on a Vega C rocket last month to study the Earth's magnetosphere and solar wind. SMILE was a joint mission of ESA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. However, after the launch senior officials representing both organizations stopped short of committing to more and deeper cooperation in the future, despite parallel and overlapping interests and activities. They committed only to modest "organic collaboration" between missions being independently developed by Europe and China. (6/4)

Japan's Murata Considers Xona Positioning/Timing Tech (Source: Space News)
A Japanese electronics manufacturer is considering using a commercial space-based timing service being developed by Xona Space Systems. Murata Manufacturing signed an agreement with Xona to explore the use of the startup's satellite-based positioning and timing service in telecommunications, data centers, financial networks and other industries that depend on precise timing signals. Xona is developing a positioning, navigation and timing  service known as Pulsar through a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit as an alternative or backup to GPS. Murata will evaluate applications for Xona's service in data centers and financial institutions that require highly accurate timing synchronization. (6/4)

Space Florida Supports Seagate Ocean Launch Platform Effort (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Seagate Space, a startup developing ocean-based launch platforms, won support from Space Florida. The state space development agency approved this week an equipment purchase and leaseback agreement with Seagate for hardware the company will use for its offshore launch platform. Seagate recently announced it is working with Firefly Aerospace to explore the use of that platform for Firefly's Alpha rocket. (6/4)

Orbital Airbag Concept Could Shield From Solar Storms (Source: Science)
An "orbital airbag" could shield the Earth from solar storms. A concept by researchers published this week proposes to deploy a constellation of satellites called StormWall that would release hundreds of tons of gas into high Earth orbits just before a solar storm reaches the Earth. The gas would turn to plasma that would act as a shield, reducing the strength of a severe geomagnetic storm by up to two-thirds. That could protect both spacecraft and terrestrial electrical grids from the worst effects of such storms. (6/4)

SpaceX Launches California and Florida Starlink Missions (Source: Spaceflight Now)
SpaceX performed a pair of Starlink launches within the last 24 hours. One Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California Wednesday, placing 24 Starlink satellites into orbit. A second Falcon 9 lifted off Thursday from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport in Florida, carrying 29 Starlink satellites. The Florida launch was scheduled for Wednesday morning but postponed by weather. (6/4)

China Aims to Enable Space-Based Computing (Source: Space News)
China is establishing an industrial policy framework to support a push to build space-based computing infrastructure. The Space Computing Working Committee of the China Computer Industry Association held its inaugural meeting Wednesday. The committee, established under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's (MIIT) Electronic Information Department, says it has received applications from more than 100 organizations involved in space-based computing technologies who want to join. It is the second such committee formed in 2026, following the establishment of the Space Computing Power Professional Committee in April with a focus on standards and applications. (6/4)

NASA Advances Roman Telescope Launch to Aug. 30 (Source: NASA)
NASA has moved up the launch date for the Roman Space Telescope. The agency said Wednesday that the space telescope is now set to launch Aug. 30 on a Falcon Heavy from the Kennedy Space Center. NASA had earlier set a September launch for the mission. Roman is scheduled to ship by barge this month from the Goddard Space Flight Center to KSC for final launch preparations. (6/4)

Space Force Responded Immediately After New Glenn Blast (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
“I had just gotten home and sat down in the living room, talking to my kids and wife, and looked out the window and saw the explosion,” said Space Launch Delta 45 Commander Col. Brian Chatman, who lives about 10 miles south on Patrick Space Force Base.

“Saw the explosion and called over to the fire team and activated the EOC (Emergency Operations Center),” Chatman said. “From there, I ended up heading up to the Cape, joining the emergency operations center as the personnel started coming in, and then we started making real-time decisions on what the next steps were.”

The explosion came at 9 p.m., the EOC activated by 9:05 p.m., and it was fully up and running by 9:19 p.m., he said. “By 9:30 (p.m.) we had 100% accountability of all personnel in and around the areas. What we saw was from the conservative safety measures that we employ with each and every hazardous activity we do out here, from the blast damage assessment roadblocks that we had put in place, we had no casualties, no injuries associated with this this anomalous event,” he said. (6/4)

Space Force Conducts Blast Damage Assessment (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Space Launch Delta 45 Commander Col. Brian Chatman said they had found debris as far as 1/2 mile from the launch site, and the over-pressure damage hit surrounding facilities at the Space Force station. The blast damage assessment (BDA) for the incident expands to 7,172 feet in diameter from the site.

“We just dropped that BDA, and my teams are just going out now to take a look at some of the other facilities,” Chatman said. We do know from an overpressure perspective, we did have damage over the Hangar C where some of the windows were blown out in that area.” He expects the data from the explosion will help refine the safety zones for launch support of these larger rockets.

“We can feed back into our models and really fine tune the models that we have. We know we have a conservative approach to lox-methane,” he said. “We know that we will be able to bring in that BDA, that blast damage area, to some level.” For Starship, that blast damage area at launch will be even larger at 12,000 feet, which is more than 2 miles. (6/4)

Meteorite Found in Sahara Desert May Be 1st Evidence of Lost Solar System World (Source: Space.com)
A rare meteorite recovered from the Sahara Desert contains the first definitive evidence of a long-lost world that may have rivaled the moon in size and existed just a few million years after the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago, according to a new study.

The meteorite, known as Northwest Africa (NWA) 12774, is a roughly one-pound (454-gram) rock discovered in the Sahara Desert in 2019. Scientists classify it as an angrite, a rare type of meteorite that ranks among the oldest volcanic rocks in the solar system. This particular chunk of space rock, known as NWA 12774, preserves an unusual chemical signature that suggests some of the solar system's earliest worlds developed differently from other rocky planets, researchers say. (6/4)
US to quadruple size of Space Force command at air base in Japan

US to Quadruple Size of Space Force Command at Air Base in Japan (Source: Stars and Stripes)
U.S. Space Forces Japan is getting its own headquarters and another 60 guardians over the next year, according to its new commander. Col. John Patrick took over the organization Wednesday morning from Col. Ryan Laughton during a ceremony at Yokota’s Enlisted Club. The unit, established in December 2024, is focused on communications, space resilience, navigation and missile defense. (6/3)

SpaceX Mounts Surprise Push for 180-Day Phone Unlocking Rule (Source: PC Mag)
A new effort to require US carriers to unlock their phones is emerging with SpaceX surprisingly backing the effort. Last Thursday, the company joined three other industry groups, including the Rural Wireless Association, in calling the Federal Communications Commission to adopt a nationwide policy to automatically unlock phones tied to a carrier’s network 180 days after activation. (6/1)

HD 189733b Not Earthlike, Temperature Reaches 2,000 Degrees and Winds Scream (Source: Space Daily)
Point the right instrument at HD 189733b and the color that comes back is a deep cobalt blue, the kind of blue a person who grew up with photographs of Earth from orbit would recognize in an instant. Astronomers determined the color in 2013 using the Hubble Space Telescope, and the resemblance to a pale blue dot is almost uncanny. It is also a trap.

The assumption underneath that blue, that a blue world is a watery world and therefore something like home, is exactly what HD 189733b dismantles. The blue does not come from water. HD 189733b is a hot Jupiter, with no ocean to reflect a sky. The color comes from the atmosphere itself. NASA describes it this way: “The cobalt blue color comes not from the reflection of a tropical ocean, as on Earth, but rather a hazy, blow-torched atmosphere containing high clouds laced with silicate particles.” (6/1)

June 4, 2026

Why Americans Land Spacecraft In The Ocean While The Russians Go For Solid Ground (Source: Jalopnik)
All vehicles coming back from space use parachutes, but that only gets you so far. Orion's final speed before splashdown was still 20 mph, enough to cause damage and injury if it hit a solid object. So for as long as NASA has been sending people into space, it's been dunking them in the ocean as a kind of giant pillow to catch them. There's another advantage to the sea: if your landing is off by a few miles, it doesn't particularly matter.

While Russia may have plenty of coastline, nearly all of it is in the Arctic circle, where ice and stormy conditions make a water landing unpalatable. For solid ground landings, Soviet engineers needed to find a way to slow down their Soyuz capsule more than parachutes could. Their solution, still in use by Russian cosmonauts today: once the last set of parachutes have deployed, the Soyuz spits off its own heat shield where hidden underneath are six retrorockets, which gives the flight one final ignition before touchdown. (6/3)

This Clever New Engine Could Send Briefcase-Size Spacecraft to Mars (Source: Gizmodo)
Engineers at MIT have developed a two-in-one propulsion system that can fuel both traditional chemical thrusters and electrical thrusters, combining speed and power with slower, more precise maneuverability for small satellites. The key to their research is a type of green monopropellant that was originally developed by the U.S. Air Force for use in chemical propulsion. In a new paper published in the Journal of Propulsion and Power, the researchers show that this propellant can also power tiny electrospray thrusters. (6/4)

Freedom 250 vs America 250 At NASA (Source: NASA Watch)
NASA HQ now has a new public visitor facility with some cool stuff. On the front windows of HQ are some big banners – one mentions some sort of sponsorship by/affiliation with “Freedom 250”. Meanwhile I got a press release from the Federal Circuit Center for Innovation & Law that said “America 250 program takes visitors from Dolley Madison’s parlor and NASA’s first DC headquarters …” So what is the intent of Freedom 250 vs America 250 things involving NASA?

America 250 (United States Semiquincentennial) is a non-political entity created by Congress to ensure all 350 Americans can participate. America 250 was established by Congress as a bipartisan committee in 2016 focusing mostly on historical and educational events nationwide. “Freedom 250“ was created under an executive order by the President and supports fireworks, Patriot Games National Competition, the White House UFC mega cage fight thing and that Indy 250 race through the streets of DC. Some in Congress now accuse Freedom 250 of using a portion of the $150 million allocated by Congress for America 250 to fund events under the executive branch i.e. Freedom 250. (6/2)

What the Blue Origin Incident Reveals About Spaceport Resilience (Source: Global Spaceport Alliance)
The recent explosion of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket serves as a reminder that spaceflight remains a challenging endeavor. Investigations will determine the technical causes, and the industry will learn from the event as it has from countless anomalies throughout the history of aerospace. The incident also highlights a broader issue that extends beyond any single company or vehicle. It underscores the growing importance of resilient spaceport infrastructure and the need for a stronger national network of launch and landing facilities.

According to reports, the explosion caused substantial damage to Launch Complex 36, the primary launch site supporting New Glenn operations. The resulting delays have implications that extend beyond Blue Origin itself. Launch schedules, commercial customers, government missions, supply chains, and workforce planning can all be affected when a critical piece of infrastructure becomes unavailable.

Additional spaceports create geographic diversity that helps mitigate risks from severe weather, natural disasters, infrastructure failures, and operational incidents. They provide flexibility for different vehicle classes, launch trajectories, and mission requirements. They strengthen national security by ensuring multiple pathways to orbit. They also distribute economic opportunities across more communities, creating jobs, attracting investment, and supporting advanced manufacturing. (6/4)

Special Treatment for SpaceX Friends and Families (Source: Fortune)
On June 1, SpaceX issued an amended registration statement for its upcoming IPO that contains a couple of noteworthy additions to the original filing submitted two weeks earlier. In one new provision, the rocket and AI giant announced that it will reserve 5% of the offering’s shares for “certain employees and persons… which may include parties with whom we have business relationships and friends and families of our executive officers.” The document adds that these grants “will not be subject to a lockup restriction.” In other words, the folks who receive these allocations, unlike Elon Musk and top execs who can’t sell for around a year, are free to unload their holdings any time after SpaceX’s debut, slated for mid-June. (6/4)

Europe Advances Pu-238 Supply Chain for Deep Space (Source: ESA)
An ESA-backed study confirmed that an independent European supply of the gold-standard fuel for deep-space missions, plutonium‑238 (Pu‑238), can be achieved using capabilities already in place today. The study outlines how a shift from concept to action could transform Europe's existing nuclear expertise into a strategic space capability.

Optimum Pro, as the Endure project is known, conducted by Tractebel Engie with support from SCK CEN, examined the scientific, technical, regulatory, safety, economic and infrastructure needs of establishing a European supply chain for Pu-238. The final report confirmed that production by ESA’s Member States is mainly technically and economically feasible with key existing infrastructure and sets out a road map from now until 2039 to ramp up production. (6/3)

New Glenn Setback Not Slowing Blue Origin Expansion Plans (Source: WESH)
The New Glenn rocket explosion may have put Blue Origin launches on hold, but it's not stopping the company from expanding its footprint on the Space Coast. During a Tuesday board meeting, Space Florida's board of directors approved $24.4 million for Blue Origin's Project Horizon. Prior to the vote, board members were asked if they had any questions or concerns. There weren't any. However, two board members opposed funding the aerospace company. (6/3)

The Exploration Company is Developing a Reusable Heavy-Lift Rocket (Source: European Spaceflight)
The Exploration Company has revealed that it is developing a reusable heavy-lift rocket powered by its Storm engines. Beyond a brief mention on its updated homepage, the company has not made any public statements about the project. The Exploration Company was founded in 2021 with the aim of developing a reusable space capsule called Nyx to transport cargo and, potentially, crew to low Earth orbit and beyond. While Nyx is designed to be launched aboard any number of heavy-lift rockets, in November 2025, CEO Hélène Huby said the company wanted to “master the whole chain of space transportation.”

An image included on the company’s new website appears to show the rocket’s first stage powered by nine Storm engines, which are described as being capable of producing 180 tonnes of thrust each. The company’s Storm engine appears to be an evolution of its Huracán rocket engine project. All mention of the engine, which was designed to produce up to 250 tonnes of thrust, has been removed from its website. (6/4)

AstroForge Completes DeepSpace-2 Spacecraft (Source: Space News)
AstroForge, an asteroid mining startup, has successfully completed the assembly of its most recent spacecraft, scheduled for launch later this year, integrating insights derived from a previous mission that did not achieve its objectives last year. (6/4)

Canada and ESA, Both Buffeted by NASA’s Sidelining of Lunar Gateway, Must Decide How to Respond. Canada Already Has (Source: Space Intel Report)
Canadian Space Agency (CSA) President Lisa Campbell and former NASA Chief Economist Alexander MacDonald, a Canadian citizen, said Canada is well placed to profit from NASA’s sudden shift in priorities and the cancellation of the Lunar Gateway program. But Canada needs to move quickly to get maximum benefit. They both urged that Canada’s industry adopt the urgency of NASA’s new Ignition lunar-focused program to leverage Canada’s expertise in robotics. (6/4)

Axiom Space Raises $525 Million With MUFG Bank as New Investor (Source: Bloomberg)
Axiom Space announced that it had secured roughly an additional $175 million from investors, bringing the startup’s most recent fundraising round to more than $525 million as it works to develop a commercial space station. Co-founded by billionaire Kam Ghaffarian, Axiom Space is among several firms competing to build a commercial replacement to the International Space Station, which is set to be decommissioned by 2030. (6/4)

Infinite Orbits Selects Open Cosmos’ Platforms for its “Tom & Jerry” LEO Space Domain Awareness Demo (Source: Spacewatch Global)
Infinite Orbits and Open Cosmos have announced their partnership on the former’s new Low Earth Orbit (LEO) mission aiming to advance autonomous inspection and operational Space Situational Awareness (SSA) capabilities. Bringing together two complementary spacecraft platforms nicknamed Tom & Jerry, the project will see two satellites, Tom, a larger satellite, and Jerry, a smaller satellite, work together to demonstrate close-range maneuvers and in-orbit interaction scenarios. (6/4)

The Exploration Company Completes Nyx Drop Test (Source: European Spaceflight)
The Exploration Company has completed a key milestone in the development of its Nyx spacecraft after successfully conducting a drop test designed to validate the performance of its recovery system. Nyx is designed as a reusable space capsule that will be used to transport cargo and, potentially, crew to low Earth orbit. The company is currently working toward an initial demonstration of Nyx in 2028 with support from the European Space Agency through its LEO Cargo Return Service initiative. (6/4)

Meteor Over Cape Cod Was Unusually Dense (Source: Boston Globe)
New analysis by NASA suggests the meteor that plunged into Cape Cod Bay on Saturday may be made of iron, with data indicating the object was unusually dense and is theoretically recoverable from the ocean floor. NASA said calculations from radar observations found the meteoroid broke apart at an unusually high altitude of about 31 miles and produced very few small fragments, and likely entered the atmosphere at a steep entry angle as opposed to a more typical trajectory. Researchers also estimated a density of roughly 8,000 kilograms per cubic meter, a figure consistent with iron meteorites. (6/3)

Morningstar Says SpaceX Should be Valued Nearly 50% Lower Than What the Market is Estimating (Source: Business Insider)
Morningstar just launched its research coverage of SpaceX — and it says the company's current estimated valuation should be nearly 50% lower than the low end of the market's estimated range. SpaceX is set to go public this month in a much-anticipated IPO, seeking to raise $75 billion at a valuation of $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion. But Morningstar says its analysis of the firm's projected cash flows puts its fair value at $780 billion — 48% below a more conservative valuation estimates of $1.5 trillion — and that SpaceX's stated growth opportunities are ambitious. (6/3)

AT&T Downgraded Ahead of SpaceX IPO on Coming Broadband Competition from Starlink (Source: CNBC)
Oppenheimer downgraded AT&T, with analyst Timothy Horan warning that low-earth orbit satellite networks are starting to threaten longer-term broadband subscriber growth and, eventually, mobile services. The bank says regulatory and technology trends are increasingly favoring satellite internet over older systems such as fixed wireless and fiber. (6/3)

Should We Store Mars Samples on the Moon to Keep Alien Germs Away From Earth? (Source: Space.com)
A team of researchers is advocating to use the moon as a secure site for biocontainment of extraterrestrial samples, particularly those from Mars, but also from other potential worlds like Enceladus, a moon of Saturn. The researchers contend that our moon offers a naturally sterile and isolated environment that can act as humanity's first line of biological defense against organisms perhaps harmful to Earth and its life. (6/3)

SpaceX Vets Comment on Blue Origin Pad Rebuild (Source: Ars Technica)
After the AMOS-6 failure at LC-40, SpaceX was also without an active launch pad for the Falcon 9. SpaceX then focused on completing modifications to Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, which it had leased from NASA. SpaceX was not immediately allowed to begin LC-40 reconstruction work due to the ongoing investigation, which included a grid-by-grid examination of debris, cataloging recovered materials, and launch site remediation. SpaceX engineers spent these four months redesigning the launch pad.

Trip Harriss, who managed the Falcon 9 fleet operations in 2016, said everyone at the company pitched in to support the investigation and then the reconstruction of LC-40. SpaceX pulled out all of the stops, deploying drones and aircraft with sensitive equipment. “At one point, I got a submersible to take into the flame trench, where there was an accumulation of water, to see if we could find any rocket debris,” Harriss said. “But it was just large chunks of concrete.”

One of Blue Origin’s massive launch towers toppled, and the other appears to be seriously damaged. The concrete underneath the rocket also appears to have collapsed in some places. From a structural standpoint, there is likely a significant amount of work ahead. There is an incredible amount of electrical wiring that almost certainly got fried by the fireball. And then there is the intricate tubing that provides gas and liquids to fill not just the rocket’s propellant tanks but also smaller pressurized vessels throughout the vehicle for various purposes. (6/3)

Swedish Suborbital Launch Used German Engines (Source: European Spaceflight)
SSC Space launched its SubOrbital Express-5 mission on 31 May from the Esrange Space Centre in northern Sweden. The rocket carried 12 individual experiments. The 13-meter-tall rocket was powered by Red Kite rocket motors on both its first and second stages. The Red Kite motor was developed by Germany's Bayern-Chemie under a DLR contract and was first launched in 2023. While the motor has now been used on six missions, SubOrbital Express-5 was only the second to use Red Kite for both stages, with previous flights having used Improved Malemute and Black Brant upper stages. (6/3)

SpaceX Fixes Its IPO at $135 a Share Before the Bookbuild for a Record $75B Raise (Source: Mach 33)
SpaceX plans to fix its IPO price at $135 a share to raise a record $75 billion, selling 555.6 million shares at a targeted $1.75 trillion valuation. Companies have historically set a price range to frame expectations and let the bookbuild settle the final number. SpaceX, however, has elected to fix share prices prior to the roadshow. The all-primary offering will result in all capital proceeds being allocated to SpaceX rather than to selling shareholders. The stock is set to trade on Nasdaq under SPCX with a debut targeted for 12 June.

At $1.75 trillion on $18.67 billion of 2025 revenue, SpaceX would price at 93.7 times trailing revenue, below Rocket Lab's 118, above Palantir's 81 and Tesla's 17. However, the multiple includes xAI and X from this year's merger, so it understates the standalone launch and Starlink business. (6/3)

SpaceX Starfall Capsule Will Serve Point-to-Point Delivery (Source: Douglas Messier)
The FAA has given SpaceX the OK to conduct two flight tests of its new Starfall capsule, which will serve the in-space manufacturing and point-to-point cargo delivery markets. The FAA concluded that the two flights, which would see Starfall capsules splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, would have no significant impact on the environment. The FAA issued the environmental assessment and a record of decision in May.

Starfall would “(1) enable point-to-point delivery of critical cargo through space on rapid timelines and (2) create a self-sustaining commercial in-space manufacturing market by offering access to microgravity and vacuum, loiter on orbit, and safe return from orbit as a service at scale,” the FAA said. (6/1)

Impulse Space Raises $500 Million to Build Out Fleet of Ultra-Mobile Spacecraft (Source: Space.com)
Impulse Space just got a lot more money to help finance its big ambitions in the final frontier. The California-based company — which was founded in 2021 by propulsion expert Tom Mueller, the first person Elon Musk ever hired at SpaceX — announced today (June 2) that it has raised $500 million in a "Series D" investment round. It will use the funds to scale up the production and deployment of its ultra-mobile spacecraft, which Impulse Space thinks will help transform the off-Earth economy. (6/2)

General Dynamics Communication Contract Hits $294.9M (Source: GovConWire)
General Dynamics Mission Systems has received a $106 million task order from Space Systems Command to sustain and modernize the ground segment of the Mobile User Objective System, a military satellite communications system. The task order, under a sole-source contract, could extend through May 2031 with a total value of $294.9 million. (6/1)
 
Gagarin Never Landed Inside Vostok 1, and the Soviets Kept it Quiet (Source: Space Daily)
The record stands. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth. His spacecraft, Vostok 1, completed a single circuit in 108 minutes, lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in what is now Kazakhstan and reentering the atmosphere over Soviet territory. However, what was not said — for roughly a decade — was that Gagarin never actually landed inside his spacecraft, and that the omission was deliberate, because admitting it risked losing him the record entirely.

The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), a body that certifies aviation and spaceflight records, had carried one particular rule over from aviation: a pilot must land inside their craft for a flight to qualify as an official record. The logic, applied to aircraft, was reasonable enough. No one wanted to encourage pilots to fly machines that couldn’t bring them safely home. (5/26)

Amazon Leo Surpasses 330 Satellites with Atlas V Launch (Source: SatNews)
Amazon has expanded its broadband constellation, Amazon Leo, to over 330 satellites after a successful United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket deployment. Amazon is racing to meet a Federal Communications Commission requirement to deploy half of the 3,236-satellite constellation by July and has secured more than 100 launches from United Launch Alliance, Arianespace and SpaceX. (6/1)

Another Branch: Cyber Force Commission Suggests $10B Budget (Source: Breaking Defense)
A new report from the Commission on U.S. Cyber Force Generation suggests an independent Cyber Force would require an initial budget of $10 billion, reallocated from existing military funds. The report envisions a force of 33,000 personnel, primarily officers and warrant officers, and a launch timeline of 12 to 18 months. (6/3)

Lithuania's Astrolight Wins Startup World Cup Regional, Heading to Silicon Valley to Compete for $1M Investment (Source: Astrolight)
Astrolight, a Lithuanian space and defense company developing laser communication solutions for space, ground, and maritime applications, has won the Lithuanian regional competition of the Startup World Cup, the world’s leading startup pitch contest. The company will head to the Startup World Cup Grand Finale in San Francisco on November 6, 2026, and compete with finalists from around the world for the title of global champion and a $1 million investment prize.

Earlier, Astrolight secured contracts and partnerships with the European Space Agency (ESA), industry primes, and leading satellite manufacturers. The company has launched three of its ATLAS-1 laser terminals into orbit for testing, joined a Kepler Communications-led team developing ESA’s HydRON optical multi-orbit transport network, and is working with ESA to build the first Arctic optical ground station in Greenland. (6/3)

Sidus Space to Join Russell 3000 Index (Source: Sidus Space)
Sidus Space announced it is expected to join the broad-market Russell 3000 Index, the small-cap Russell 2000 Index and the Russell Microcap Index at the conclusion of the June 2026 Russell Reconstitution, according to a preliminary list of additions posted by FTSE Russell on May 22, 2026. Sidus' inclusion will become effective after the U.S. market close on June 26, 2026. (6/1)

Microbes Reveal Missing Link in Space Manufacturing (Source: CASIS)
Manufacturing materials in space may hinge on a simple problem: feeding microbes. New research sponsored by the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory, published in npj Microgravity, shows that microgravity disrupts how cells in engineered microbes absorb nutrients—limiting their ability to produce useful materials but also pointing to solutions.

Researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) studied engineered Escherichia coli designed to produce melanin, a pigment that helps shield cells from radiation and other environmental stress. Materials like melanin could one day be manufactured in orbit to protect astronauts and spacecraft systems during long-duration missions. In addition to blocking radiation, melanin can neutralize harmful chemicals and remain stable under extreme conditions, making it a promising material for space applications.

The project, Melanized Microbes for Multiple Uses in Space (MELSP), launched to the ISS in November 2023 to examine whether microbes could reliably produce protective biomaterials in microgravity. While the engineered bacteria expressed the genetic pathway for melanin synthesis, researchers found that microgravity altered how cells absorbed nutrients and responded to metabolic stress. (6/1)

Trump Moves ~8000 Federal Employees to Less-Secure Positions (Source: FNN)
Close to 8,000 career federal employees will be moved into a new employment category with limited job protections, under an executive order President Donald Trump signed Wednesday. It formalizes a long-expected "Schedule Policy/Career" federal employment classification for senior-level positions across government. The move is meant to boost workforce accountability, but has also drawn sharp criticism from federal unions, employee organizations and other stakeholders.

Trump administration officials said the creation of Schedule Policy/Career aims to improve employee accountability and ensure the federal workforce is carrying out the president’s policy agenda. Officials also said it’s currently too difficult to remove federal employees for poor performance. Following Wednesday’s executive order, agencies [including NASA] now have seven days to make conforming changes to the affected employees’ personnel records, OPM said. (6/3)

Artemis III’s Remaining Solid Rocket Booster Segments Shipped From Utah to Florida (Source: NSF)
While there is some uncertainty regarding timelines and landers, the Artemis III mission — currently scheduled for the summer of 2027 — is being prepared for launch at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Northrop Grumman began shipping all eight remaining solid rocket booster segments for the mission’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket from Utah on Tuesday, June 2.

The Union Pacific train carrying the eight solid rocket booster segments was christened at a ceremony that also featured several speakers. Northrop Grumman’s vice president and general manager of the launch and exploration division, Wendy Williams, started by congratulating NASA for the successful Artemis II mission. SLS deputy program manager Chris Cianciola stated that the booster segments are to be stacked this summer for Artemis III. (6/3)

Beyond Gravity Releases New Propulsion Pointing Mechanism (Source: Via Satellite)
Beyond Gravity is to bring to market a new ultra-light propulsion pointing mechanism with high maneuverability for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations. The new two-axis mechanism aims to address what Beyond Gravity sees as key industry demands for reduced mass, rapid delivery, and flexible integration. Beyond Gravity announced the new product, June. 3.

APPMAX2-XS is a next-generation electric propulsion pointing mechanism designed specifically for small satellites operating in LEO. The mechanism weighs less than seven kilograms, and the time from order to delivery will be less than six months. Beyond Gravity is based out of Zurich, Switzerland. (6/3)

Trump Officials Held Millions of Dollars of SpaceX Ahead of IPO (Source: Bloomberg)
SpaceX’s initial public offering will likely make President Donald Trump’s already wealthy administration even richer. Ten officials ranging from special envoy Steve Witkoff to Small Business Administration head Kelly Loeffler reported financial interests in Elon Musk’s rocket company or in xAI, the artificial intelligence and social media firm it merged with in February, according to their most recent public financial disclosures. (6/3)

HyImpulse to Explore Launches in Oman at Etlaq Spaceport (Source: Oman Observer)
Further strengthening Oman’s emergence as an international hub for commercial space launches, European launch services company HyImpulse Technologies GmbH has entered into a partnership with Etlaq Spaceport to explore future launch-related operations from the latter’s facility in Duqm. The collaboration was formalized through the signing of a Letter of Intent (LoI) during the recent SmallSat Europe conference held in Amsterdam.

Headquartered in Germany with operations in both Germany and the United Kingdom, HyImpulse specializes in commercial suborbital and orbital launch services. The company is known for its hybrid propulsion technology that combines oxygen and paraffin-based fuel in small satellite launch vehicles designed for efficient and sustainable access to low Earth orbit and beyond. (6/3)

Venturi Space Announces New Toulouse Facility for Developing Technologies for Lunar Mobility (Source: Spacewatch Global)
Venturi Space is investing €250 million to establish a 16,000-square-meter technology and manufacturing center in Toulouse, France. This facility will develop and assemble mobility systems for lunar and Martian exploration, and is projected to create nearly 200 highly skilled jobs by 2030. The site will focus on designing and building hyper-deformable wheels, high-performance battery systems, and advanced energy management solutions. (6/2)

NASA Says Farewell to MAVEN Mars Mission (Source: NASA)
The first mission devoted to observing the Martian atmosphere and its evolution, NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), has ended after more than 11 years in orbit at Mars and a decade beyond its primary, one-year mission. The spacecraft was heard last on Dec. 6, when it experienced an unexpected loss of signal after it passed behind the Red Planet. (6/3)

Texas and the Smithsonian Are Locked in a Custody Battle Over a Space Shuttle (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Texas lawmakers and the Smithsonian Institution are locked in an escalating dispute over the 86-ton Space Shuttle Discovery. Texas senators secured $85 million in federal funding to relocate the orbiter to Houston, but the Smithsonian argues the actual cost to safely move and re-house the shuttle exceeds $300 million. The high-stakes tug-of-war highlights several logistical and political hurdles. Texas Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn championed the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which legally mandates the transfer of Discovery to Houston's Johnson Space Center.

In response, several Virginia and out-of-state senators are attempting to block federal funds for the transfer, citing preservation and inefficiency concerns.  Moving an 86-ton shuttle is an immense engineering feat. The modified Boeing 747s once used to "piggyback" the orbiters are retired. Transporting Discovery via a land route would likely require partial disassembly—a move engineers warn could cause irreparable damage.

 The $85 million earmarked by Texas lawmakers falls dramatically short of the Smithsonian's estimates. Museum officials project that dismantling, transporting, and constructing a brand-new, climate-controlled exhibit space in Texas would cost between $300 million and $400 million. (6/3)

AST SpaceMobile Expects Service Delay After Blue Origin Blast (Source: Space News)
AST SpaceMobile expects Blue Origin’s recent launchpad explosion will delay its direct-to-smartphone constellation by three to six months. Scott Wisniewski, AST SpaceMobile’s chief strategy officer, made the estimate June 2 during the bank’s annual growth stock conference in Chicago. Before the loss of a New Glenn, AST SpaceMobile had aimed to start early services at the end of 2026 with at least 45 satellites in low Earth orbit, helping anchor customers such as AT&T and Verizon in the United States plug terrestrial service gaps.

The Texas-based venture had retained that goal even after the loss of its seventh BlueBird satellite on a New Glenn launch April 19. While AST SpaceMobile was planning to rely heavily on New Glenn, Wisniewski reaffirmed “it has a handful of launches over the remainder of the year with launch providers other than Blue Origin,” William Blair analyst Louie DiPalma wrote. (6/3)

June 3, 2026

Are Orbital Data Centers the Next Frontier of AI Infrastructure? (Source: Via Satellite)
The race to put computing infrastructure in orbit is accelerating as hyperscalers across cloud, AI, and space compete to see who will emerge winners in what many believe will fuel the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The last few months have been a flurry of orbital data announcements, from SpaceX filing for a constellation of up to 1 million satellites to create an orbital data center and collaborating with AI giant Anthropic.

Google is exploring Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) clusters in space. Starcloud has plans for an 88,000-satellite constellation aimed at delivering on-orbit compute at scale, to name a few. In the face of this growing momentum, a single question dominates: Are orbital data centers a genuine paradigm shift — or the latest chapter in a long history of space industry hype? (6/2)

Can the Stock Market Swallow Anthropic, SpaceX and OpenAI? (Source: The Economist)
They promise to be the biggest stockmarket debuts ever. On June 11th SpaceX reportedly hopes to raise $75bn from investors, by issuing shares that will begin trading on the Nasdaq exchange the next day. Elon Musk’s rocketry firm will probably soon be followed by two other mammoth listings. Anthropic, an artificial-intelligence lab, filed draft paperwork for its initial public offering on June 1st; OpenAI, a competitor, is expected to do so soon. The two are rumored to be seeking as much as $60bn apiece. Together, the three giga-IPOs may add as much as $4trn to the market value of listed American companies in a matter of months. (6/1)

Vast, Axiom Look to Europe as NASA Space Station Plan in Limbo (Source: Bloomberg)
Vast and Axiom Space, both of which are developing commercial successors to the International Space Station, announced plans to expand into Europe as NASA signals it may no longer fund development of multiple future stations in Earth’s orbit. Vast Space, founded by former crypto tycoon Jed McCaleb, will establish a European headquarters in Paris and send French astronauts on two crewed missions to space, the company announced Monday. (6/1)

The Next-Generation Very Large Array Prototype (ngVLA) Gathers its First Light (Source: Universe Today)
The next-generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) prototype, a single radio antenna located on the NSF VLA grounds in the deserts of New Mexico, recently achieved a major milestone by gathering its "first light." It made independent observations, and others in collaboration with the NSF VLA. This achievement marks the transition from the construction phase to astronomical testing, and will serve as the blueprint for the proposed 244-antenna array. (6/2)

Iceye U.S. Appoints ASRC Federal Exec Ann Stevens as CEO (Source: Via Satellite)
Iceye’s U.S. subsidiary has appointed Ann Stevens to the role of CEO, as Eric Jensen who held the position, takes the role of COO of Iceye. Stevens joins Iceye US from government contracting firm ASRC Federal where she was chief strategy officer. Iceye highlighted her deep experience in national security and more than two decades with Boeing, where she served as vice president of Maritime & Intelligence Systems. (6/2)

Venturi Space Announces New Toulouse Facility for Developing Technologies for Lunar Mobility (Source: Spacewatch Global)
Venturi Space is establishing a €250 million, 16,000-square-meter technology center in Toulouse, France, aimed at advancing lunar and Martian mobility. The facility will design and assemble critical rover subsystems—including hyper-deformable wheels and high-performance batteries—following NASA's selection of the Astrolab CLV-1 rover for future Artemis missions. (6/2)

India and South Korea Collaborate in VLEO (Source: Space News)
Indian and South Korean companies will collaborate on a demonstration of very low Earth orbit (VLEO) spacecraft technology in 2028. South Korea's TelePIX will provide an optical sensor for a spacecraft bus built by India's Bellatrix. The spacecraft will feature an "air-breathing" propulsion system using the tenuous atmosphere in VLEO as propellant for an electric thruster. Spacecraft operating in VLEO can provide higher resolution images than those in higher orbits without requiring larger optics. (6/2)

Starfighters Space Added to Russell 3000 Index (Source: Starfighters Space)
Starfighters Space announced that it has been added as a member of the broad-market Russell 3000® Index, effective when U.S. markets open on June 29, 2026, as part of the first 2026 Russell indexes reconstitution. Since completing its IPO in December 2025, Starfighters Space has continued expanding its operational footprint, infrastructure, and platform capabilities. Operating from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Company is advancing a differentiated commercial space platform through its reusable, supersonic aircraft-based architecture and continued development of STARLAUNCH. (6/3)

Determining an 'Equilibrium State' for Space Traffic Management (Source: Space News)
The rapid expansion of human and robotic activity in low Earth orbit makes critically important the need to implement effective space traffic management (STM). This will be one of the most crucial engineering and policy challenges of the 21st century. The emergence of massive communications constellations, orbiting data centers, inhabited space stations and increasing quantities of space debris has intensified orbital congestion and collision risks throughout low Earth orbit (LEO).

As a result, determining an “equilibrium state” for STM has become essential for ensuring the long-term sustainability, safety and economic viability of space operations. In this context, equilibrium refers to a dynamically stable orbital environment in which spacecraft launches, operational lifetimes, debris generation and disposal rates remain balanced so that collision probabilities and long-term orbital degradation are minimized. (6/2)

"Hot Jupiter" Winds Reveal Exoplanet Magnetic Field (Source: Space.com)
Astronomers have discovered the first evidence of magnetic fields around planets beyond the solar system, and they did so by studying the worlds' high-speed, violent winds. This marks the first direct measurement of exoplanet magnetic field strength, and represents a major step forward in exoplanet research. (6/3)

Muon Space Unveils Starship-Class Satellite Platform for Orbital Data Centers (Source: Space News)
Muon Space announced a Starship-class satellite platform June 3 designed from the ground up to meet the demands of the emerging orbital data center market, with an initial launch slated for 2028 after securing customers. The Condor-Ultra platform would initially offer 20 kilowatts of baseline power and more than 18 square meters of nadir payload area, with Starlink Mini Lasers from SpaceX to use its broadband constellation for inter-satellite data relay. (6/2)

MDA Space Secures Key Role in Safeguarding U.S. Space Force Defense Network (Source: Aviation News Daily)
MDA Space Ltd. has captured a prominent defense payload contract from BAE Systems to support the U.S. Space Systems Command’s highly critical Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) missile defense initiative. Under the new agreement, the Canadian aerospace firm will supply the critical hardware tasked with identifying next-generation global military threats from orbit. (6/3)

NRO Nominee Says Commercial Space, AI Are Reshaping Spy Satellite Agency (Source: Space News)
The nominee to be director of the National Reconnaissance Office said advances in commercial capabilities, along with artificial intelligence, will reshape the agency. Appearing June 2 before the Senate Intelligence Committee for his confirmation hearing, Roger Mason said the NRO is in the midst of a transformation driven by commercial innovation, growing volumes of intelligence data and increasing threats to U.S. assets in space. Mason said the NRO's growing fleet of satellites is generating increasing amounts of intelligence data that require new methods for prioritizing collection and distributing information, including the use of AI. Mason, currently chief growth officer at V2X Corp., would succeed Christopher Scolese, who has led the NRO since 2019. (6/3)

Chatman: Safety Procedures Worked With New Glenn Exploded (Source: Florida Today)
The Space Force says safety procedures in the event of an accident worked as planned when New Glenn exploded. Col. Brian Chatman, commander of Space Launch Delta 45, the unit that oversees Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, said emergency response plans were "spot on across the board" after the accident, keeping both base personnel and the public safe. The Space Force handed control of the pad back to Blue Origin on Sunday, allowing the company to move ahead with work to repair the pad. Windows were blown out at the Cape's Hangar C assembly building nearby, and the Space Force is working with companies using adjacent pads to identify any damage. While the Space Force warned that some debris from the explosion might wash up on beaches, none has been reported so far. (6/3)

UK Using Starshield Network (Source: Reuters)
Britain's military has started using SpaceX's Starshield network. Starshield is a version of Starlink adapted for military uses, including enhanced security, and originally developed by the company for the U.S. military. Sources said the British military started using Starshield earlier this year while continuing use of Starlink for non-operational purposes, such as allowing deployed personnel to communicate with their families. SpaceX has pushed militaries to use Starshield for operations, stating that it is against its terms of service to use the commercial Starlink service for weapons systems. (6/3)

Applied Aerospace and Defense Raising $650 Million with IPO (Source: Bloomberg)
Aerospace industry supplier Applied Aerospace and Defense is raising $650 million in an IPO. The company announced Tuesday it will sell 32.5 million shares at $20 each, with trading scheduled to begin on the New York Stock Exchange today. That would value the company at $3.4 billion. Applied Aerospace and Defense is a component supplier that, in the space field, makes items such as structures, solar arrays and antennas. The company reported a net loss of $15.1 million on revenue of $134.4 million in the first quarter of this year. (6/3)

Senate Postpones NASA/NOAA Funding Bill Markup (Source: Politico)
The Senate Appropriations Committee has postponed consideration of a funding bill that includes NASA and NOAA. The committee was scheduled to hold a markup Thursday morning of three bills, including Commerce, Justice and Science (CJS), which funds NASA and NOAA along with the National Science Foundation. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chair of the committee, postponed the markup Tuesday after Democratic members said they would introduce amendments targeting Department of Justice funding in the CJS bill, including the "anti-weaponization" fund and plans to keep FBI Headquarters in Washington. The committee has not announced a new date for the markup. (6/3)

Japan's IHI Banned From JAXA Work After Improper Cost Claims (Source: Investing.com)
Japan's IHI Aerospace has been banned from bidding on projects by the Japanese space agency for five months. IHI said Tuesday that JAXA banned the company from bidding after finding the company made improper cost claims on work maintaining equipment used to produce space hardware, stating that work had been completed when it remained unfinished. The claims did not involve any defects in production of hardware. IHI said it has cooperated with JAXA on the investigation and is assessing the impacts of the ban on its earnings. (6/3)

Churn at Zero-G Corp. with Certificate Loss and Company Acquisition (Source: SPACErePORT)
Zero Gravity Corp., based in Exploration Park on the Cape Canaveral Spaceport, had since 2004 been flying parabolic research and tourism missions aboard a modified Boeing 727 aircraft operated by Everts Air Cargo — but Everts revoked Zero-G's access to their operating certificate in August 2025. It is unclear if or when Zero-G will recommence flight operations. Zero-G was acquired by Space Adventures on March 31, 2026. So the company still exists as a legal entity under new ownership, but whether flights will resume is another question. (6/3)

NASA to Acquire Microgravity Research Aircraft (Source: NASA)
NASA is acquiring an aircraft for reduced gravity research. NASA said Monday it awarded a $8.4 million contract to Denmar Technical Services to modify a Boeing 737 for parabolic aircraft flights. Such flights can provide brief moments of reduced gravity, including microgravity. NASA said it will own and operate the plane when the modification work is complete, using it to test equipment in lunar gravity conditions. NASA had previously acquired parabolic flights as a service from Zero-G Corporation, but that company's plane has reportedly been out of service since last year. (6/3)

June 2, 2026

Impulse Space Raises $500 Million (Source: Space News)
In-space mobility company Impulse Space has raised $500 million. The company announced Tuesday it has brought the total raised by the company to more than $1 billion. Impulse plans to use the funding to hire more staff to scale up production of its Mira maneuverable spacecraft and Helios high-energy kick stage. The company sees strong demand from commercial and government customers, including development of a lunar lander for NASA. (6/2)

Voyager to Acquire Astrobotic (Source: Space News)
Voyager Technologies is acquiring lunar lander developer Astrobotic for as much as $300 million.  The companies announced early Tuesday an agreement where Voyager will acquire Astrobotic for $162 million in cash and stock and assumption of $9 million in debt, with up to $129 million in future earnout payments contingent on reaching performance milestones. Astrobotic is best known for developing lunar landers. Its Griffin lunar lander is being prepared for launch later this year. Voyager said the acquisition fits into its strategic lunar initiative announced earlier this year, with Astrobotic's Pittsburgh headquarters serving as the new center of that effort. Astrobotic is also working on other technologies, from reusable suborbital vehicles to lunar power systems, and Voyager indicated those efforts would continue after the acquisition. (6/2)

Scientists Call for Mitigation of Satellite-Reentry Pollution (Source: Space News)
Researchers are calling for increased attention to and better protection against pollution of the upper atmosphere from satellite reentries. At last month's European Geosciences Union conference, scientists raised questions about the atmospheric impacts of spacecraft launches and re-entries, along with research and policy priorities to promote environmental sustainability for space. Scientists are concerned the growing number of reentering satellites from megaconstellations will introduce exotic materials that could disrupt atmospheric chemistry. The subject is also expected to be explored again at a National Academies gathering in July. (6/2)

Northrop Grumman and Apex to Develop Space-Based Interceptors for Golden Dome (Source: Space News)
Northrop Grumman announced Monday it will work with spacecraft manufacturer Apex on Golden Dome space-based interceptors. Northrop is one of 12 firms selected by the U.S. Space Force to develop concepts for space-based interceptors, one of the most ambitious elements of the Golden Dome missile defense system, while Apex has developed a production line to produce a variety of satellite buses in volume. This partnership comes after Raytheon said it would work with Rocket Lab on interceptors while Anduril Industries has assembled a team that includes several commercial space companies. The partnerships are meant to address a concern about the ability to affordably mass produce interceptors. (6/2)

LC-36 Damage Could Have Been Worse, Many Elements Escaped Major Damage (Source: Dave Limp)
Some LC-36 updates. Now that we’ve had access to the pad and integration facility we can share a bit of good news. The propellant farm, oxygen, liquid hydrogen and LNG tanks are all in good shape. This is good luck because these are very long lead items. The water tower is also good.  The big support tower is damaged, but it can be repaired in place rather than torn down and replaced. The booster “Never Tell Me The Odds” and the three GS-2s that were onsite in the integration facility also look good.

I’ve seen some speculation that we might move directly to the 9x4 configuration, but we won’t do that. Rate manufacturing of 7x2 is going well, and we’re going to continue that at pace as planned and store the stages for use.  In addition, we had already been working for some time on eliminating our transporter-erector in favor of an alternative vertical conop, and we’ll now go directly to that; so we don’t need a new transporter-erector. We will fly again before the end of this year. (6/1)

Building a Lunar Digital Engineering Community with LUNAverse (Source: Aerospace America)
Simulating activity on the lunar surface is essential as the United States pursues its plan to return to the moon to stay. But it’s not just craters and regolith: a robust simulation goes beyond physics to model power, interactions, and even economic incentives — as participants in the LUNAverse initiative. The simplest way to think of LUNAverse is as a “digital twin” of the moon, but The Aerospace Corporation’s Dennis Paul described it as a “common operating picture” for everyone planning to go there.

“The moon is wide open,” he said. “Nobody owns it, but everybody’s going to go there. So how do we as a community work together?” That community is international, cross-discipline, privately and publicly funded, and often with a digital engineering environment of their own. The job, as Paul said, is not to take over and offer one system “to rule them all,” but offering a multi-compatible platform for collaboration. To that end, a software development kit (SDK) is being readied for a limited release this summer. (5/29)

Regional Rivalries, National Imperative: State Governments Pick Up the Pace in Space Race (Source: Aerospace America)
A growing number of states are taking proactive steps to marshal their public and private sectors and academia to grow the commercial space industry, offering incentives to encourage new partnerships, attract startups, and identify dual-use technologies to expand their regional and national space footprint.

“We have relied on federal systems for so long, but what states are doing right now is dynamic, it’s effective,” said Heather Pringle, CEO of The Space Foundation, who moderated a panel at ASCEND 2026 on “How Regional Strategies Are Fueling Commercial Space Investment.”

On one level states are competing – for commercial investment, federal government contracts, and to recruit and retain the skilled workforce of the future. But there is also growing recognition that different areas of the country bring unique capacity and talent to the national space economy. (5/29)

Swiss Team Launches St. Kitts Experiment on Suborbital Launch From Sweden (Source: UZH)
On 31 May, SSC Space launched the SubOrbital Express S1X-5 / M17 mission from Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, Sweden, carrying with it something truly historic: a space life sciences experiment from St. Kitts and Nevis and Switzerland, developed through a partnership between the Ministry of Education Nevis and our team from the Universität Zürich | University of Zurich and Center for Space and Aviation Switzerland and Liechtenstein🇨🇭🇱🇮 (CSA). (5/31)

Three Like-Minded Aerospace Companies to Unite at Space Tech Expo USA in Anaheim (Source: Ileana International)
Representatives from PrincetonCryo, Scorpius Space Launch Company, and Exos Aerospace will ascend upon Space Tech Expo USA and come together to showcase innovation, collaboration, and the future of aerospace technology at this year’s event in Anaheim, California. The collaboration highlights a shared commitment to advancing aerospace engineering, launch systems, cryogenic technologies, and next-generation space infrastructure. (6/1)

Fort Pierce Could Become SpaceX, Blue Origin Rocket Recovery Hub Under Updated Port Plan (Source: CBS12)
St. Lucie County is hosting a public meeting on the 2026 Port of Fort Pierce Master Plan update. The draft 2026 master plan looks beyond yachts, laying out how Fort Pierce could also support the vessels and waterfront infrastructure needed to recover reusable rockets launched from the Space Coast. The plan identifies a proposed Launch Vehicle Recovery Facility as one of the port’s major long-term opportunities.

The facility would be designed to support offshore launch recovery operations, including autonomous drone ships, fairing recovery vessels and other marine support craft — the types of vessels used by companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin as reusable rocket technology becomes a larger part of Florida’s launch economy.

Under the draft plan, Fort Pierce’s advantages include deepwater access, available waterfront land and an existing marine industrial base. The plan notes that Port Canaveral is currently the primary hub for many rocket recovery operations, but growing launch activity has created pressure for more berths, more staging space and more heavy-lift infrastructure along Florida’s east coast. (6/1)

Astronaut with Physical Disability Could Be First to Enter Orbit (Source: Gov.UK)
Former Paralympian John McFall could become first person with a physical disability to live in orbit through UK government partnership with US space company Vast. Agreement enables Vast, supported by the UK Space Agency to explore sponsorship opportunities for John’s mission to Vast’s Haven-1 – scheduled to be the world’s first commercial space station – as early as 2027. (6/2)

NASA Abandons ‘Core Module’ Concept for Commercial Space Station Development (Source: Space News)
NASA is withdrawing a proposal to revamp its strategy for transitioning from the International Space Station to commercial stations, one that had been sharply criticized by the companies developing such stations. In a June 1 statement, NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens said the agency was effectively abandoning a proposal to develop a new “core module” for the ISS that commercial modules could attach to.

Philippines and Japan Sign Joint Declaration to Continue Decades of Space Cooperation (Source: Philsa.gov)
The Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) signed a Joint Declaration of Interest in Space Cooperation on 27 May 2026, reaffirming their shared goals and objectives, and their interest in exploring cooperation and industry partnerships in Satellite Joint Mission Partnership and Data Applications, Space Exploration and Human Spaceflight, and Space Sustainability. The declaration was signed by PhilSA Ad Interim Director General Gay Jane P. Perez and JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa during President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s state visit to Japan. (6/2)

SpaceX's Orbiting Data Centers Could Drive a Surge In Space Junk (Source: PC Mag)
SpaceX's Starlink satellites are designed to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere after they retire. But don't expect the same with the company's plan to operate up to 1 million orbiting data centers. SpaceX is indicating to the FCC it’ll retire the bulk of the orbiting data centers by sending them into graveyard orbits, rather than de-orbiting them into the atmosphere.

The company’s January application to the FCC for the 1 million constellation already mentioned it could retire some of the satellites “around Earth or into heliocentric disposal orbits” around the Sun. But in a filing on Friday, SpaceX got more specific while answering the US regulator’s questions about the orbiting data centers. The 7-page filing includes a preliminary estimate for the various orbits of the 1 million satellites, indicating 80% of the constellation will reside between 680 kilometers and 1,000km orbits around the planet. The remainder will occupy orbits in the 500km range. (6/1)

ESA Joins Agreement to Strengthen Global Geodesy Supply Chain (Source: ESA)
In May, the European Space Agency (ESA) joined the Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding of the United Nations Global Geodetic Centre of Excellence (UN-GGCE). This initiative aims to strengthen the global geodesy supply chain and promote international cooperation to produce reliable geodetic products, which are essential for many satellite applications, including positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services. (6/2)

PLD Space Invests €35M in its Launch Complex at the Guiana Space Center (Source: TNW)
PLD Space is putting €35m into the launch complex it is building at the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, the Spanish company announced on Monday at the Choose France event in Versailles. The figure covers development and deployment of the site over the 2025 to 2026 period, and the company says it makes PLD Space the first private operator to commit capital expenditure at this scale to the ELM-Diamant site at Europe’s historic spaceport.

Most of the money stays in France. Of the €35m total, €22m is being spent within the French industrial ecosystem, with €13m allocated directly to more than 20 companies based in French Guiana, including, the company says, a significant number of small and medium-sized firms. (6/1)

Blue Origin Launchpad Damaged in Rocket Explosion May Not Be Restored until 2028, NASA’s Isaacman Says (Source: CNBC)
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman on Monday told CNBC that it will “take some serious time” to restore the launchpad damaged last week by a Blue Origin rocket explosion. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin was conducting a hot-fire test of its massive New Glenn rocket on Thursday at a Space Force launch facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida, when the rocket erupted into a fireball. Bezos confirmed that all Blue Origin personnel were safe following the incident, and pledged to rebuild, while calling it a “very rough day.” (6/1)

Space Force Instagram Account Hijacked with Iranian Propaganda (Source: Washington Examiner)
On Sunday evening, the Instagram account of the chief master sergeant of the Space Force began pumping out pro-Iran propaganda in an apparent security breach at the Pentagon. The social media account of Space Force Chief Master Sergeant John F. Bentivegna, which has just over 1,000 followers, typically posts updates for the branch’s enlisted rank-and-file. Visitors on Sunday evening were instead met with graphics calling for America’s defeat in the monthslong conflict. (6/1)

Maritime Launch Services Details Next Phases of Spaceport Nova Scotia Construction (Source: SpaceQ)
Maritime Launch Services (MLS) and Spaceport Nova Scotia have had a good week, and a better month. Just a few days ago, MLS announced a new deal with Isar Aerospace, as well as announcing that it paid back the $5.03 million that it had owed on its EDC facility and had nearly $1 million in Q1 revenue. The vast majority of that revenue is driven by a $200 million agreement in which MLS is subleasing a portion of the Spaceport Nova Scotia site to the Department of National Defence (DND) for a dedicated launch pad. (6/1)

AstroX And JAXA To Test Rocket Stabilization For Balloon Launch System (Source: Aviation Week)
Japanese startup AstroX and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plan to conduct a joint stratospheric flight demonstration of an attitude control system to stabilize and orient a rocket suspended from a high-altitude balloon. AstroX plans to develop a low-cost space transportation service. Launching from the upper stratosphere means the rocket skips the densest parts of Earth's atmosphere, drastically cutting air resistance and fuel requirements. (6/1)

NASA Johnson Space Center Prepares For Upgrades (Source: Aviation Week)
NASA's Johnson Space Center awarded a Multiple Award Construction Contract (JMACC) to seven companies, providing up to $300 million for infrastructure improvements. The IDIQ awards fund facility projects to sustain astronaut crew training, engineering development, and mission readiness. Contract awardees include Coho Construction Management; Conti Federal Services; Healtheon, Inc.; HITT Contracting, Inc.; Ross Group Construction Corporation; Energy EPC Solutions; and Sauer Construction. (6/1)

Northrop Grumman Targets Next Year For On-Orbit SBI “Capability” (Source: Defense Daily)
Northrop Grumman is to have space-based interceptors for Golden Dome on orbit, at least at the demonstration level, by next year–a year earlier than the White House’s goal, the company said on Monday. (6/1)

France to Fly Two Astronauts on Vast Missions (Source: Space News)
Commercial space station developer Vast has reached an agreement with the French government to fly two French astronauts on its missions, including the first flight to its Haven-1 space station. Vast announced June 1 an agreement to fly a French astronaut on the company’s first private astronaut mission to the International Space Station and another on the first flight to Haven-1. (6/2)

National Security Launch Schedule Not Likely Impacted by New Glenn Disaster (Source: Breaking Defense)
The May 28 explosion on the test pad of Blue Origin’s New Glenn heavy lifter at Cape Canaveral is unlikely to have an impact on the Space Force’s national security launch schedule, industry officials and experts said. (6/2)

NASA Strives To Expand Commercial Satellite Data Relay Capabilities (Source: Aviation Week0
NASA officially abandoned the "core module" concept for the ISS transition, deciding instead to proceed with its original Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) strategy. The decision came after extensive industry feedback and sharp criticism from private companies, who argued the government-owned core module would derail years of their standalone station designs.

NASA had briefly floated the revised concept in March 2026, which would have required commercial stations to initially attach to a government-owned module on the ISS and detach later. Station developers argued this would force them to undergo expensive, unnecessary ISS docking certifications and render their current free-flying designs obsolete.

After reviewing industry concerns, NASA concluded that companies are capable of creating a sustainable commercial market on their own. The agency confirmed it will continue supporting U.S. industry design and demonstration through flexible milestones and Space Act Agreements. (6/2)

Orbex Officially Shuts Down (Source: Northern Times)
The company behind the Sutherland Spaceport project is to be closed down as part of a proposed sale involving parts of collapsed rocket firm Orbex. The joint administrators for Orbex say a deal involving assets linked to the spaceport is at an advanced stage. Because the transaction is structured as a sale of assets rather than a sale of the company, Sutherland Spaceport Limited (SSL) will be placed into liquidation. (6/1)

Ark-Like Barge Will Haul SpaceX Starships to Florida (Source: San Antonio Express-News)
The craft dubbed ‘You’ll Thank Me Later’ is now at Port of Brownsville. A black barge with a white tent that recently floated into a South Texas port has SpaceX watchers excited about the prospect of Starship taking to the seas. The retrofitted barge Marmac 31, nicknamed “You’ll Thank Me Later” by Elon Musk’s space firm, arrived at the Port of Brownsville last week. It will be used to carry Starship megarockets built at Starbase to Florida and eventually other destinations. (6/1)

Artemis and the Blue Micromoon (Source: Space Review)
Last week NASA outlined initial plans for developing a lunar base, awarding contracts for rovers and the landers that would deliver them. Jeff Foust reports those plans faced an immediate challenge after the explosion of New Glenn, a rocket that plays a key role in that effort. Click here. (6/2)
 
Big Badaboom: the Effects of a Saturn V Launch Pad Explosion (Source: Space Review)
The New Glenn pad explosion is the biggest of its kind, but NASA previously studied larger explosions. Dwayne Day explores NASA studies from the 1960s to understand what would happen if a Saturn V had a bad day. Click here. (6/2)
 
Debris with Telemetry: the Cyber Pathway to Kessler (Source: Space Review)
Many satellite operators worry about debris from accidental collisions or antisatellite weapons tests. Daniel Morgan says an underappreciated debris threat comes from a type of cyberattack. Click here. (6/2)
 
Lost and Found on the Pacific Floor: the Nimbus SNAP-19 Nuclear Generators (Source: Space Review)
In 1968, a launch failure caused a nuclear power source to fall into the ocean off the California coast. Dwayne Day recounts the efforts to recover that nuclear power source. Click here. (6/2)
 
The “Public” in Public Space Agency (Source: Space Review)
Many hailed the success of the Artemis 2 mission as a key technical step in returning humans to the Moon. Alex Li said it also played an important cultural role, something only a space agency can do. Click here. (6/2)

First Sentinel ICBM Flight Test Expected in 2027, Says Northrop Grumman (Source: Aerospace America)
The U.S. Air Force’s next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile, dubbed Sentinel, is now expected to begin pad launch testing in 2027, “which is earlier than we had anticipated,” according to Northop Grumman’s CEO. The Sentinels are intended to replace the aging Minuteman III ICBMs, which have been in use for over 50 years, but the program has long been delayed. A February report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office estimated the missile’s first flight would occur in March 2028, about a four-year delay from the original schedule. (5/28)

Before it Comes Down, What Should be Saved From the International Space Station? (Source: Ars Technica)
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on Thursday hosted a three-part panel discussion, bringing together space program officials, museum curators, an archeologist, and an astronaut to begin answering the why, what, and how the ISS might be saved. The sessions were part of the AIAA ASCEND conference in Washington, DC. “The cupola has long held a fascination with people,” said Levasseur. “Obviously, bringing it back may not be the best answer, but how can we preserve that view is a really important one, because it is such a cherished view.”

“I think everybody’s mentioned the [galley] table—that’s a really obvious thing—but I was also thinking of the physical library of books on board the ISS in all of the languages that are spoken by crew members—certainly Russian and English,” he said. “I think it would be great to bring some or all of that back. What is returned from the ISS will ultimately be limited by how much room is available on the dwindling number of vehicles set to land, with cargo remaining in the program. If the space station is de-orbited in 2030, as currently planned and agreed upon by all partners, the last significant down-mass availability will be three years from now. (5/22)

NASA’s Moon Base Plans Put Huntsville at Center of Lunar Future (Source: YellowHammer)
For Huntsville, the Artemis plans further cement the region's growing role at the center of America’s return to deep space exploration. NASA Marshall Space Flight Center is expected to remain one of the agency’s primary hubs for the Moon Base initiative, particularly through its leadership of NASA’s Human Landing System program.

Marshall manages major contracts tied to lunar landers and surface systems, including oversight of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon vehicles and other Artemis-era landing technologies. The Huntsville center also operates specialized engineering and mission support facilities designed to monitor lunar landing systems, payload integration and surface operations. Marshall engineers are additionally involved in fabrication and systems integration work supporting upcoming Artemis missions. (5/31)

Italy Turns to Tall Ship to Simulate Stresses of Long-Duration Spaceflight (Source: European Spaceflight)
The Italian Space Agency (ASI) has enlisted students from the country’s Naval Academy aboard a tall ship to examine how the human body responds to the stresses of long-duration spaceflight as part of its ICE-Blue initiative. In 2024, ASI signed an Operational Agreement with the Italian Navy, under which the ICE-BLUE initiative was launched in 2025. The decidedly tortured acronym stands for Isolation and Confinement Environment study in suBmariners and alliance crew as space anaLogues and microbial characterization of arctic sUb-surface Environments. (5/31)

Space Command Leaving, Space Force Expanding Significantly in Colorado (Source: KOAA)
lthough Space Command is leaving, the Space Force is expected to double in size in the next five years. Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and Congressman Jeff Crank held a joint press conference on Friday to announce major expansion plans at Schriever Space Force Base. Those plans include the addition of a $250 million space operations facility to help train in Space Force defense.

Congressman Crank said this facility alone will support 2,500 civilian jobs, but it all depends on Congress approving President Trump's budget proposal. Congressman Crank said Congress will start work on President Trump's budget proposal next week. (5/29)

The SpaceX IPO is Great for Elon Musk and Terrible for You (Source: The Verge)
I haven’t seen anything as stupid as the WeWork IPO document in a very long time — that is, until Elon Musk filed to take SpaceX public. WeWork was a joke. SpaceX is a threat. And if Musk and his bankers have their way, you are going to be their bagholder. Lots of the top-line details leaked long before the S-1 filing itself became public. There’s the rumored valuation of more than $1 trillion.

That’s despite the nearly $5 billion in losses last year. The total addressable market (TAM) for SpaceX — the amount of revenue SpaceX thinks it could make if it won over what it thinks is its entire customer base — was listed as $28.5 trillion. By way of comparison, the gross domestic product of the US as a whole was a hair over $24 trillion. This is absurd nonsense, but it might not matter.

Musk is the original financial influencer, and his struggling electric car company, Tesla, trades at more than 300 times earnings. Tesla is a meme stock, and SpaceX is poised to be the next one. Never mind that it is basically a space company plus an AI company plus a social network — a meme stock doesn’t have to make sense. Musk knows that his strength is the cult of losers who worship him. That’s why 30 percent of the IPO is reserved for retail investors. (5/30)

Commercial Space Is Generating Signals Decision-Makers Cannot Hear (Source: Payload)
Parts of the space industry are generating huge amounts of data—but that data isn’t reaching decision-makers for the future space economy. Open eyes: Launch cadences, debris accumulation rates, reusing hardware, conjunction events—the commercial sector is generating more operational signals than any previous era of space activity. However, the mechanism that decides whether a signal reaches a decision-maker or disappears into the background noise is broken. (6/1)

China Conducts Surprise Launch of Long March 12B, Delivers Qianfan Satellites on Debut Flight (Source: Space News)
China conducted the maiden launch of its reusable Long March 12B rocket Monday, providing no advance warning and delivering operational payloads to orbit. The first Long March 12B lifted off from the Dongfeng Commercial Aerospace Innovation Test Zone at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert.

The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the country’s state-owned main space contractor, announced launch success within an hour of liftoff, revealing that the debut launch had carried operational payloads, adding satellites to the Shanghai-led Qianfan (Thousand Sails) broadband megaconstellation. (6/1)

New Glenn Failure Worsens Constrained Launch Market (Source: Space News)
The explosion of a New Glenn rocket has generated reverberations across the space industry as companies and government agencies address the loss of access to the vehicle for potentially a year or more. (6/1)

Business Finland OKs $33M Grant to Iceye for Expanded Radar Satellite Production and R&D Into Optical, RF Monitoring (Source: Space Intel Report)
Fast-growing radar satellite constellation builder/operator Iceye Oy received a "continuation grant" of 28.3 million euros ($33 million) from Business Finland, the public innovation agency, to boost manufacturing capability and R&D expansion into optical and radio-frequency sensors and high-altitude platforms. The decision follows an initial grant and loan package agreed to in June 2025. Iceye, which has launched 72 satellites since 2018, said it is now producing satellites at a rate of one per week. (6/1)

Germany's Marble Imaging Pushes Into Asia with Taiwan MoU and Japan EO Partnership (Source: Spacewatch Global)
German Earth observation newcomer Marble Imaging is expanding into the Indo-Pacific, signing a memorandum of understanding with Taiwan’s National Taiwan Ocean University (NTOU) and opening a new chapter in Japan alongside established operator Japan Space Imaging (JSI).

The NTOU agreement sets a framework for cooperation in maritime applications, EO-based analytics and future use cases, and underlines Marble’s intent to build long-term institutional partnerships on the island. To support the push, the company has placed a business development manager in Taiwan and says it will grow its regional presence step by step, working with local industry and academic partners. (6/1)

Why Portugal is Reaching for the Stars (Source: DW.com)
Imagine rockets being launched from the Azores, an archipelago out in the Atlantic Ocean, carrying Portuguese-built satellites into space — and then picture reusable space capsules returning to base. While this may sound like a rather futuristic scenario, elements of it could soon become reality. Portugal, after all, is working hard to become a spacefaring nation, with the help of its many highly skilled engineers and EU cooperation.

Indeed, Portugal is presently building a spaceport on the sleepy Azores island of Santa Maria. "This will be a big deal," Ivo Vieira of space industry group AED Cluster Portugal tells DW. "The European Space Rider spaceplane is even slated to land there in 2028." It will float down on huge parachutes and land right beside the old runway, which was once built by the Americans during World War II and is now barely ever used. Vieira says a rocket launch is planned for 2030, which will send "a South Korean satellite into orbit." (5/31)

SpaceX Vow To Loft 1 Million AI Satellites Could Spark Doomsday Dive (Source: Forbes)
Elon Musk’s plan to begin launching one million AI data center satellites into orbit in 2028 could trigger a financial catastrophe, sending SpaceX into a high-speed nosedive, say leading North American space scholars. In what could be viewed as a precursor project, SpaceX has already lofted 10,000 Starlink broadband-beaming satellites, with each spacecraft costing US$2 million to build and launch, says Robert Zubrin, one of the world’s top rocket designers.

Using the same SpaceX spacecraft assembly and launch systems to lift one million AI satellites into low Earth orbit could cost roughly $2 trillion, or the entire projected valuation of the world-leading spacecraft outfit following its upcoming initial public offering (IPO) of shares. (5/31)

China's Space Station Lands New Batch of Samples for Experiments (Source: Xinhua)
A total of approximately 41.14 kg of scientific samples from China's space station, spanning 23 experimental projects in life sciences, materials and combustion, successfully returned to Earth aboard the Shenzhou-22 spacecraft on Friday, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). It marks the tenth transfer of materials from China's orbiting laboratory.

Life science experiment samples, such as artificial embryos and brain organoids, were transported to the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization (CSU) under the CAS in Beijing on Saturday. After initial status checks, these specimens will be handed over to research teams for further study. The remaining samples will be transported to Beijing along with the Shenzhou-22 return capsule. (5/30)

Blue Origin Gets National Security Launch Task Order Hours Before New Glenn Explosion (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Space Force said May 29 it awarded Blue Origin a task order to launch a mission for the National Reconnaissance Office, and reaffirmed government support for the company’s New Glenn rocket following a launchpad explosion May 28.  (5/30)

Exoplanet Count Could Top 100,000 Soon (Source: Space Daily)
The official tally of confirmed planets outside our solar system, maintained by NASA’s Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech, has passed 6,000. The agency announced the milestone through the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on 17 September 2025, noting that confirmed planets are added on a rolling basis by researchers around the world, so no single discovery is the 6,000th entry. More than 8,000 additional candidate planets are sitting in the queue awaiting confirmation.

The number that gets more attention from the people running the archive is not 6,000. It is 100,000. Jessie Christiansen, the archive’s chief scientist, has told Scientific American that the catalogue could reach roughly that figure within six to seven years, depending on when the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches and how the data from ESA’s Gaia mission flows through. (5/27)

Rocket Lab Wins Key $816 Million SDA Role As Valuation Risk Grows (Source: Simply Wall Street)
Rocket Lab successfully passed the System Requirements Review (SRR) for the U.S. Space Development Agency's (SDA) Tracking Layer Tranche 3 program, cementing its role as a prime contractor for an $816 million missile-defense satellite contract while simultaneously navigating high-valuation scrutiny from financial analysts. (5/29)

AST SpaceMobile Plunges 17%, Planet Labs Drops 8% on Blue Origin Explosion, While Virgin Galactic Surges 11% (Source: 24/7 Wall Street)
AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) stock dropped 17% to $111 after Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded during a hotfire test, though ASTS uses SpaceX Falcon 9 as its primary launch provider with a BlueBird 8-10 mission targeted for mid-June.

Planet Labs (PL) stock fell 8% to $47.50 as commercial launch capacity tightening raised constellation refresh risk, while Rocket Lab (RKLB) stock slipped 6% to $139 though the company could eventually benefit from extended New Glenn grounding. Virgin Galactic (SPCE) stock rallied 11% to $5 as traders positioned for a customer shift from Blue Origin’s grounded New Shepard tourism program. (5/29)

Commercial Space Just Crossed $500 Billion in Backlog and These 3 ETFs Own the Pure Play Names (Source: 24/7 Wall Street)
Procure Space ETF (UFO) is the highest-purity commercial space bet, tracking the S-Network Space Index weighted by space revenue share and up 75% year-to-date with $1.32B in assets; ARK Space & Defense Innovation ETF (ARKX) offers active management across 35-50 names with a 0.75% expense ratio and is up 28% year-to-date; SPDR S&P Kensho Final Frontiers ETF (ROKT) uses equal-weighting across space and deep-sea exploration at a 0.45% fee and has returned 58% year-to-date.

The commercial space sector has surpassed $500 billion in market value, with SpaceX filing its S-1 in May 2026 and Rocket Lab preparing for a fourth-quarter launch of its Neutron rocket, driving satellite operators and launch providers to build multi-year order backlogs. (6/1)

Can Solar Sails Really Send Humans Into Interstellar Space? (Source: Space.com)
So far, solar sails have seen only a handful of proof-of-concept flights (including a flight to Venus), experiments and simulations in labs around the world, and some very ambitious mission concepts. But a recent study by Imperial College London engineer Debdut Sengupta and his colleagues found that solar sails could carry spaceships to the edge of our solar system within the next 10 or 20 years. (5/30)

SpaceX Skeptics Have Added Reason for Concern After Musk Comments Diverge From IPO Filing (Source: CNBC)
In a post on X, Elon Musk offered details about SpaceX’s deal with Anthropic that weren’t included in the company’s IPO prospectus. The discrepancy creates another hurdle for Musk as he attempts to take his cash-burning company public in a record IPO. “It’s confusing to investors who are trying (best they can) to put a valuation on SpaceX,” Eric Talley, a professor at Columbia Law School, wrote in an email. (5/29)

Study Finds LEO Point Where Atmosphere Starts Pulling Satellites Down (Source: Space Daily)
Solar Cycle 25 has already reached its solar maximum period, and a new long-term study of orbital debris points to a practical warning for the satellite age: once sunspot numbers climb past roughly two-thirds to three-quarters of a cycle’s peak, debris in low Earth orbit can begin losing altitude much faster due to a fattened atmosphere..

A study published in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences analyzed 17 low-Earth-orbit debris objects across solar cycles 22, 23 and 24, using more than 36 years of two-line element data, sunspot numbers, F10.7 radio flux and EUV flux. The authors found that decay rates rose sharply when sunspot numbers exceeded about 67% to 75% of the cycle peak. (5/26

SPACECOM Exploring Tech for Future Offensive Cislunar Ops (Source: Breaking Defense)
Developing capabilities for operations in cislunar space, including offensive space control, is among the top new science and technology (S&T) priorities for US Space Command (SPACECOM), according to the command’s top scientist. David Denhard, SPACECOM’s chief scientist and technical advisor, said operations beyond geosynchronous Earth orbit (xGEO) are on the command’s “what’s hot for tomorrow” list of S&T activities he approved earlier this month.

“Cislunar and xGEO is important to us,” Denhard said. US doctrinal publications define space control as including both defensive and offensive operations, and the Space Force’s April 2025 warfighting framework further explains that the concept includes waging orbital, electronic and cyber warfare. (5/29)

SpaceX Launched 50th Starlink Mission of 2026 Last Week From California (Source: Spaceflight Now)
SpaceX launched its 50th dedicated Starlink mission of 2026 with a Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Saturday morning. The Starlink 17-41 mission added another 24 broadband internet satellites to the company’s low Earth orbit constellation. It consists of more than 10,000 spacecraft in orbit. Liftoff happened from Space Launch Complex 4 East. (5/30)

Lockheed Martin Hits Jackpot as Defense Spending Stays Strong (Source: The Street)
Six nations. One training system. A contract that runs to 2031. And it is only one of two awards Lockheed Martin secured in a single day. The Pentagon’s May 28 contract announcements add another layer to what has become one of the most sustained defense award cycles Lockheed Martin has seen in years. (5/30)

Blue Origin Faces Months of Delays, Massive Costs After New Glenn Explosion (Source: Orlando Business Journal)
Blue Origin faces months of delays, massive costs after New Glenn explosion. Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket explosion during a May 28 test will delay projects months to a year and cost hundreds of millions, experts said. (529)

Roasting in Space (Source: New Electronics)
The big problem facing anyone aiming to put more computing in space lies in the yawning gap between the conditions for which commercial-grade processors are designed and what they will face, even just a few hundred kilometers above the surface of Earth.

The problems encountered last year after a software update led to the grounding of 6000 Airbus aircraft showed how easy it is to miscalculate robustness even in systems designed to handle the radiation levels encountered just 30km above sea level. Though elevated, they are nowhere near the levels encountered closer to the particle-traps of the van Allen belts hundreds of kilometers higher up. (5/26)