May 16, 2026

ULA To Prep Future Vulcan Launch for Amazon Despite Rocket Investigation (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
United Launch Alliance is running short on usable hardware this year, having to rely on its dwindling supply of Atlas V rockets while it continues an investigation into what went wrong on the last launch of its successor rocket Vulcan. Its next two launches will be the final Atlas V rockets set aside for commercial customer Amazon.

While Vulcan’s recent launches suffered solid rocket motor problems, its powerful Blue Origin-built BE-4 engines were able to compensate on both missions and get their payloads to orbit. The most recent flight, which was a national security mission, led the Space Force to declare it would no longer launch on Vulcan rockets until the booster issue was solved. ULA isn’t sitting idle, though, and has begun to prepare for its first Vulcan rocket set aside for Amazon. The company had already built out a second vertical integration facility that was meant to be a dedicated space to prepare commercial missions at SLC-41, while the original integration facility would be set aside for national security missions. (5/13)

ICEYE Hands Over POLSARIS SAR Satellite Constellation to Poland in Under a Year (Source: AeroTime)
Finnish space technology firm ICEYE has handed over a four-satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) reconnaissance constellation to the Polish armed forces, less than 12 months after contract signature. The company has described this as the fastest operational deployment of a satellite program on record.

The system, built under the MikroSAR program and operationally designated POLSARIS (Polish SAR Intelligence System), was transferred to Poland’s Geospatial Reconnaissance and Satellite Services Agency (ARGUS) on May 15, 2026. The contract with Poland’s Ministry of National Defense, worth approximately €200 million, was signed in May 2025. (5/15)

Avio CEO: Europe Should Invest in Current Rockets To Meet Surging Demand Instead of Years-Long Work on Startups (Source: Space Intel Report)
Orbital rocket and tactical defense propulsion hardware manufacturer Avio reported a 19% increase in revenue and a 30% increase in EBITDA for the three months ending March 31 as both its space and defense businesses continued their growth. Italy-based Avio, which is prime contractor for Europe’s medium-lift Vega C rocket and a supplier of the heavy-lift Ariane 6 rocket’s strap-on boosters, is benefiting from its decision to build a solid-propulsion missile facility in the United States. The company argues that investing in operational, existing technology provides immediate solutions rather than waiting years for new European space startups to mature. (5/15)

AST SpaceMobile Inundates Investors With its Legitimate Achievements, but Launch Contracts Matter Most Now (Source: Space Intel Report)
With direct-to-device broadband startup AST SpaceMobile, raising cash for a multibillion-dollar network, aligning terrestrial spectrum from mobile network operators (MNOs) with future satellite spectrum and deploying each satellite’s 223-square-meter antenna in low Earth orbit — all of them legitimate achievements — must be set aside to focus on whether the company has contracted enough rockets to meet its goal of having 45 satellites in orbit by the end of this year. (5/14)

ESA Opens €16 Million Call for Suborbital Launch Campaign (Source: European Spaceflight)
The European Space Agency has opened a call for the design, development, manufacture, launch, and recovery of five scientific experiments aboard one or more sounding rockets in 2027 or 2028. The call has a maximum budget of €16 million. Initially announced in March and opened for proposals on 13 May, the call covers five experiments selected through ESA’s Exploration Science Announcement of Opportunity for Sounding Rocket Experiments, which was opened for proposals in March 2025. (5/14)

Blue Origin’s Latest Success Left its Biggest Rocket Grounded (Source: Seattle Times)
“The challenge of their approach, where they do everything slowly … there’s not a lot of opportunity for failure,” Anderson said. “We don’t know how long they’re going to be grounded or how long it’s going to take to get to the bottom of this.” But the delay likely won’t lead to any lost customers, thanks to a massive supply and demand imbalance in the industry, space consultants and analysts told The Seattle Times. There are only a handful of rocket companies able to deliver payloads to space and nearly all of them have experienced recent setbacks. (5/14)

TransAstra and U.S. Air Force Academy Sign Agreement to Advance Asteroid Mining for Dynamic Space Operations (Source: TransAstra)
Trans Astronautica Corporation announced the execution of a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the United States Air Force Academy Dean of Faculty (USAFA/DF). The two-year agreement establishes a joint research program to advance technologies for finding, capturing, and processing asteroids to enable U.S. space dominance and support U.S. Space Force Space Domain Awareness and Space Mobility and Logistics objectives. (5/14)

Musk’s Iron Grip on SpaceX Alarms Investors (Source: Telegraph)
US pension funds controlling more than $1 trillion of investments have raised concerns about the “extreme” levels of control Elon Musk will exert on SpaceX after the rocket business goes public. The leaders of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the public pension systems of both New York state and New York city have written to Mr. Musk urging him to “at least adhere to the baseline protections” for investors.

The outspoken billionaire is poised to launch a stock market float of his SpaceX empire in the coming weeks, valuing the rocket and AI business at as much as $1.75tn. The deal will hand Mr. Musk significant levels of authority, including the power to block his own removal as chief executive. US regulatory filings also showed that the world’s richest person increased his voting control of SpaceX in the wake of its $1.25tn merger with his xAI lab. He now controls 84pc of the company’s voting rights. (5/14)

Truck Driver Sues SpaceX After Being ‘Doused in Liquid Methane’ (Source: San Antonio Express News)
A lawsuit filed recently in McLennan County alleges negligence against Elon Musk’s space firm over a June 2024 mishap in which a tanker truck driver was “doused in liquid methane” while off-loading fuel into SpaceX’s tanks. Thaddeus Barideaux, of Tarrant County, was delivering liquid natural gas when SpaceX’s “equipment malfunctioned” and soaked him with no warning, causing “serious bodily injuries, including chemical burns,” according to the lawsuit. Barideaux was working for Applied Natural Gas Fuels Inc. and has since “undergone months of medical treatment and continues to suffer from permanent scarring and nerve damage,” it said. (5/14)

Space Leaders Worldwide May Fight SpaceX Lofting 1 Million Satellites (Source: Forbes)
If the FAA even hinted it might approve the lift-off of a million-strong SpaceX mega-constellation, “I would expect immediate and very strong objections from satellite operators, astronomers, insurers, national space agencies, defense organizations, and foreign governments,” says Brian Hurley, a world-leading expert who chronicles the rapid-fire expansion of the modern space sector, and its rippling effects across the spheres of national security and international affairs.

“The objections would not only come from China and Russia,” says Hurley, founder of the influential think tank New Space Economy, which also publishes a digital magazine. “They would likely come from U.S. and European operators too, because the risk is not contained inside the company proposing the system.” (5/14)

Ukraine Launches its Own Satellites (Source: RBC)
Ukraine has begun deploying its own satellite network. The first two satellites are already in orbit, said Denys Shtilierman, co-founder and chief designer of Fire Point. According to him, developers plan to launch dozens more satellites into space as early as 2027, which will allow Ukraine to rely less on the US and private Western corporations. The impetus for the rapid development of Ukrainian technology was last year’s conflict in the Oval Office between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. At that time, Washington blocked the transfer of intelligence data to Kyiv for a week. (5/14)

$6 Billion Slated for NASA Projects Managed by Marshall Space Flight Center (Source: AL.com)
More than $6 billion may be on the way to NASA for programs managed by Huntsville’s Marshall Space Flight Center, U.S. Rep. Dale Strong, R-AL, announced this week. The funding is included in the Fiscal Year 2027 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies appropriations bill. It also includes provisions for the FBI’s mission at Redstone Arsenal. (5/14)

Canadian Astronomy Looks to Europe and Invests in the World’s Largest Telescope (Source: UdeM)
The European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) now under construction in Chile will soon be the most powerful optical and infrared telescope ever built — and Canada will have a major role in its development. To that end, scientists led by teams at Université de Montréal, the Mont-Mégantic Observatory (OMM), and the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets (IREx) in partnership with the University of British Columbia have been awarded a federal grant of close to $11.3 million.

Canada is not currently a member of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the organization building and operating the ELT. However, through the CFI's investment in ANDES, Canadian astronomers will gain guaranteed access to the telescope, something that would otherwise not be possible. (5/15)

Satellite Launch Pollution Rapidly Accumulating in the Upper Atmosphere (Source: UCL)
The potent pollution from so-called “megaconstellation” satellite systems launched en masse into space since 2019 will account for nearly half (42%) of the total climate impact of space sector pollution by the end of the decade, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The research team examined air pollution produced by the growing number of rocket launches, and the discarded rocket bodies and dead satellites falling back to Earth. The black carbon (soot) generated from these sources lingers in the upper atmosphere far longer than that from ground-based sources, resulting in a 500-fold greater impact on the climate. (5/14)

The Next Quantum Revolution May Require a Helium ‘Gold Rush’ on the Moon (Source: Scientific American)
Scientists estimate that somewhere on the order of a billion kilograms of helium-3 are lacquered onto the lunar surface. So the moon-based mining of helium-3 could, it seems, someday become a multitrillion-dollar industry. All this sets helium-3 apart from another much ballyhooed lunar resource: water ice, found in some of the moon’s deepest, darkest craters. But lunar water has little use on Earth. So “helium-3 is where the money is,” says Clive Neal.

That’s assuming there’s actually enough of it accessible on the moon to be profitably extracted. “Once you’ve proven you can do it, then you have to scale it, which has its own challenges,” says Paul van Susante. Helium-3 isn’t guaranteed to stick around on anything it strikes, but the moon that is relatively rich with ilmenite—a mineral made of iron, titanium and oxygen with a physical structure that acts like a trap for the gas. “Ilmenite is like a sponge. It holds onto the solar-wind-implanted species better than any other mineral on the moon,” Neal says. That means prospecting for lunar helium-3 starts by simply making mineralogical maps of the moon’s surface.

As straightforward as finding helium-3 might be, extracting it could prove much harder. “It’s like trying to mine spray paint from a wall,” Russell says. Similar to how cosmic impacts can agitate and heat lunar regolith to liberate trapped particles from the solar wind, machines can do much the same. “You then have to separate the helium-3 from the other stuff, which is nontrivial,” van Susante says. And then you must send it safely back to Earth. As of yet, though, no one has demonstrated (or even attempted) helium-3 extraction on the moon. That’s the top priority of several space resource companies, including Seattle-based Interlune, founded in 2020. (5/14)

Harrison Ford Not a Fan of Space Spending (Source: Telegraph)
Ford, who played Han Solo in Star Wars, has revealed he hates how much money is invested in space exploration. The American actor, 83, said instead of spending billions on space projects, we should focus on the one planet that already has “developed societies and hundreds of languages”, Earth. Ford has long been known for his environmental efforts off-screen. He claimed “we are wasting money going to space” after NASA unveiled plans to build a permanent base on the moon. (5/15)

Three’s a Party: US, China, and Now Russia are on the Prowl in GEO (Source: Ars Technica)
The world’s leading space powers desperately want to know what the others are up to high above the equator. For more than a decade, the US military has operated a fleet of “inspector” satellites designed to sidle up to other spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit and take pictures. China started launching its satellites for a similar mission in 2018. Until now, Russia’s spying in geosynchronous orbit has primarily focused on eavesdropping on foreign communications.

A new kind of Russian satellite is now in the mix. This satellite, officially known as Kosmos 2589, was launched in June 2025 into a highly elliptical orbit alongside a smaller spacecraft designated Kosmos 2590. The two satellites performed a series of high-altitude rendezvous and proximity operations with one another before Kosmos 2589 began moving toward a more circular geosynchronous orbit, where it arrived in April. One of the US military’s GSSAP satellites was waiting for it. The US inspector spacecraft is now looping around Kosmos 2589, swinging near the newly arrived Russian satellite twice per day. (5/15)

Canada's Accelerates Budget Timeline Pressures Space Requests (Source: SpaceQ)
The Canadian space sector has just over a week to finalize its federal funding suggestions, following a scheduling shift in the government’s annual pre-budget consultation process. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) is currently accepting written briefs for the 2026 federal budget for the 2027-28 fiscal year. However, to align with the new fall budgeting cycle introduced in 2025, the committee has accelerated its timeline, moving the consultation period to the spring. The deadline for submissions is now Friday, May 22. (5/14)

SpaceX Launches CRS-34 ISS Cargo Mission from Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Sources: Florida Today, NASA)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport on May 15. The 34th SpaceX commercial resupply mission carried new scientific experiments and 6,500 pounds of cargo for the space station’s Expedition 74 crew. (5/15)

Customizable Drinks Could Provide Essential Nutrients During Space Missions (Source: ACS)
High-resistance exercises can help mitigate astronaut bone loss, but so can incorporating nutrient-enriched foods into the astronauts’ diets. “Fortified beverage emulsions could potentially help there, especially when providing nutrients at levels not met by normal nutrition,” says Schmidt. “We suggested omega-3 fatty acids to help protect against space radiation and increase the bone formation rate.” (5/15)

NASA Administrator Cuts Ribbon on New Training Complex at U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Alabama (Source: Fox54)
A new chapter for Space Camp is officially taking off! The U.S. Space and Rocket Center cut the ribbon on the news Inspiration4 Skills Training Complex on Friday — a massive new facility designed to help train and inspire the next generation of explorers. The complex adds nearly 50,000 square feet of new training space to the USSRC. (5/15)

NASA Kicks Off Mars Telecom Network Competition (Source: Aviation Week)
NASA has formally kicked off the competition to meet its Mars Telecommunications Network spacecraft requirement with delivery by the end of 2028. The agency has issued the long-expected request for proposal to develop a system to deliver robust and continuous communications between Earth and systems on Mars. (5/15)

Fluffy Ice Could Imperil Spacecraft Landings on Ocean Moons (Source: Science)
When water erupts on the ocean moons of Jupiter and Saturn, it could freeze into fluffy ice with the texture of a croissant, presenting a hazard for future lander missions. That’s the conclusion of a vacuum chamber experiment presented last week. The work shows water freezing into brittle, layered sheets 20 centimeters thick. In the low-gravity environment of Jupiter’s moon Europa, that would translate to fluffy ice several meters thick. (5/13)

SpaceX’s $75bn IPO Has Twenty-One Underwriters, Zero Are European (Source: European Business)
The offering will raise up to $75 billion — roughly three times the size of the previous record holder, Saudi Aramco’s 2019 listing — and is being run by a syndicate of twenty-one underwriters led by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. Up to 30% of shares will be allocated to retail investors, three times the standard for a deal of this size. Roadshow begins the week of June 8, with a retail investor event for 1,500 attendees on June 11.

Not a single European bank is in the syndicate. No Barclays, no Deutsche Bank, no BNP Paribas, no UBS, no Santander, no HSBC. The largest equity raise in financial history is being structured, syndicated and distributed without European participation at the bookrunner or co-manager level — and European institutional investors will have to buy SpaceX stock at a premium in the secondary market from the US clients who got the IPO allocation first. (5/15)