June 22, 2026

‘Space Gun’ Startup Hopes to Offer Affordable Hypersonic Weapon Testing (Source: Aerospace America)
Executives at Longshot Space Technologies typically pitch the company as an alternative launch provider building a “space gun” to shoot payloads into orbit. However, upcoming tests of its launcher will further a different application: hypersonics testing. Longshot plans to build increasingly large multi-injection guns, or light gas guns. Depending on the size of these tube-shaped launchers, payloads could be fired at hypersonic speeds for military target practice or — theoretically — at high enough speeds to reach low-Earth orbit. (6/19)

SpaceX's Falcon 9 Rocket Just Had Its Invisible Pollution Studied For The First Time Ever (Source: BGR)
In February of 2025, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket caused a bit of a public stir when its engine failed, causing an uncontrolled re-entry back to Earth. It was supposed to land in the Pacific Ocean, but instead, parts of Europe were pelted with rocket debris. There was even large debris landing within town limits in Poland, putting people at risk. This allowed a unique study of the atmospheric pollution the Falcon 9 rocket caused.

As the rocket broke apart in the atmosphere, it released a plume of lithium vapor that drifted more than 1,000 miles across the European continent. Scientists used the event as a unique opportunity to study how re-entering spacecraft can introduce pollutants into the upper atmosphere and potentially alter its chemical composition.

Researchers detected lithium levels about 10 times higher than normal in the upper atmosphere for about 20 hours after the Falcon 9 rocket re-entered over Europe. By modeling atmospheric winds, they were able to trace the lithium plume back to the rocket's flight path, providing what they say is the first direct evidence of upper-atmosphere pollution caused by re-entering space debris. The study was published in Nature in 2026. (6/21)

Rocket Launches are Set to Skyrocket Soon at Vandenberg SFB (Source: KMPH)
Vandenberg Space Force Base on California's Central Coast has been a quiet outpost for decades, averaging less than 10 rocket launches per year for almost the past 50 years. But that has changed big time in the past couple of years, and last year was their busiest year ever: 66 rocket launches. That trend will continue, as the Air Force authorized up to 100 launches per year from Vandenberg last October. Most of those will be a mid-sized rocket from Space-X - the Falcon 9. But Vandenberg now has authorization for up to 5 much bigger Falcon Heavy launches. (6/20)

French Labor Unions Demand CNES Cancel ISS & Vast Space Flights (Source: Douglas Messier)
Four labor unions are calling for CNES to cancel plans to send astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) and Vast Space’s commercial Haven-1 station as the French space agency faces €330 million in budget cuts.

“The surprise announcement of a contract (with a figure kept confidential) with the American start-up Vast—intended to support and finance a space tourism business model at the expense of the CNES’s [Corporate Social Responsibility] commitments, environmental concerns, science, and French industrial sovereignty—is unacceptable. Trade unions are demanding the cancellation of this arrangement and genuine consultation regarding the objectives and methods of French space exploration,” the CNES Joint Union Committee said in an announcement. (6/22)

Solid Rocket Motor Makers Open to Increased Production Commitments (Source: Space News)
Northrop Grumman said it and other companies are able to significantly increase production of solid rocket motors provided the government makes long-term procurement commitments. The Pentagon has warned that shortages of solid rocket motors could constrain plans to sharply increase missile production.

Manufacturers are responding to those concerns and are prepared to increase output, but annual appropriations and shorter-duration contracts make it difficult to make the long-term investments needed to support sustained growth. While the Pentagon has embraced multiyear authority for munitions contracts, Northrop noted that still depends on annual appropriations.

Editor's Note: Space Coast-based Vaya seeks to diversify its hybrid-motor space launch technology to address the need for missile motors. The company is designing versions of its hybrid motors for use in missiles. (6/22)

SpaceX Launches Sunday Starlink Mission From California (Source: Space.com)
SpaceX launched more Starlink satellites Sunday. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 12:39 p.m. Eastern carrying 24 Starlink satellites. The launch was the 33rd flight of this Falcon 9 booster, two short of the company's current record for Falcon 9 booster reuse. (6/22)

Roman Telescope Arrives in Florida for Launch (Source: Spaceflight Now)
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has arrived in Florida for launch preparations. A barge carrying Roman arrived at the Kennedy Space Center Sunday, about a week after leaving Baltimore. Roman will undergo final preparations at KSC for its launch on a Falcon Heavy rocket currently scheduled for as soon as Aug. 30. (6/22)

Blue Origin May Use Former Space Perspective Facility at Space Coast Airport (Source: Florida Today)
Blue Origin is interested in taking over a building in Florida that had been used by a stratospheric ballooning company. Blue Origin is in talks to purchase the 200-meter-long structure at Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville that had been used by Space Perspective to manufacture balloons. Space Perspective planned to fly capsules carrying tourists to altitudes of about 30 kilometers, but ran into financial problems last year. Airport officials did not disclose what Blue Origin was planning to use that building for. (6/22)

Northstar to Provide Space Surveillance for Canada's Military (Source: Northstar Earth and Space)
Northstar Earth and Space won a contract to provide space surveillance services for the Canadian military. The company announced last week an award from the Royal Canadian Air Force's 3 Canadian Space Division worth 40 million dollars Canadian ($28.2 million) to provide space surveillance capabilities for the next 12 months. The Montréal-based company announced plans in April to go public through a SPAC merger. (6/22)

Flyby Provides Details on Donaldjohanson Asteroid (Source: Scientific American)
Observations by a NASA spacecraft revealed the unusual nature of a main-belt asteroid. A paper published last week summarized observations made by NASA's Lucy spacecraft when it flew by the asteroid Donaldjohanson in April 2025. The asteroid has two lobes connected by a "neck" of material with few large craters. Planetary scientists believe Donaldjohanson formed about 155 million years ago from debris when a larger asteroid shattered in a collision. The lack of craters in the neck connecting the lobes may be linked to landslides as the asteroid's rotation period slowed. Lucy flew by Donaldjohanson on its way to study Trojan asteroids that lead and follow Jupiter in its orbit. (6/22)

ESA Astronaut Tests European Spacesuit Prototype Aboard ISS (Source: European Spaceflight)
ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot has tested a European intravehicular activity (IVA) spacesuit prototype aboard the ISS. In addition to testing in space, a second prototype has undergone a water survival test campaign in Marseille. The EuroSuit project was initiated by the French space agency CNES in December 2023, with its development led by a consortium that includes Spartan Space, the Institute of Space Medicine and Physiology (MEDES), and sporting goods retailer Decathlon. (6/22)

Parker Solar Probe Flew Through Solar Corona and Found a Unpredicted Source of High-Energy Particles (Source: Space Daily)
When NASA’s Parker Solar Probe passed through the solar corona during perihelion encounters at the heliospheric current sheet, its instruments recorded energetic protons at energies far above what existing models of particle acceleration at that location could account for. The team identified magnetic reconnection at the heliospheric current sheet as the mechanism responsible. The proton energies detected were, in the study’s framing, approximately a thousand times greater than the available magnetic energy per particle that models of this process had predicted. (6/20)

Canada Acquires BAE Radar System to Monitor Arctic (Source: CBC)
In 2026, Canada finalized a $2.5-billion agreement with Australia and BAE Systems Australia for the acquisition of the Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar system. Signed by Secretary of State Stephen Fuhr and Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, the deal reflects a collaborative approach under Canada's Defense Industrial Strategy. The agreement marks the first of two planned radar units, with the second to be located further north, and is part of a broader effort to improve Arctic surveillance and security. (6/21)

Microgravity Rounds the Heart (Source: Space Daily)
Spend long enough in orbit and your own body starts to change shape. With gravity no longer pulling on it in the usual way, an astronaut’s heart can grow slightly more spherical, and their spine can stretch enough that they return to Earth measurably taller than when they left. Both changes are real, both are temporary, and both come down to the same thing: a body built for gravity, briefly relieved of it. (6/21)

Selling Deeds for Moon Property (Source: Space Daily)
Dennis Hope walked into a county clerk’s office in 1980 and filed a claim of ownership over the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Io, and every other solid body in the solar system except Earth. He was broke, recently divorced, and driving a beat-up car when the idea hit him. Forty-five years later, his company Lunar Embassy has reportedly sold more than 2.5 million lunar deeds at around $20 to $30 an acre, to customers including three former U.S. presidents and a long list of Hollywood celebrities. Every one of those deeds is, under international law, worth precisely nothing. (6/19)