September 27, 2026

Deal Collapses to Use Boom Supersonic's Turbine Engines for AI Data Centers (Source: Tech Crunch)
Crusoe, a Denver-based AI data center startup that recently raised $3.9 billion, has ended plans to use a new line of stationary power plants developed by fellow Denver company Boom Supersonic. Founded in 2018 as a bitcoin miner that ran on excess natural gas from oil fields, Crusoe has since become one of the biggest builders of AI data centers, including a massive campus in Abilene, Texas, that supplies computing power to OpenAI.

Boom Supersonic, which is developing a supersonic passenger jet called Overture, launched a new business last year to sell a version of the engine it’s developing for that jet as natural gas-fired stationary power plants. Its Superpower turbine shares about 80% of the same parts with that airborne engine, called Symphony. Crusoe had signed on to be the first customer for this business, agreeing to spend $1.25 billion on 29 of Boom’s 42-megawatt Superpower turbines. The first deliveries were supposed to begin in 2027. But that deal has since fallen apart. (9/25)

New Calculus Emerges For Space Launch Economics (Source: Aviation Week)
As launch customers scramble to secure flight options for their payloads, rocket-makers say the business is changing for the long term. “Over the last few years, launch has been a race to the bottom in terms of price per kilogram, and I think that assumption—that that is how this model and market is going to work—is breaking right now,” says Michael Creech of Firefly.

More companies agree that the industry is hitting a turning point. “Price per kilogram has been a useful metric in the past, but I donʼt really think thatʼs what our customers are telling us,” said Blue Origin's Jordan Charles. Issues such as schedule dependability are gaining in importance, he added. “I think one assumption thatʼs going to prove wrong is that thereʼs only room for a few players in our industry,” Charles said. “We as an industry have to rethink how we fly” because launch demand will be so high, he contended. “We have to evolve how we launch rockets to be more like how we operate commercial airplanes out of airports.”

Northrop Grumman, which has teamed with Firefly on development of the Eclipse launch vehicle, echoed the sentiment. The key is to ensure the industry does not return to another race to the bottom, she said. Launch customers are looking at the next few years with some anxiety. While new entrants are arriving on the market, mission setbacks have delayed or sidelined several systems. Satellite operators are growing concerned that SpaceX might sunset the Falcon 9, adding to a global launcher shortage. (9/25)

Top Colorado Springs Leaders are Going to Huntsville to Make Space Friends (Source: KRCC)
In what’s being called a “historic first,” nearly 90 top business executives and elected officials from Colorado Springs are traveling to Huntsville, Ala. next month. The Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Corporation is sponsoring this “Discovery Trip”  in Huntsville from Oct. 4-7.  Organizers want to build closer ties between the two military space giants after a years-long fight over hosting U.S. Space Command. Colorado Springs ultimately lost in September 2025. (9/25)

Britain Can See the Threats to its Satellites. It Still Can’t Stop Them (Source: Space News)
The recently announced U.K. Space Strategy 2026 formally recognizes that space is a contested military domain and recognizes defense and national security as top priorities for the U.K. But still the strategy falls short in ensuring those priorities are met, argues Daniel Molland, the CTO of Shield Space. He says by declining to list space control as a dedicated funding category, the U.K. "gives itself no route to back the companies building these systems or to buy what they produce."

"The forthcoming defense space policy should state how the U.K. will field counterspace, with a budget attached, rather than deferring the question again," Molland wrote. "Until it does, the U.K. has committed to controlling a domain while paying   to watch and service it, which is all show and no go." (9/26)

Ukraine Experience Suggests Nations Need Multiple Broadband Alternatives (Source: Space News)
"My point isn’t that Ukraine should cease to use Starlink or use it less," he wrote. "Starlink has played a vital role in the war effort. It’s that Ukraine should have several ways to stay connected. Militaries — all militaries — need networks that can route data through several providers and transmission methods when a path fails. A network in which data can be distributed by several providers and kinds of technology would help to consolidate and build on the extraordinary progress that Ukraine has made this year." (9/26)

Rocket Lab Launches 13th Synspective Radar-Imaging Satellite on Electron From New Zealand (Source: Space News)
Rocket Lab launched another Electron mission for Japanese radar-imaging company Synspective on Sep. 25, deploying the 13th satellite in the company’s constellation. The flight extends a sustained launch relationship supporting Synspective’s expansion of space-based Earth observation capabilities. (9/26)

SpaceX Launches Classified Mission From California Spaceport (Source: Space.com)
For the third time this month, SpaceX has sent a national security mission to orbit. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the USSF-385 mission for the U.S. Space Force launched from California's foggy Vandenberg Space Force Base. The rocket's first stage came back to Earth as planned 8.5 minutes later, touching down in the Pacific Ocean on the SpaceX drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You." It was the 10th launch and landing for this particular booster. (9/26)

Space Force Challenge Seeks to Strengthen Orbital Resilience (Source: National Defense)
The Space Force’s innovation arm, SpaceWERX, recently hosted a challenge workshop to bring in industry’s best and brightest to help extend the Defense Department’s Joint Logistics Enterprise into space. The Joint Logistics Enterprise is a collaboration between the Joint Staff’s logistics directorate, the Defense Logistics Agency and U.S. Transportation Command formed in 2010 to create a globally integrated logistics network. And right now, it’s terrestrial.

SpaceWERX’s On-Orbit Space Logistics Challenge Definition Workshop Series, held July 28-29 in El Segundo, California, is part of the Space Force’s effort to expand it. The event brought together industry, academia and government to help the service build out its vision of a more resilient, in-space logistics enterprise. This requires a shift away from “one-and-done” satellite operations toward an enterprise that enables sustained maneuver warfare and long-term operational endurance in space. (9/25)

SpaceX-Focused Pentagon Contracts Leave Rivals Feeling Squeezed (Source: Bloomberg)
Satellite company York Space Systems told investors in its initial public offering this year that getting a piece of the $185 billion Golden Dome missile defense project would fuel growth. Then it ran headlong into SpaceX. In May, SpaceX won a $2 billion contract for a network of military satellites to communicate and transport data as part of Golden Dome. Months later, York and a few other companies were left with deals worth just a few million dollars. (9/25)

Cows, Canals and 30 Rockets a Day? Pecan Island Residents Press SpaceX for Answers (Source: Acadiana Advocate)
While many details of the project's specifications have not yet been publicly revealed, representatives did provide some additional information on the initial plans that could impact nearby residents. The company eventually hopes to launch as many as 30 rockets a day, a huge increase from the 13 test flights that have taken off out of the Starbase launch center in southern Texas.

SpaceX clarified that it does not plan to launch at that rate when the facility first opens and said the number of rockets launched on a given day will be subject to further assessments. One of the major questions outstanding is how hunting, fishing and other outdoor recreational activities will be impacted. SpaceX has maintained that there will continue to be ample opportunity in the region to continue these practices. “We'll allow as much hunting and fishing access as we possibly can,” SpaceX's Ben Lancaster said. “The best fishing in south Texas still takes place off of Boca Chica.”

Vermilion Parish also maintains a rich history of cattle farming. Mark Broussard, whose family has raised cattle in the parish for more than 100 years, operates a ranch that is now entirely surrounded by SpaceX property. While SpaceX says launch pad locations have not yet been determined, Broussard fears that they will prove too close to his property to leave his livelihood unaffected. “Y'all are going to singe my cows,” Broussard said. “Cows love rockets,” Lancaster said in response. (9/25)

Oman's Space Sector Shifts From Foundations to Commercial Growth (Source: Oman Observer)
Oman's space ministry says the country's young space economy is moving past the groundwork phase and into commercial expansion. A new National Space Program Achievements 2023-2025 report counts 26 space companies operating in Oman at the end of 2025, up from 11 in 2023. The sector's workforce across government and industry more than doubled over the same period, from 152 to over 400. Private investment grew 270 percent, from RO 20 million to RO 74 million (roughly $52 million to $192 million).

Under Oman's National Space Policy and its 2023-2033 executive program, which aims to make the Sultanate a regional hub for space applications and services. Highlights include a November 2025 agreement with Airbus to design, build and launch OmanSat-1, a national communications satellite. On the launch side, the Etlaq spaceport project at Duqm flew the experimental Duqm-1 rocket in 2024, then followed in 2025 with the Duqm-2 mission carrying the Kia-1 suborbital vehicle. The stated goal is commercial launch services from Duqm by 2027.

The Gulf states are clearly treating space as an economic diversification play. That means spaceport development, anchor satellite programs, accelerators, and workforce pipelines. A 2027 commercial launch target at Duqm is ambitious. If Oman meets it, the Arabian Sea coast becomes another option for customers weighing equatorial-friendly launch sites. (9/25)

Great News from Saturn’s Moon Enceladus in the Search for Life in Space (Source: Freie Universitat Berlin)
Planetary scientists from Freie Universität Berlin have published two new studies in Science Advances with promising discoveries about the potential for life on one of Saturn’s icy moons. New evidence indicates that Enceladus might be more supportive of life than once assumed. In fact, spacecrafts already in planning could be used to identify evidence of life there much easier than previously thought, should it exist. (9/25)

California Professor Earns NASA Grants to Study How Leafy Greens Thrive, and How Microbes Survive in Space (Source: LA Daily News)
A Cal State Northridge biology professor has received two NASA grants totaling $700,000 to study growing leafy greens in space and how a salt-tolerant microbe survives hostile environments, the university announced this week.

Chhandak Basu‘s latest grant, for $400,000, will fund research into how microgravity and drought-like conditions affect plants, particularly leafy greens such as lettuce, spinach and mustard greens, and explore ways to mitigate the effects, according to the university. The award follows a $300,000 NASA grant Basu received to study how a salt-tolerant microbe survives exposure to ultraviolet light, heavy metals and high salt concentrations. (9/25)