September 4, 2026

SpaceX Investments Put Boeing SLS Support at Risk (Source: Politico)
SpaceX’s plans to build a sprawling rocket complex in rural southern Louisiana will help the company make new inroads on Capitol Hill — and possibly weaken the traditional aerospace industry’s grip on the region. Lawmakers in America’s Gulf States have historically been strong supporters of the Boeing-built Space Launch System rocket, which NASA is using in its Artemis program to return humans to the lunar surface. The core stage of the rocket is built at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, and other work is done in Alabama and Mississippi.

But SpaceX’s growing presence in Louisiana could begin to splinter the coalition that backs the SLS rocket, according to two industry insiders and a local political veteran, who were granted anonymity to speak candidly about the issue. (9/4)

Space Force Gets New Commanding General (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Space Force has a new commanding general. In a ceremony Thursday at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, Gen. Douglas Schiess took over as the U.S. Space Force's third chief of space operations, succeeding Gen. Chance Saltzman. In his first message to the force, Schiess portrayed his tenure as the next stage in the development of the Space Force, which was established in 2019 and has been moving from its initial focus on building a new military service toward preparing forces for combat. This phase, Schiess said, will require the Space Force to expand while improving how it develops, tests and operates new systems. His comments at the change-of-command ceremony signaled continuity with Saltzman, who during his tenure put greater emphasis on preparing guardians for warfare in space and on developing capabilities to protect U.S. satellites and counter adversaries' use of space systems. (9/4)

Space Force Using SBIRs to Pursue More Operational Technologies (Source: Space News)
The Space Force is using its latest round of small-business research contracts to pursue technologies that are closer to operational use. The service's newest Small Business Innovation Research solicitations, released this week, cover on-orbit logistics, satellite self-protection, cyber defense and artificial intelligence for missile warning and tracking. Three of the four are Direct-to-Phase 2 opportunities, which allow companies with sufficiently mature technology to bypass the initial feasibility-study phase of the SBIR process. This approach reflects a shift from the open-ended research projects that have sometimes fueled industry skepticism of the Pentagon's SBIR program. (9/4)

Germany's HyImpulse Raises $58 Million Ahead of Suborbital Launch (Source: Space News)
German launch company HyImpulse has raised additional funding ahead of a suborbital launch. HyImpulse announced Wednesday it raised more than 50 million euros ($58 million) in an extension of a Series A round from last October. The company said the additional funding will accelerate work on its SR75 suborbital rocket, slated to make its second launch later this year from SaxaVord Spaceport, and its SL1 small orbital launch vehicle under development. Both use hybrid propulsion with liquid oxygen and solid paraffin as propellants. HyImpulse is part of a tier of European launch companies continuing work on vehicles despite missing out on the European Launcher Challenge. (9/4)

Satellogic and SynMax Partner for Maritime Intelligence (Source: Space News)
Earth observation company Satellogic is partnering with SynMax to provide maritime intelligence. Under the agreement announced Thursday, Satellogic will provide data from its new Merlin constellation for maritime intelligence exclusively through SynMax's Theia platform. In June, the companies announced plans to develop AI-powered intelligence products for the Merlin constellation. Satellogic's Merlin constellation will acquire daily global imagery with a resolution of one meter along with Automatic Identification System (AIS) information. The first Merlin satellite is scheduled to launch in October with additional satellites reaching orbit in February and July.  (9/4)

NASA's Pandora Smallsat Begins Science Operations (Source: Space News)
A NASA astrophysics smallsat has started science operations. NASA announced recently that the Pandora spacecraft, launched on a SpaceX rideshare mission into sun-synchronous orbit in January, had completed commissioning and started collected science data. Pandora will observe exoplanets as they pass in front of their stars, enabling astronomers to better understand those planets' atmospheres. Pandora is also the first spacecraft mission in NASA's Astrophysics Pioneers program of low-cost missions, with a cost cap of $20 million. A project official said at last week's Small Satellite Conference that they have collected lessons learned during the development and operations of Pandora, such as how to manage risk, to help future Pioneers missions. (9/4)

Blue Origin, SpaceX, Starcloud, and Stoke Avoid International Summit at White House Direction (Source: Le Monde)
The French government said four American companies have pulled out of next week's International Space Summit, reportedly at the urging of the U.S. government. A spokesperson for France's ministry for higher education, research and space said that Blue Origin, SpaceX, Starcloud and Stoke Space no longer plan to attend the two-day event in Paris next week. The announcement came after reports that White House officials had recommended American companies not participate, arguing that doing so might endorse European space policy positions. The spokesperson said of the companies' withdrawals that it's "hard not to link it to the rumors of pressure." Philippe Baptiste, the French minister overseeing the conference, said on social media that American companies and government officials were more than welcome to attend: "we want you there." (9/4)

Amazon Leo Losing Engineers to TeraWave (Source: Bloomberg)
One Jeff Bezos company is luring satellite engineers away from another. Blue Origin has hired nearly 50 people who had been working on the Amazon Leo constellation. Many of those people are now working on TeraWave, Blue Origin's own constellation to provide broadband connectivity for enterprise users. Both companies are working on their constellations in the Seattle area, where there is high demand for engineers. (9/4)

How Can Starship Overfly Populated Areas? (Source: SPACErePORT)
Starship launches from Texas, and potentially soon from Louisiana, hope to fly over populated land masses in Florida, Cuba, the Bahamas and the Caribbean. How does the FAA allow that? Not by declaring the vehicle "high enough." There is no such altitude in the regulations. Under 14 CFR § 450.101, SpaceX must show that the entire flight keeps collective public risk below an expected 1×10⁻⁴ casualties and any individual's risk below 1×10⁻⁶ per launch, and must protect against a 'high-consequence' event in uncontrolled areas during every phase of flight.

SpaceX complies by shaping azimuth, trajectory and debris-disposal targeting so that a failure at any point puts the resulting footprint on water rather than on people, and by closing airspace and maritime areas where it can't. For an orbital launch the obligation runs from liftoff through "orbital insertion" — defined as a 70-nautical-mile perigee computed with drag. Note: "orbital insertion" not a threshold toward allowing overflight. Note: Starship's test flights to date have flown deliberately short of orbital insertion, on trajectories whose perigee stays inside the atmosphere so the vehicle reenters even if control is lost.

Flight heritage matters too: § 450.101(c)(3) allows demonstrated reliability in place of flight abort for high-consequence-event protection, and § 450.113(b) lets the FAA waive analysis for a phase based on flight history. The January and March 2025 Starship breakups, which scattered debris across Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas and triggered ground stops at four Florida airports, are the record that determination has to weigh. So the issue isn't altitude or orbital insertion. Rather, it's whether SpaceX can achieve the risk levels at every point of the ascent. The 2025 events make that more difficult to achieve. (9/4)

Mission Limitations on Starbase Louisiana? (Source: KeepTrack)
The Gulf is ringed by populated coastline, so ascending Starships must thread corridors between Florida, Cuba, and the Yucatan, over waters dense with oil and gas platforms, shrimping fleets, and some of the busiest north-south air routes in the hemisphere. The site sits near 29.7 degrees north, so its minimum direct inclination is about 30 degrees, essentially the Cape’s product line flown from the west.

At single-digit annual launch rates, this is a manageable coordination problem; the FAA and its counterparts handle it for Boca Chica now. At the hundreds or thousands of flights a year SpaceX is projecting, “airspace closure” stops being an event and becomes a permanent feature of Gulf geography, something the National Airspace System has never been asked to absorb anywhere. The FAA’s priority-airspace initiative exists precisely because the agency knows this, and designing those corridors will be its own multi-year fight among airlines, the energy industry, the fishing fleet, and two foreign governments. (9/1)

Blue Origin Explosion Detected and Measured with Infrasound Data (Source: Seismological Society of America)
When Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch vehicle accidentally exploded during a static test fire in May 2026, the explosion generated low frequency soundwaves below the range of human hearing. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories used those infrasound signals to independently confirm the time and location of the explosion and estimate the yield of the blast, as they report in The Seismic Record. The results demonstrate how infrasound analysis could be useful in monitoring launch anomalies, also provides valuable information on the infrasound signals produced by liquid oxygen/ liquid methane propellant, increasingly used in heavy-lift space rockets. (9/1)

SpaceX Sweeteners: How Did Louisiana Lure Elon Musk’s Rocket Launch Site to Its Coast? (Source: Louisiana Illuminator)
Louisiana officials offered SpaceX what might be one of the largest single-project tax breaks in U.S. history to cinch a $100 billion deal to build its largest launch facility yet in coastal Vermilion Parish. State and local governments are giving SpaceX a tax incentive package valued at an estimated $27.5 billion, according to documents obtained in a public records request. They outline the state’s negotiations for what’s referred to as “Project Osprey” without using the company’s name or the proposed facility unveiled last week as Starbase Louisiana.

The majority of the tax break, nearly $23.8 billion, results from exempting the company from having to pay property taxes to Vermilion Parish authorities for 25 years. In exchange for granting the exemption, the Vermilion sheriff, school district and police jury will share a $25 million flat fee that SpaceX must pay each year, records show. The payment-in-leu-of-taxes deal includes a provision that could increase SpaceX’s yearly payments based on inflation.

SpaceX will also get state sales tax rebates valued at an estimated $3.6 billion over its initial 20-year term, according to state documents. The remainder will come from the state’s High Impact Jobs grant program, which pays for 22% of each employees’ compensation, and Louisiana Economic Development’s recruiting and workforce training services. SpaceX, which had a market value as of Friday in excess of $1.8 trillion, is owned by Elon Musk, the world’s richest person with a net worth of $865 billion. (9/2)

Oklahoma Spaceport Selected for Up to 100 Microgravity Test Flights (Source: KECO)
The Oklahoma Infinity One Spaceport at Burns Flat has been selected as the operations site for a new series of commercial microgravity missions that could include as many as 100 flights over two years. Astral Materials has selected Dawn Aerospace’s Aurora spaceplane as a high-cadence test platform to accelerate development of furnace technology designed to manufacture advanced materials in microgravity.

Under the agreement, an initial campaign of Aurora microgravity flights will be conducted from the Burns Flat facility. The missions will allow Astral Materials to repeatedly test and refine its technology, with Aurora designed for turnaround times of approximately four hours. Astral Materials is developing microgravity furnace hardware aimed at producing higher-quality semiconductor crystals and other advanced materials. Reducing the effects of gravity can limit convection and sedimentation during manufacturing, potentially producing crystals with fewer defects and greater consistency.

Dawn Aerospace says Aurora can support up to 100 flights per vehicle annually. The Burns Flat missions are not intended to replace longer-duration orbital research. Instead, Astral plans to use the Oklahoma flights to develop and mature its furnace systems before moving them into orbit. Dawn Aerospace is developing its U.S. operational base at the Infinity One Oklahoma Spaceport in partnership with the State of Oklahoma. Commercial flight operations from Burns Flat are currently planned to begin in 2028. (9/2)

Comets May Have Transported Water to a Young Planetary System (Source: Lund University)
Astronomers at Lund University in Sweden have found evidence of exocomets – comets in other solar systems – orbiting a young star similar to our Sun. The observations point to a possible mechanism for how water might be transported from the cold outer regions of the planetary system to regions where planets form. (9/2)

Construction of British Deep Space Radar to Begin in 2027, Complementing Florida and Australia Sites (Source: UK Defense Journal)
Construction of the British site for the Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability will begin in April 2027 under a contract the United States Space Force signed with Northrop Grumman in August 2024, with planning permission sought in March this year and initial authority to operate already issued.

“The Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) is a ground-based radar system that will provide 24/7, all-weather capabilities to detect, track, identify and characterise objects up to Geostationary Earth Orbit. DARC will require three permanent radar sites and a radar operations centre to provide 360-degree coverage: in Australia, the UK and the US. Construction of sites in Australia (Exmouth) and the US (IROC, Eglin) have been completed.” (9/3)

One Year In, U.S. Space Command Headquarters Relocation Moving Expeditiously to 'Rocket City, USA' (Source: War.gov)
On Sept. 2, 2025, President Donald J. Trump announced the relocation of U.S. Space Command's headquarters from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. Since then, USSPACECOM's rapid footprint expansion in the region highlights the command's commitment to an expeditious transition while remaining laser-focused on its no-fail mission.

Today, more than 140 uniformed and civilian personnel assigned to the command's headquarters perform their jobs from three facilities across the Arsenal. This element represents approximately 10% of the organization's total manpower. USSPACECOM's presence in Alabama includes dedicated relocation support functions, but has also expanded to personnel who directly contribute to the combatant command's mission, which was previously carried out exclusively from Colorado Springs. (9/2)

Isaacman Outlines First Steps for Moon Base (Source: The Hill)
Isaacman hoped to launch parts of the base this year. But an explosion of the Blue Origin New Glenn rocket delayed some of the deliveries to the surface of the moon. “I don’t really consider it much of a setback,” Isaacman said in an interview. “We’ve always been looking toward 2027. That’s where you get in a rhythm, that’s when you get into that monthly cadence of putting landers and rovers on the moon.”

NASA will drop rovers, drones and experiments on the south pole of the moon in the first series of the moon base missions. Isaacman said he hopes they’ll be ready by the time the U.S. returns astronauts to the moon. “By Artemis IV, when our astronauts land on the surface of the moon, they’re already going to have some of the infrastructure and rovers there waiting for them,” he noted. The moon base, Isaacman continued, will help NASA learn how to live away from Earth, and possibly later to Mars and other planets.

Referring to a new proliferation of spaceports, he said: “This is, I think, very analogous to the first stops on the rail line that led to some of our biggest cities or some of the first airports and seaports — a whole community and economy built around it,” he said. “I think we’re going to see the same with our spaceports.” Isaacman explained that NASA will launch several moon base missions next year, with the aim to launch Artemis IV in 2028, returning astronauts to the surface of the moon for the first time in more than half a century. (9/3)

Pair of Spacecraft Draw Closer to Mercury After Nearly Decade-Long Voyage (Source: AP)
Two Mercury-bound spacecraft left their mother ship behind on Thursday and headed down the home stretch of their nearly decade-long voyage to the solar system’s smallest and closest-to-the-sun planet. The linked European and Japanese spacecraft separated as planned from their cruiser, but controllers had to wait two anxious hours to receive confirmation via radio signals. The crucial operation was broadcast from the European Space Agency’s control center in Germany, more than 124 million miles (200 million kilometers) away. (9/3)

Why Doesn't Venus Have a Moon? A New Study May Have the Answer (Source: Phys.org)
Venus is one of the solar system's most unusual planets. It may sometimes be called "Earth's twin" because of its similar size and density, but it rotates on its axis in the opposite direction of most planets, has surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead and lacks a moon. Why this terrestrial planet has no satellites has puzzled scientists for decades. Did it never manage to form one, or did it once have a moon that vanished over time? New research could help us get closer to solving the mystery. Spoiler alert! The paper does not provide a definitive answer, but it presents compelling scenarios for how a moon could have existed and leans toward one conclusion. (9/3)

India Launches Rocket in Boost to Space Ambitions After Failures (Source: Bloomberg)
India’s space program notched a much-needed success with a rocket launch on Friday, after two consecutive failures of another launcher that had long served as its workhorse rocket. The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) lifted off from the country’s main spaceport at Sriharikota and reached the designated orbit 18 minutes later, according to the Indian Space Research Organization. (9/3)

Agencies Clarify Roles in Commercial ISR After Disputes (Source: Executive Gov)
The National Reconnaissance Office, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the US Space Force have resolved disputes over commercial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance acquisition authorities through agreements that clarify roles and responsibilities. Tensions arose with the Space Force's creation and its Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Tracking program, which accelerated data delivery to combatant commands. The National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency also work with US Space Command to protect commercial space assets. (9/2)

SES Extends Sovereign Multi-Orbit Satellite Connectivity Deal with Peruvian Navy (Source: Via Satellite)
SES has expanded its collaboration with Peru’s Navy to provide sovereign, multi-orbit satellite connectivity under a new government agreement. The deal underscores continued demand for resilient satellite communications supporting national maritime and defense requirements, while extending SES’s role in government connectivity across Latin America. (9/3)

SpaceX and Blue Origin Withdraw From Macron’s Paris Space Summit After Reported White House Pressure (Source: LeMonde)
SpaceX and Blue Origin are among four U.S. space companies withdrawing from a French space summit scheduled for Sept. 9-10, according to a French government official. The move follows a Politico report that the White House urged American space companies not to attend the event organized by President Emmanuel Macron. (3/9)

ArcSpace Plans 2027 In-Orbit Demonstration of Welding Technology (Source: European Spaceflight)
French startup ArcSpace plans to demonstrate its welding technology aboard a host spacecraft in 2027, marking a step toward in-orbit manufacturing capabilities. The test will assess the company’s ability to perform welding operations in space, an enabling technology for future spacecraft assembly, repair and infrastructure development. (9/3)

Rocket Readiness Delays First Private Mission to Venus (Source: Space.com)
The future of a privately backed robotic mission Venus seems about as cloudy as the planet itself at the moment. Scientists based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are working with Rocket Lab to search for possible signs of life on Venus. The first step in that program is the Rocket Lab Mission to Venus, which will deploy a small, nose cone-like probe crafted to sample the Venusian atmosphere using a device called an autofluorescence nephelometer (AFN). But that undertaking, primarily fueled by private dollars, has been waylaid due to getting a needed booster flight-qualified. (9/3)

Galaxia Acquires Simera Sense Hyperspectral Imager for Commercial, Civil and Defense Earth-Observation Missions (Source: Space News)
Galaxia has acquired a hyperspectral imager from European optical payload company Simera Sense, expanding its capabilities for Earth-observation missions serving commercial, civil and defense customers. The transaction underscores the growing role of advanced optical payloads in delivering data across a broad range of applications. (9/3)

Isaacman: Commercial Space Won’t Solve Every NASA Problem (Source: Payload)
Isaacman argued that NASA’s mission extends beyond what commercial providers can address, pushing back on efforts to force every agency activity into a commercial model. He said NASA’s broader responsibilities warrant its status as an independent agency rather than placing it within the Department of Commerce. (9/3)

Space Force Raises Ceiling Value Of HADES Contract To $389 Million (Source: Defense Daily)
Less than a month after releasing a Request for Proposals (RFP) seeking engineering, development and operational support services for prototype and operational satellite ground systems, the Space Force this week raised the potential ceiling value of the program from $300 million to $389 million. The Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) in early August opened bidding for the Hybrid Architecture and Development for Experimental Systems (HADES) indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract. (9/2)

China's Private, Reusable Pallas-1 Rocket Aces Debut Launch (Source: Space.com)
Another reusable Chinese rocket has taken to the skies. Pallas-1, a launcher developed by the Beijing-based company Galactic Energy, flew for the first time ever on Monday (Aug. 31), lifting off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. Everything went well on the mission, according to Galactic Energy. The company — which also operates Ceres-1, a small-satellite launcher with 23 flights under its belt to date — did not reveal what payloads, if any, Pallas-1 carried to orbit. (9/1)

Open Cosmos Wins UK Government Contract for ConnectedCosmos (Source: Via Satellite)
Open Cosmos has won a significant new contract from the U.K. government as the U.K. looks to build better sovereign connectivity architecture. It has been selected by the British Government Commercial Agency (GCA) as an officially certified and vetted partner to provide satellite connectivity via its ConnectedCosmos Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation. Open Cosmos announced the deal, Sept. 2.

The TacSys (Tactical Communication System) framework procurement vehicle has an estimated value of up to 8 billion pounds ($10.8 billion), mapped to a series of upcoming Ministry of Defence (MoD) contracts. Running until June 2034, TacSys will provide the framework through which innovative private sector technologies will be integrated into MoD-owned capabilities for the purpose of secure and resilient communications. Open Cosmos first announced the LEO constellation in January, when it received the award to Liechtenstein’s priority Ka-band spectrum filing previously held by Rivada. (9/2)

SpaceX Louisiana and the Math Behind On-Site Propellant Infrastructure (Source: Mach 33)
Starbase is quietly becoming a chemical plant. Linde started an air separation unit in Brownsville in early 2026; its release named no customer. In July a SpaceX affiliate broke ground on Starpipe, an eight-mile methane pipeline with a January 2027 in-service target in its Texas Railroad Commission filing. And now SpaceX announced a $100 billion launch campus in Louisiana: five launch complexes with two pads each, designed for thousands of launches a year, with propellant production and power generation on the site.

Buying a Starship flight's propellant at merchant rates and trucking it to the pad costs $1.70 million to $2.67 million per flight with the current rocket design. Making it on-site costs $203,000 to $221,000 per flight (excepting production facility cost), a cut of about 90%. Merchant supply means using cryogenic tanker trucks with more than 100 deliveries a day for a 100-launch annual cadence. This may be physically implausible. And at sites like the Cape Canaveral Spaceport, SpaceX is one of multiple high-intensity users of the same propellants, which is why NASA and the Space Force are exploring the development of an on-spaceport production capacity. (9/3)