Tag: SpaceX
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LandSpace Targets Zhuque-3 Reflight Within Six Months After Historic Booster Recovery
China’s commercial launch company LandSpace is aiming to fly a recovered Zhuque-3 first-stage booster again within six months of its landmark August 2026 landing, an aggressive schedule that would mark a major step toward operational rocket reusability in China. The company achieved a breakthrough on Aug. 18 when a Zhuque-3 first stage successfully returned to…
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Trump Sets 1,000-Plus Annual Launch Target as White House Rewrites U.S. Space Transportation Policy
The White House is targeting more than 1,000 space launches and reentries from U.S. soil every year by 2030 under a new national space transportation policy signed by President Donald Trump on Aug. 20, 2026. The National Security Presidential Memorandum replaces the previous National Space Transportation Policy issued in 2013 and establishes a commercial-first framework…
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SpaceX Reaches 100th Mission of 2026 as Starlink Launch Highlights a New Era of High-Frequency Spaceflight
SpaceX has completed its 100th mission of 2026, reaching the milestone on Aug. 19 with another Starlink deployment from California. The mission, Starlink Group 17-50, sent 24 Starlink broadband satellites toward low Earth orbit aboard a flight-proven Falcon 9, underscoring how rapidly SpaceX has transformed orbital launch from an occasional event into a high-frequency operational…
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SpaceX Starship Ship 40 Towed Into Christmas Island Bay After Weeks Adrift in Indian Ocean
The recovery was not originally part of the plan. Ship 40 outperformed expectations as it re-entered the atmosphere and splashed down in the Indian Ocean. On July 29, Elon Musk announced on X that a ship had been dispatched to retrieve the vehicle, and space enthusiasts have tracked its progress ever since. Ship 40 is…
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SpaceX Launches Two Falcon 9s From Opposite Coasts in 38 Minutes
The two flights deployed the USSF-366 mission for the U.S. Space Force from Florida and a Globalstar-2R communications satellite from California. The milestone highlights SpaceX’s approach of treating orbital launch operations as a high-density transportation network, relying on automated range safety protocols and parallel pad refurbishment to increase turnaround throughput. Company executives frequently compare rocket…
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SpaceX Publishes All-Hands as Musk Details AI Push, Starship Scale, and Multiplanetary Vision
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk laid out a future for the company that extends far beyond rockets and satellite internet, telling employees that artificial intelligence could soon become SpaceX’s largest business and eventually account for 99% of its value. During the presentation, which SpaceX published on August 11th, Musk said the company is targeting 10 gigawatts…
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Thaicom 10 Slips to Late 2028 Launch, Deepening Thaicom’s Fleet Gap
The company is scrambling to relocate customers ahead of the Thaicom 4 retirement later this year. Thaicom 10 had been set for launch in 2027 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Its original launch date was late 2024, but the schedule has slipped as Airbus works through development issues on its new OneSat series of…
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Europe Shelves ICARUS Upper Stage Upgrade to Prioritize Ariane 6 Output
The ICARUS program was intended to improve Ariane 6 performance and competitiveness. Its suspension redirects effort toward getting more Ariane 6 rockets built and flown. The upgrade has been paused rather than cancelled, but no restart timeline was provided. The decision lands as Europe’s launch sector faces pressure from SpaceX and a shortage of domestic…
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China’s Space Computing Race: Competing for the Next Decade’s AI Compute Power
AI’s computing needs are outgrowing what Earth can easily supply — and a new race is emerging to move data centers into orbit. This report breaks down the emerging “space computing” industry from every angle: what it actually is and why energy and bandwidth constraints are pushing computing into space (Sections 1–2); the physical advantages…
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SpaceX’s Starship Upper Stage May Be Lost at Sea After Two-Week Recovery Effort
SpaceX’s attempt to recover the Starship upper stage from its 13th test flight is “not looking good”, Elon Musk tweeted on August 7th, roughly two weeks after the vehicle splashed down in the Indian Ocean. Flight 13 lifted off from the company’s Starbase site in South Texas on July 24th. The suborbital mission ended with…