SPACEX TO LAUNCH 4 FALCON HEAVY ROCKETS AS PART OF NEWEST U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY MISSIONS AWARD - The latest missions carrying payloads for the U.S. Space Force (USSF) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) were announced on Friday with a combined value of $1.142 billion. SpaceX was tasked with five missions and United Launch Alliance (ULA) received two. This is the second order year (O... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 6)
AS NASA'S ISS CELEBRATES 25 YEARS OF HUMANS LIVING IN SPACE, WHAT'S AHEAD FOR SPACE STATIONS - It's official. Not a single person under the age of 25 has lived a day where there has not been a human orbiting Earth − and that is likely to never change. On Nov. 2, 2000, Expedition 1 arrived at the still-under-construction International Space Station. And since that day, this outpost that o... More (Source: Yahoo News - Oct 6)
SPACEX LAUNCHES 3RD CONSECUTIVE FALCON 9 ROCKET FROM VANDENBERG SFB, UNINTERRUPTED BY A CAPE MISSION - SpaceX launched its 125th Falcon 9 rocket of 2025, which carried a batch of Starlink V2 Mini satellites into low Earth orbit. The company’s first mission of the month took flight from Vandenberg Space Force Base shortly after sunrise on Friday morning. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East (... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 4)
BLUE ORIGIN REVEALS SPACE TOURISTS TO LAUNCH ON NEXT NEW SHEPARD ROCKET - We now know which people will fly on Blue Origin's next space tourism mission — most of them, anyway. On Wednesday (Oct. 1), Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, announced the passenger list for NS-36, the next flight of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle. (We don't yet know w... More (Source: Space.com - Oct 4)
ASTRONAUTS WORK THROUGH THE U.S. GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN - Whether they're NASA employees or international astronauts, the Expedition 73 crew members are exempt from the U.S. government shutdown. The Expedition 73 crew continued their science research and maintenance work aboard the International Space Station this week, despite the start of a U.S. governme... More (Source: Space.com - Oct 4)
8 SPACE MISSIONS TO WATCH IN OCTOBER: STARSHIP, AMAZON KUIPER, BLUE ORIGIN’S MOON LANDER - With the first weeks of the fall season underway, October is already shaping up to be an eventful month in space. Alongside satellite launches from Amazon, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA), this month will also see milestones in NASA’s Artemis program—a series of lunar missions designed t... More (Source: Observer - Oct 3)
NASA CLOSES DOORS TO 15,000 EMPLOYEES AS US GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN BEGINS - More than 15,000 NASA civil servants have been furloughed as the U.S. federal government enters a shutdown. The grinding halt forces NASA and other agencies to scale back nearly all of their day-to-day operations after lawmakers in Washington D.C. failed to pass a government funding bill by the d... More (Source: Space.com - Oct 2)
DO ROCKETS STILL LAUNCH DURING A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN? HOW NASA COULD FEEL THE EFFECTS - Is it time for NASA to hang up those spacesuits and power down those rockets? NASA is far from immune to the effects of a looming government shutdown if congressional leaders fail to reach an agreement before midnight Oct. 1 to prevent one. At stake for the U.S. space agency if the federal g... More (Source: USA Today - Oct 2)
VIASAT-3 F2 SATELLITE ARRIVES IN FLORIDA AHEAD OF LATE OCTOBER LAUNCH - The ViaSat-3 Flight 2 spacecraft, the next geostationary satellite for communications company Viasat, arrived in Florida in the early morning hours of Tuesday. This six-ton (more than 13,000 lbs) satellite is the second in a three-vehicle series for the ViaSat-3 network. Its planned launch in lat... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 2)
SPACEX TARGETING OCT. 13 FOR NEXT STARSHIP MEGAROCKET LAUNCH - SpaceX's Starship megarocket will fly again less than two weeks from now, if all goes according to plan. SpaceX announced on Monday (Sept. 29) that it's targeting Oct. 13 for Starship Flight 11, which will be the final launch of the vehicle's current "Version 2" iteration. Liftoff will occur f... More (Source: Space.com - Oct 1)
CHINA SENDS EXPERIMENTAL SHIYAN-30 SATELLITES INTO ORBIT AS LAUNCH CADENCE INTENSIFIES - A Long March 2D rocket sent a new set of experimental satellites into orbit late Sunday, capping an intense month of Chinese launch activities. The Long March 2D lifted off at 11:00 p.m. Eastern Sept. 28 (0300 UTC, Sept. 29) from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China, with the launch... More (Source: SpaceNews - Oct 1)
GROUND TESTING ANOMALY DESTROYS FIREFLY AEROSPACE’S ALPHA BOOSTER INTENDED FOR NEXT FLIGHT - Firefly Aerospace suffered a setback on its road to resuming launches with its Alpha rocket. During acceptance testing at its facility in Briggs, Texas, on Monday, the booster designated for Alpha Flight 7 “experienced an event that resulted in a loss of the stage,” the company said in a stat... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 30)
CHINESE ASTRONAUTS ADD DEBRIS SHIELDING TO TIANGONG SPACE STATION DURING 6-HOUR SPACEWALK - China's Tiangong space station just got some more protection against debris strikes. Two astronauts from the three-person Shenzhou 20 mission installed additional shielding on Tiangong during a six-hour spacewalk on Friday (Sept. 26), according to the state-run broadcaster CCTV. It was the fou... More (Source: Space.com - Sep 30)
CHINA LAUNCHES LOW EARTH ORBIT SATELLITE GROUP - China successfully launched a new batch of low Earth orbit satellites from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern Shanxi Province on Saturday, marking the 597th mission of the Long March carrier rockets.... More (Source: CGTN - Sep 29)
SPACEX LAUNCHES 28 STARLINK SATELLITES ON FALCON 9 ROCKET FROM VANDENBERG SFB - SpaceX completed its final, scheduled launch of September Sunday evening. The Falcon 9 flight from Vandenberg Space Force Base was the 16th launch for SpaceX this month. The Starlink 11-20 mission saw 28 of SpaceX’s broadband internet satellites deployed into low Earth orbit with deployment sch... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 29)
CHINA LAUNCHES NEW FENGYUN METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE - China launched a new Fengyun meteorological satellite, which will also contribute to a global green mission, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Saturday. A Long March-4C rocket, carrying the Fengyun-3 08 satellite, blasted off at 3:28 a.m., and sent the satellite into the... More (Source: Ecns.cn - Sep 28)
SPACE DEBRIS LIGHTS UP NIGHT SKY OVER CALIFORNIA - Fiery space debris lit up the night sky over the Golden State on Thursday, sparking hundreds of reports from residents and leaving many to wonder what they had witnessed. The American Meteor Society said that within the first 24 hours after the event, it received more than 200 accounts from witne... More (Source: Fox Weather - Sep 28)
SIERRA SPACE’S DREAM CHASER DEBUT MISSION DELAYED AGAIN, NO LONGER DOCKING TO STATION - The debut of Sierra Space’s cargo space plane Dream Chaser has delayed again and will no longer see a docking with the International Space Station. In a statement Thursday afternoon, NASA said the space agency and Sierra Space had agreed to a major modification of their space station resupply cont... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 27)
SPACEX LAUNCHES 24 STARLINK SATELLITES ON FALCON 9 ROCKET FROM VANDENBERG - SpaceX launched its third Falcon 9 rocket in less than 41 hours. Completing the trio of flights, along with NASA’s IMAP and Starlink 10-15, was the flight of the Starlink 17-11 mission, which took off from Vandenberg Space Force Base Thursday night. Liftoff of the mission from Space Launch Comp... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 27)
