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Blue Origin unveiled a new kick stage and rocket engine design for New Glenn while confirming that the rocket's return-to-flight mission has slipped from December to January, a delay described as minor and widely expected. The company is still rebuilding its Cape Canaveral launch pad, which was destroyed in an explosion roughly six months ago.
Argo Space, started in late 2022 by former SpaceX engineers Robert, Ryan, and Kirby Carlisle, is developing spacecraft that use water as propellant, coolant, and radiation shield instead of traditional rocket fuel. The company launched its first demonstration mission, Navigator, in July aboard a Falcon 9 rideshare, successfully contacting the spacecraft though one of its two solar arrays failed to deploy.
The Air Force Research Laboratory tested Rocket Cargo capabilities by launching cargo pods inside a SpaceX Starfall capsule aboard a Falcon 9 rocket as part of the Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission from Cape Canaveral. The capsule, carrying supplies like MREs, water, batteries, and a SATCOM tracker, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean and was recovered for study of temperature, shock, and vibration effects during flight.
Google confirmed its first Suncatcher prototype satellite, which carries a single Tensor Processing Unit and generates up to 1 kW of power, is online and communicating with ground engineers after launching this month on a SpaceX Falcon 9. Following roughly three weeks of subsystem checks, engineers sent the satellite its first prompt, having it run Google DeepMind's Gemma model to generate a haiku and report on orbital conditions; a Google spokesperson said the satellite is operating nominally.
Analytics firm Quilty Space estimates that, excluding China, global rocket supply will fall about 150 launches short of satellite and civil-agency demand between now and 2030. The firm says adding US military demand—without SpaceX extending Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy production—could roughly double that gap. Quilty's research director Caleb Henry said the shortage is worse than previously thought and may not ease until the late 2030s, peaking around 2028.
A decade after SpaceX first successfully landed a reusable Falcon 9 booster in December 2015, reusable rockets have removed launch access as the industry's main bottleneck. The constraint has shifted toward manufacturing enough satellites, securing sufficient funding, and finding enough paying customers.
Thirteen years after Orbital Sciences' Antares first flew, four new American medium-lift rockets are in development, each built with domestically manufactured engines rather than relying on foreign hardware as Antares did. The push comes as SpaceX reportedly plans to stop selling Falcon 9 launches commercially as soon as 2028, leaving a gap in the 2-to-20-metric-ton launch class.
United Launch Alliance is targeting no earlier than October 29 for its next Vulcan rocket launch, carrying an Amazon Leo mission, according to the Rocket Report. A second Amazon Leo flight on Vulcan is also planned before the end of the year, contingent on the rocket's solid rocket boosters performing as expected.
SpaceX is reportedly moving toward phasing out its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft as it ramps up development and production of Starship, its next-generation vehicle. Competitors including Rocket Lab, Firefly Aerospace, United Launch Alliance, and Blue Origin are described as not yet matching the launch cadence or scale that the industry currently demands.
A Falcon 9 rocket launched SpaceX's Crew-13 mission from Cape Canaveral, sending four astronauts to the International Space Station for a six-month stay. The launch, originally planned for mid-September, was delayed so SpaceX could cut into a propellant line and replace a faulty valve in the Dragon spacecraft's propulsion system.
Alphabet is sending its tensor processing units to space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as part of the Transporter-18 mission launching from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The flight carries Planet Labs satellites, including a solar-powered prototype fitted with Google's AI chips, marking the first in-orbit test of Google's Project Suncatcher initiative first announced in November 2025.
Google plans to launch a small experimental satellite called MVP next month aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The craft carries four of Google's TPU chips and solar panels producing about one kilowatt of power, and is meant to test whether AI processors can withstand radiation and heat exposure in orbit. Earlier ground tests exposed the chips to simulated years of space radiation, finding that restarts usually fixed resulting data errors.