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SpaceX has flown its last scheduled Starlink mission from Cape Canaveral on a Falcon 9 for now, according to launch VP Kiko Dontchev. Future Florida Starlink launches will instead rely on Starship once it begins regular flights there, cutting the site's monthly launch rate from roughly eight or nine down to about two. West Coast Starlink launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base will continue as before.
The European Space Agency signed contracts totaling hundreds of millions of euros with three European launch startups—Rocket Factory Augsburg, PLD Space and Isar Aerospace—to fund continued development of their small launch vehicles. RFA received 186.9 million euros, PLD Space 158.9 million euros, and Isar Aerospace 197.8 million euros, mostly financed by their home nations with contributions from partner countries. A separate deal with MaiaSpace is reportedly close to finalization.
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to launch Sunday from Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The $4.3 billion observatory began as a surveillance satellite platform built by the National Reconnaissance Office for post-9/11 intelligence gathering, which was donated to NASA after the spy program was scrapped before launch.
NASA is preparing to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Sunday at 7:26 a.m. ET from Kennedy Space Center, using a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The telescope, arriving roughly eight months early and under budget, will travel to the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point about 1 million miles away after final inspections and fueling with 290 gallons of hydrazine.
OpenAI's head of data centers, Chris Malone, left the company last week after joining in March 2024, part of a wave of over a dozen executive departures since the start of the year. OpenAI attributes Malone's exit to a reorganization of its infrastructure team, now led by VP Sachin Katti reporting to president Greg Brockman. Other departures cited include the COO, chief revenue officer, chief marketing officer, and Altman's top deputy.
SpaceX is pursuing exemptions from federal environmental rules to speed construction of what would become the largest spaceport in the world. Wildlife advocacy organizations are pushing back, arguing the waivers would bypass protections meant to safeguard sensitive habitats and species near the site.
NASA hired startup Katalyst Space Technologies to launch an autonomous spacecraft called LINK to dock with the 21-year-old Swift observatory and push it into a stable orbit, mirroring Jared Isaacman's earlier scrapped plan to save the Hubble. The rushed, high-risk mission, assembled in record time after Isaacman became NASA administrator, ultimately fell apart before achieving its goal.
SpaceX intends to build a new 125,000-acre spaceport called Starbase Louisiana at Pecan Island, featuring five launch complexes, propellant production, power generation, deep-water shipping and an airport. Construction is slated to begin in 2027 with a first launch targeted for 2029, and the site could eventually support thousands of missions annually.
SpaceX and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry announced plans for a 125,000-acre spaceport called Starbase, Louisiana, located at Pecan Island on the state's southern coast. The site will feature five launch complexes with two pads each, plus propellant production, power generation, vehicle processing facilities, and housing for workers, giving SpaceX a third launch location alongside its Texas and Florida sites.
A team from Texas A&M, NASA's Johnson Space Center, and Purdue University developed a system for managing multiple spacecraft around Gateway, the lunar-orbiting station NASA plans to launch no earlier than 2027. Using thousands of simulations, they created a 'string of pearls' approach that spaces waiting vehicles at set intervals ahead of or behind the station along its near-rectilinear halo orbit, accounting for navigation and thruster errors.
SpaceX announced plans to construct a 125,000-acre launch facility in Louisiana, its largest to date, with construction starting next year. Named Starbase Louisiana, the site aims to support thousands of annual Starship missions to orbit, the Moon and Mars, with the first launch targeted for 2029. The project is expected to directly create over 3,000 jobs and generate more than 8,100 additional indirect jobs in the region.
SpaceX has flown its last Starlink mission on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral for the foreseeable future, according to company launch VP Kiko Dontchev. Going forward, Starlink launches from Florida will be handled by the still-developing Starship rocket, dropping the site's monthly launch count from roughly eight or nine to about two. SpaceX will instead lean more heavily on its Vandenberg pad in California to keep deploying Starlink satellites.