SpaceX

SpaceX conducted a long-duration, six-engine static fire test on the Starship upper stage, tail number S35, that will be used on the Starship Flight 9 mission. Image: SpaceX A return to flight for SpaceX’s Starship program could be a just a holiday weekend away, after the Federal Aviation Administration gave the company the go ahead. In a statement published on Thursday, May 22, the regulator said that SpaceX “implemented all corrective actions” in response to the mishap seen during Flight 8 in March. Similarly to Flight 7 back in January, the Ship upper stage failed to complete its first burn following stage separation and broke up over The Turks and Caicos Islands. “With the Starship vehicle return to flight determination, Starship Flight 9 is authorized for launch,” the FAA said in a st...

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base on the Starlink 15-3 mission. Image: SpaceX SpaceX is moving ahead with expansion plans at Vandenberg Space Force Base that will double its West Coast launch cadence and enable Falcon Heavy rockets to fly from California. Last week, the Department of the Air Force issued its Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which considers proposed modifications from SpaceX to Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6) at Vandenberg. At the heart of the request are three key items: Modifying the pad to support the launches of both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets Constructing two new landing pads adjacent to SLC-6 Increasing SpaceX’s permitted launch cadence from Vandenberg from 50 launches to 100 The trans...

[Left] Ax-4 Mission Specialist Tibor Kapu, Pilot Shubhanshu Shukla, Commander Peggy Whitson, and Mission Specialist Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski [Right] have been training to live and work aboard the space station for the past eight months in preparation for their mission, which is targeted to launch no earlier than June 8, 2025. Image: Axiom SpaceThe debut of the fifth and planned final Dragon spacecraft is going to take a bit longer. The vehicle, tail number C213, will won’t be ready to support the flight of Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) to the International Space Station until next month. The fourth private astronaut mission was most recently scheduled to launch no earlier than May 29 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. However, in an update f...

Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, named Athena, is pictured on its side, lying on the Moon’s surface following touchdown on Thursday, March 6, 2025. Image: Intuitive Machines The third attempt to land on the Moon for Houston-based Intuitive Machines is coming up in less than a year and the company said Tuesday it understands how to stick the landing on the next go around. During a first quarter earnings call, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Steve Altemus, said the mission team performed a “comprehensive post-mission review” which included independent reviewers and external experts alongside the company’s internal teams. He said there were three main issues that prevented their Nova-C lander, named Athena, from landing upright near the Moon’s South Pole on March 6: Laser altimeter ...

A model of the final version of Vast’s Haven-1 space station is shown with a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked. The model was on display at the 40th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado in April 2025. Image: Will Robinson-Smith/Spaceflight Now Space habitation company, Vast, is now one year away from being able to stake its claim as the first commercial space station in history. The company based in Long Beach, California, aims to launch its single-module Haven-1 space station on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in May 2026. To that end, it completed both its primary structure and qualification article and is moving into manufacturing the flight version. “We’ve locked the design, we’ve released those drawings to our manufacturing CNC shop and we are welding it with a view to start integrati...