SpaceX

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...

The Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C. Image: NASA The White House released its proposed federal spending budget for Fiscal Year 2026 on Friday and with it a series of deep cuts to most areas of discretionary spending, including to NASA. The requested cuts come, ironically, on National Space Day. If adopted as proposed, America’s space agency is facing a 24.3 percent funding cut, dropping it from about $24.8 billion in FY25 to $18.8 billion in FY26. The agency was hoping for a funding increase to get a number of programs back on track following two years of what amounted to spending cuts due to budgets being held at FY24 spending levels. That loss in spending will be felt most deeply by the space and Earth science divisions, which would see a loss of $2.3 and $1.2 billion...

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to begin the Starlink 6-75 mission. Image: SpaceX Update May 1, 11:30 p.m. EDT: SpaceX confirms successful deployment of the 28 Starlink satellites. SpaceX kicked off of the month of May with the first of likely several Falcon 9 missions launching more of its Starlink V2 Mini satellites. Onboard the Starlink 6-75 mission were 28 of the internet supporting satellites, adding to the more than 7,300 currently on orbit. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 9:51 p.m. EDT (0151 UTC).  On Wednesday, the 45th Weather Squadron forecast a greater than 95 percent chance for favorable weather at liftoff with no meteorological concerns for the...

United Launch Alliance launches their Atlas V 551 rocket on Monday, April 28, 2025 with the first batch of Project Kuiper satellites for Amazon towards low Earth orbit from SLC-41 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now Against the setting Sun, United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket thundered off the pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force State to begin the flight of the first production satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite internet constellation. Five solid rocket boosters helped propel the rocket and the 27 satellites on board from Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) at 7:01 p.m. EDT (2301 UTC).  The threat of anvil clouds caused ULA to adjust the liftoff time by one minute, but otherwise, weather was quite pristine for the north-easterly trajectory. ULA use...