Commercial spaceflight news from Cosmic Herald — SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, private space stations, and the new space economy.
SpaceX moved Super Heavy booster B21 to the pad at Starbase for Flight 14, the vehicle's first full orbital attempt, targeted for no earlier than September 28.
Read the story →SpaceX's 700th Falcon flight delivered the final three O3b mPOWER satellites for SES, completing a 13-satellite medium-Earth-orbit broadband constellation set to be fully operational by mid-2027.
Rocket Lab filed a GAO protest on September 11 against NASA's ~$700 million award of the Mars Telecommunications Network orbiter to Blue Origin, arguing the evaluation broke with Congress's own eligibility rules.
NASA has added Relativity Space's not-yet-flown Terran R rocket to its NLS II launch contract, giving the company a shot at government payloads before it has even reached orbit.
A Falcon 9 booster that once carried NASA's SPHEREx telescope flew a record 19th mission on Sept. 6, lofting 27 more Starlink satellites and marking SpaceX's 80th Starlink launch of 2026.
German startup Isar Aerospace put its Spectrum rocket into orbit on its second attempt, 18 months after a vent-valve glitch ended flight one after 30 seconds, delivering five CubeSats for the first orbital payload from a European commercial launcher.
SpaceX's 80th Starlink mission of 2026 flies from California, not Florida, because Falcon 9's Cape Starlink run ended Aug. 25 after roughly 260 flights. Starship is supposed to pick up the slack before year-end, and the FAA has already cleared 44 launches a year at LC-39A.
NASA picked Blue Origin over a competing Rocket Lab bid for a ~$700 million contract to build a Blue Ring-based Mars telecom orbiter due at the Red Planet by 2030.
Germany's Isar Aerospace flew its Spectrum rocket to orbit from Norway's Andøya Spaceport on September 5, the first orbital launch ever from mainland Western Europe, 18 months after its debut ended in a pad-side crash.
Rocket Lab launched its 94th Electron before dawn on September 3, deploying a Synspective radar satellite in a mission that also doubled as a routine demonstration of the FAA's new unified Part 450 launch licensing rules.
Sierra Space says its long-delayed Dream Chaser spaceplane will carry national security, civil and NASA cargo payloads together on one debut flight from Kennedy Space Center to Vandenberg.
A Falcon 9 booster flew for a record 35th time out of Vandenberg early Sept. 2, deploying 27 more Starlink satellites and sticking its droneship landing in the Pacific.
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