Commercial spaceflight news from Cosmic Herald — SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, private space stations, and the new space economy.
Blue Origin says a single malfunctioning main oxygen valve on a BE-4 engine destroyed New Glenn and 48 Amazon Leo satellites in May, with fixed hardware due late August and flights targeted before year's end.
Read the story →Sophia Space and Caltech won a U.S. patent for TILE, a modular passively-cooled computing panel meant to let data centers run in orbit, with an on-orbit demo planned for 2027.
The FAA's new proposed rule would let it bypass NEPA, the Endangered Species Act, and 11 other statutes when licensing commercial rocket launches — the biggest shake-up of launch environmental oversight since 2021.
SpaceX's Starship Flight 13 delivered 20 production Starlink satellites and an in-space Raptor relight, but Super Heavy limped to a hard splashdown on just five of 13 engines.
Intel Government Technologies is entering the orbital computing market with Starfire, an 18A-process SoC aimed at giving satellites the onboard horsepower for AI-driven image analysis and anomaly detection.
On Flight 13, SpaceX put an intact Starship in the water for the first time and deployed 20 working Starlink V3 satellites — its first real payloads — even as the Super Heavy booster came down hard after an incomplete landing burn.
NASA and Blue Origin have agreed to prep the historic B-2 test stand at Stennis to hot-fire New Glenn's two-engine, LOX/LH2 second stage this fall — a move that ties the rocket's readiness directly to Artemis.
L3Harris delivered four RS-25 engines with 36 shuttle flights between them to NASA's Michoud facility on July 22, 2026 — the final flight of Space Shuttle Main Engine heritage hardware before Artemis V switches to newly built, 3D-printed engines.
Amateur video caught a lightning bolt hitting a Long March 3B/E about 30 seconds after it left Xichang on July 23. The Tianlian II-06 relay satellite reached orbit anyway — and the footage raises an uncomfortable question about how differently launch ranges treat weather risk.
A Falcon 9 launched Northrop Grumman's Mission Robotic Vehicle on 21 July 2026, carrying DARPA/NRL's RSGS robotic arms to geosynchronous orbit to inspect, repair, relocate and life-extend aging satellites.
A Falcon 9 is set to launch Northrop Grumman's MRV-1 and three Mission Extension Pods on July 21, carrying DARPA's RSGS payload — the first U.S. multi-mission robot built to inspect, repair, upgrade, relocate and refuel satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
On July 18, 2026, Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-1 reached a ~450 km orbit on its first flight from Sriharikota — the first orbital launch by a private Indian company, making India the third nation where a private firm has reached orbit.
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