SpaceX
Every Cosmic Herald story on SpaceX — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
-
Commercial
Transporter-17: How Two Student-Built CubeSats Hitched a Ride Among 81 Satellites
SpaceX's Transporter-17 rideshare launched 81 satellites from Vandenberg on July 7, including two NASA-linked CubeSats — GRITSS and MAVERIC — built to sharpen ground-station geodesy and test magnetic navigation.
-
Commercial
ispace Buys a Ride on Starship, Betting on SpaceX to Cut the Cost of Reaching the Moon
Japan's ispace has purchased 500 kg of Starship cargo capacity for $50 million, launching a new shared-ride lunar delivery service alongside its own Ultra lander program.
-
Military Space
Space Force Adds Impulse Space and Relativity Federal to Its $5.6 Billion Launch Roster
Space Systems Command admitted Impulse Space and Relativity's Relativity Federal to NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 on July 7, growing the qualified-provider pool to seven and handing each a $5 million task order.
-
Commercial
The World's First Commercial Nuclear-Powered Satellite Just Reached Orbit
Miami-based City Labs flew its tritium-powered BOHR CubeSat on SpaceX's Transporter-17, becoming the first commercial mission to clear the FAA's NSPM-20 nuclear-launch pathway with Sandia's safety sign-off.
-
Commercial
SpaceX's Transporter-17 Sends 81 Satellites—Including Three Wildfire-Spotting FireSats—Into Orbit
A midnight Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg deployed 81 satellites for five nations, headlined by three FireSat wildfire detectors, a Navy tech demo, an in-space 3D printer, and the UAE's first navigation satellite.
-
Commercial
The Ultimate Egg-Drop Challenge: A Startup Rides SpaceX's Falcon 9 Boosters to Test Manufacturing Chips in Space
Besxar Space Industries flew two reusable test pods on a Falcon 9 booster's suborbital round trip on July 5, betting that surviving launch vibration and reentry heat is the first step toward manufacturing semiconductors in orbit.
-
Missions
CRS-34 Dragon Heads Home With Bioprinted Tissue and Cancer-Research Cargo
SpaceX's CRS-34 Dragon undocked from the ISS on June 16 and splashed down off California early June 17, carrying thousands of pounds of finished experiments — bioprinted organ tissue, DNA-inspired cancer materials, cryogenic fuel data and more.
-
Missions
What Artemis II Taught NASA: Real Orion Flight Data Now Shapes the Moon-to-Mars Blueprint
Real Orion flight data from Artemis II is now directly shaping NASA's Moon-to-Mars architecture, as engineers apply lessons from Johnson Space Center's Ion venue to systems that will define how humans reach the Moon — and eventually Mars.
-
Commercial
China Schedules Long March 10B Booster Recovery Test in Its Most Direct Challenge to Falcon 9
China has scheduled a Long March 10B launch and booster recovery attempt — Beijing's most ambitious step yet toward domestic reusable launch capability and a structural challenge to SpaceX's Falcon 9.
-
Commercial
Phones, Meet Space: AST SpaceMobile Lofts Its First Block 2 BlueBirds
A pre-dawn Falcon 9 carried BlueBirds 8, 9 and 10 — AST SpaceMobile's first operational Block 2 satellites, built to beam broadband straight to ordinary 4G and 5G phones — marking the company's pivot from testing toward live direct-to-cell service.
-
Commercial
Rival Satellite Operators Launch Their Own NGSO Trade Group — Without SpaceX
Rival satellite operators just formed their own industry trade group — and they made a point of leaving SpaceX out. The exclusion reveals a structural fault line over spectrum policy and orbital rights.
-
Science & Discovery
SpaceX Launches Secretive 'Starfall' Reentry Demo — What the Silence Signals
SpaceX flew a Falcon 9 mission called Starfall — described only as a reentry capsule demonstration — and disclosed almost nothing about it. The deliberate operational security around a clearly serious program may signal something significant ahead.
