On Wednesday (Dec. 17), this particular Starlink suffered an anomaly that caused a loss of communication with the ground and an unscheduled venting of its propulsion tank. The satellite is now tumbling and headed down toward Earth’s atmosphere, where it will be incinerated in a matter of weeks, according to SpaceX.

SpaceX asked Vantor (previously known as Maxar Intelligence) to image the stricken satellite, to get a better understanding of its condition. And Vantor delivered.

The company used its WorldView-3 Earth-observing satellite to image the Starlink spacecraft on Thursday (Dec. 18) from a distance of 150 miles (241 kilometers).

The photo, taken while the duo were flying over Alaska, features a resolution of 4.7 inches (12 centimeters), providing SpaceX with key information about the satellite.

"Our team took advantage of the advanced capabilities of our non-Earth imaging technology and recently expanded collection capacity to move quickly and provide SpaceX with confirmation that their satellite was mostly intact," Todd Surdey, Vantor’s executive vice president and general manager of enterprise and emerging products, said in a statement on Saturday (Dec. 20). "This rapid intelligence delivery enabled them to quickly assess possible damage to the spacecraft."

There is apparently some damage: Data suggests that the satellite released a small number of debris objects as a result of the anomaly. But those pieces, and the satellite itself, shouldn't a present a problem to other spacecraft in low Earth orbit (LEO), according to SpaceX.

"We appreciate the rapid response by @vantortech to provide this imagery. Additional data suggest that there is a small number of trackable debris objects from the event, and we expect the satellite and debris to reenter and fully demise within weeks," Michael Nicolls, vice president of Starlink engineering at SpaceX, said in an X post on Saturday.

Starlink is by far the largest satellite constellation ever assembled. It currently consists of about 9,300 active spacecraft — about 65% of all the operational satellites in Earth orbit.

Over the past 12 months, we saw multiple spaceflight records broken, the debut of a powerful new reusable rocket and the first-ever fully successful private moon landing.

Here's a rundown of the top 10 spaceflight stories of the year.

10. Astronauts fly over Earth's poles for the first time ever

On March 31, SpaceX launched the private Fram2 mission, which sent four private astronauts on a 3.5-day mission to Earth orbit aboard a Crew Dragon capsule. It was SpaceX's 17th crewed mission to date, but it still broke new ground: Fram2 circled our planet over the poles, which no astronaut flight had ever done before.

There are a number of reasons why human spaceflight planners have avoided this trajectory. Chief among them is that the most common astronaut destinations — these days, the International Space Station (ISS) and China's Tiangong outpost — don't take polar paths. Flying over the poles also exposes astronauts to higher levels of radiation and imposes communications challenges.

The Fram2 crew — led by billionaire commander and mission funder Chun Wang — performed a few dozen scientific experiments during their flight. They also got unprecedented views of our planet's icy extremes, some of which they shared with those of us stuck down here on terra firma.

9. India completes its first in-space docking

India notched a big milestone shortly after the calendar turned this year: On Jan. 15, the two spacecraft of the nation's Space Docking Experiment, or SpaDex for short, linked up in Earth orbit. The success made India just the fourth nation ever to pull off an in-space docking, after the USSR/Russia, the United States and China.

Those other countries are all space powers, a status that India seeks to attain as well. And SpaDex is a step along this path: Mastery of docking tech is necessary to achieve big things in the final frontier, like building a space station and returning samples from the moon.

8. European mission creates its first artificial solar eclipse

An "eclipse machine" came online in 2025. The European Space Agency's two-satellite Proba-3 mission launched to Earth orbit in December 2024, tasked with generating artificial solar eclipses via precise formation flying: One Proba-3 spacecraft blocks out the sun from the perspective of the other, which observes the phenomenon using an onboard telescope.

Proba-3 was designed to help scientists study the sun's wispy, superhot corona, or outer atmosphere, which is swamped by our star's overwhelming brightness — except during total solar eclipses. And Proba-3 delivered the goods for the first time on May 23, capturing an eclipse of its own creation.

7. Suni Williams breaks spacewalk record

Suni Williams' latest space stay lasted far longer than she or anyone else had expected — and the unplanned extension allowed her to break a spacewalk record.

Williams and fellow NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore launched toward the ISS on June 5, 2024, on the first crewed flight of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft. Their mission was supposed to last just 10 days or so. But Starliner suffered thruster problems and helium leaks on the way up, so NASA delayed the vehicle's return to study the issues. The agency eventually decided to bring Starliner home uncrewed, which happened without incident on Sept. 7, 2024, and kept Williams and Wilmore on the ISS until March of this year, when they returned to Earth aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

NASA integrated Williams and Wilmore into the ISS' full-time crew, and the duo used their extra time well. Williams, for example, performed two spacewalks: one on Jan. 16 and the other on Jan. 30. That second excursion brought her career spacewalking time (accrued over nine extravehicular activities) to 62 hours, 6 minutes. That set a new record for female spaceflyers, besting NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson's total time by 1 hour, 45 minutes. The overall record is 82 hours, 22 minutes, held by cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyev.

Whitson still holds the American and female-astronaut records for the most total time spent in space, at 675 days. Williams has been off Earth for a total of 608 days.

6. China launches a mission to sample a "quasi-moon" of Earth

China continued its bold advance into the final frontier this year, launching its first-ever asteroid sample-return mission. That project, called Tianwen 2, isn't targeting any old asteroid — it's on the way to Kamo'oalewa (also known as 2016 HO3), which may be a piece of the moon blasted into space by a giant impact. Kamo'oalewa is weird in another way as well: It's one of Earth's seven known "quasi-moons," objects that don't circle our planet but orbit the sun in lockstep with it.

Tianwen 2 launched on May 28. If all goes according to plan, it will return samples of Kamo'oalewa to Earth in 2027, giving scientists their first up-close look at an intriguing and mysterious object.

5. SpaceX breaks its launch record — again

No surprises here: SpaceX broke its single-year launch record in 2025. Elon Musk's company has launched 170 times so far this year — 165 flights of its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket and five suborbital test missions of Starship, the giant, fully reusable vehicle designed to help humanity settle Mars and the moon. More than 70% of the Falcon 9 launches have been devoted to building out SpaceX's Starlink megaconstellation, which consists of more than 9,000 operational satellites (and counting).

It was the sixth year in a row that SpaceX has set a new launch record. That mark has increased from 25 in 2020 to 31 (2021) to 61 (2022) to 98 (2023) to 138 (2024) and, now, to 170. And SpaceX is planning to launch two more Falcon 9 missions before the calendar turns, so that number should reach 172.

4. China launches its first reusable rocket

The Chinese company Landspace has developed its own version of the Falcon 9. The rocket, called Zhuque-3, features a reusable first stage powered by nine engines. Zhuque-3 took flight for the first time on Dec. 3, successfully reaching orbit and nearly pulling off a booster landing as well. Zhuque-3's first stage crashed and burned near its touchdown zone, however, apparently after suffering an engine loss during the descent.

Zhuque-3 may well pull off China's first-ever orbital rocket landing on its next flight. Or another vehicle may claim that mantle — Space Pioneer's Tianlong-3, perhaps, or the Long March 12A, which was developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. Both of those rockets feature reusable first stages and are scheduled to make their debut flights soon.

3. Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket comes online

An even more powerful, partially reusable rocket earned its wings this year: New Glenn, the heavy lifter developed by Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' aerospace company.

New Glenn debuted Jan. 16, successfully reaching orbit with a dummy version of Blue Origin's Blue Ring spacecraft platform on board. The company tried to land the rocket's reusable first stage on a ship at sea during the flight, but that didn't work out. The second try was the charm, however: New Glenn's booster aced its ocean landing during flight number two, which occurred Nov. 13. The rocket succeeded in its primary mission that day as well, sending the twin ESCAPADE Mars probes into the final frontier for NASA.

Each New Glenn first stage is designed to fly at least 25 times, according to Blue Origin. If the company can attain such SpaceX-levels of reuse, it could achieve some very big things down the road.

2. SpaceX's Starship aces two straight test flights

Speaking of reuse: SpaceX's fully reusable vehicle, the Starship megarocket, flew five test flights in 2025. The first three were checkered affairs, featuring the loss of at least one of Starship's two stages. But the final two, which lifted off in August and October, were unqualified successes.

On both missions, Starship's Super Heavy booster came back to Earth for a pinpoint touchdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The vehicle's upper stage reached space, deployed dummy versions of SpaceX's Starlink satellites, and splashed down in the Indian Ocean as planned.

Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, still has to check off some pretty big boxes before it's up and running. It needs to reach orbit, for example, and demonstrate in-space refueling of the upper stage, which will be needed on all missions to the moon and Mars. But Starship enters 2026 with some serious momentum.

1. A private company lands on the moon

On March 2, Firefly Aerospace's robotic Blue Ghost lander touched down successfully on the moon. It remained operational for about two weeks thereafter, allowing the science instruments it carried to do their planned work.

This was an unprecedented achievement for private industry and spaceflight in general. Another company, Houston-based Intuitive Machines, put its Odysseus lunar lander down in February 2024, but that vehicle soon toppled over, shortening its mission and those of some of its payloads. Intuitive Machines' second lunar lander, Athena, suffered a similar fate shortly after its touchdown on March 6 of this year.

Blue Ghost's success was also a victory for NASA, which booked the mission (and those of Odysseus and Athena) via its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. More CLPS missions — by Firefly, Intuitive Machines, Astrobotic and other companies — are scheduled to launch soon, potentially opening up the moon to more research and human exploration activities — and perhaps even settlement down the road.

The mishap led to a loss of communication with the Starlink spacecraft, which was orbiting at an altitude of 260 miles (418 kilometers), according to the company.

In addition, "the anomaly led to venting of the propulsion tank, a rapid decay in semi-major axis by about 4 km [2.5 miles], and the release of a small number of trackable low relative velocity objects," representatives of Starlink, a company that's owned by SpaceX, said in an X post on Thursday morning (Dec. 18). That description suggests that the Starlink satellite's propulsion tank may have ruptured or suffered some other type of damage.

SpaceX is working with NASA and the U.S. Space Force to keep tabs on the newly liberated pieces of space debris, the post continued, stressing that there's not much to worry about.

"The satellite is largely intact, tumbling, and will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and fully demise within weeks. The satellite's current trajectory will place it below the @Space_Station, posing no risk to the orbiting lab or its crew," Starlink representatives wrote.

"As the world’s largest satellite constellation operator, we are deeply committed to space safety," they added. "We take these events seriously. Our engineers are rapidly working to root cause and mitigate the source of the anomaly and are already in the process of deploying software to our vehicles that increases protections against this type of event."

The Starlink megaconstellation is by far the largest ever assembled. It currently consists of nearly 9,300 active satellites, meaning that SpaceX operates about 65% of all the functional spacecraft zipping around our planet.

And that number is growing all the time. SpaceX has launched 122 Starlink missions this year alone, sending more than 3,000 of the satellites to low Earth orbit.

Starlink satellites have a design lifetime of about five years, and SpaceX deorbits each one intentionally before it conks out in orbit.

The company has taken other steps to mitigate the space-junk threat posed by the megaconstellation as well. For example, Starlink spacecraft avoid potential collisions autonomously, an ability they put into practice quite often: In the first six months of 2025, Starlink satellites conducted about 145,000 evasive actions — an average of about four per spacecraft per month.

There's no guarantee that every satellite operator is quite so responsible, however. Last week, for example, a satellite recently deployed by a Chinese rocket gave a Starlink spacecraft a close shave, apparently without providing the proper warning ahead of time.

"As far as we know, no coordination or deconfliction with existing satellites operating in space was performed, resulting in a 200-meter close approach between one of the deployed satellites and STARLINK-6079 (56120) at 560 km altitude. Most of the risk of operating in space comes from the lack of coordination between satellite operators — this needs to change," Michael Nicolls, vice president of Starlink engineering at SpaceX, said via X on Dec. 12.

A new study finds that, with the immense quantity of satellites that hurtle in Earth's orbit today, the first smashup would occur in less than three days, potentially triggering a dangerous collision cascade that could quickly make space around the planet unusable.

The study, published on the online preprint repository arXiv, has not yet been peer-reviewed, the authors caution, but it raises questions about the sustainability of humanity's use of space. The researchers call this expected time-to-collision value the Crash Clock and calculated it by running a model of all known objects in space and determining an average collision rate for various orbital regions in the absence of avoidance maneuvers.

They found that regions in low Earth orbit (LEO) at altitudes around 300 miles (500 kilometers), where most satellites of megaconstellations like SpaceX's Starlink reside, could see a collision in as little as 2.8 days. For comparison, the team ran an identical simulation with numbers of satellites and space debris in orbit from 2018. At that time, it would have taken 128 days for the first collision to occur, Samantha Lawler, an associate professor in astronomy at the University of Regina in Canada and one of the paper's authors, told Space.com.

"It's been a big change since 2018," Lawler said.

The idea that satellites in orbit could suddenly lose their ability to avoid collisions is not science fiction. Every time the sun unleashes a coronal mass ejection (CME) — a burst of magnetized plasma — toward Earth, the planet's tenuous upper atmosphere thickens. Satellites in LEO then experience more drag and slow down, meaning their trajectories become impossible to predict.

In 2003, for example, after the Halloween storm — one of the most intense space weather events of the last three decades — satellite operators lost track of positions of their spacecraft for days. At that time, a few hundred operational satellites orbited the planet, and no collision occurred. And the Halloween storm was only a fraction of what the sun is capable of. A stronger solar storm, perhaps as potent as the Carrington Event of 1859 — the most intense recorded solar storm in human history — would take a week or more to fully subside.

"At the beginning of a solar storm, there's a huge increase in atmospheric density and things start to get pulled down," Sarah Thiele, an astrophysics researcher at Princeton University, and corresponding author of the paper, told Space.com. "Before things start getting back to normal, you have uncertainties of several kilometers in the positions of satellites, and it becomes impossible to estimate where objects are going to be in the future — and therefore it becomes impossible to predict collisions and conduct avoidance maneuvers."

The Crash Clock data suggests that, in 2018, near-Earth space would most likely have had enough time to recover from the most extreme solar storm before the first collision occurred. In 2025, however, an orbital smashup would be almost certain. Such a collision would create thousands of fragments that would threaten everything in their path, potentially triggering an unstoppable chain of events. With every subsequent crash, the affected orbital region would become more unsafe — a nightmare scenario known as the Kessler syndrome.

"2.8 days is the average expectation value for time to the first collision," Thiele said. "It's a probabilistic estimate. We're not saying that for sure this is going to happen in exactly that time. It's what you might expect."

Currently, some 13,000 functioning satellites orbit the planet, according to the European Space Agency, together with more than 43,500 pieces of space debris — defunct satellites, rocket stages and collision fragments — that are large enough to be tracked. These objects circle the planet at speeds of about 7.8 kilometers (4.8 miles) per second, and their paths frequently intersect. Space situational awareness companies, the U.S. Space Command and other agencies predict satellite trajectories and alert operators to perform collision-avoidance maneuvers in case of close approaches. Starlink, by far the currently largest constellation in orbit, encompassing around 9,000 functioning satellites, performed 145,000 collision-avoidance maneuvers in the six months prior to July 2025, equivalent to around four maneuvers per Starlink satellite every month.

The global space industry, however, is far from done with satellite constellation deployments. Analysts estimate that by 2035, tens of thousands more satellites might be added to Earth orbit. Things might therefore become much more treacherous in the not-so-distant future.

Lawler and Thiele declined to estimate how short the Crash Clock could be if there were perhaps six or 10 times as many satellites in Earth's orbit as there are today.

They say the satellite operators can, to a degree, improve their chances to survive solar mayhem by quickly de-orbiting old satellites and carefully considering how many spacecraft to launch to certain altitudes.

"The part that satellite operators can control is the number of satellites and the density of satellites," said Lawler.

Thiele added that the study highlights how fragile the space environment has become in a few short years.

"The Crash Clock demonstrates how reliant we are on errorless operations," she said. "If everything works as it's supposed to all the time, then we're okay."

Sooner or later, however, another Carrington-size solar storm will hit. Whether satellite operators will be ready for it remains a question. In 2025, the number of global space launches exceeded 300 for the first time in history, and the industry shows no signs of slowing down.

The U.S. Senate voted today (Dec. 17) 67-30 to confirm billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman as the new NASA administrator, ending more than a year of uncertainty as the space agency has followed marching orders from temporary chiefs

Isaacman, 42, is the billionaire founder of the payment-processing company Shift4. He's also an astronaut and sponsor of Polaris, a privately funded spaceflight program chartering SpaceX launches to orbit. Two of those missions have launched to date with Isaacman in the commander's seat, Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn, which made history as the first private astronaut mission to Earth orbit and the first flight to feature a civilian spacewalk, respectively.

Though some members of Congress have expressed concerns about Isaacman's relationship with SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk, citing the potential for bias or favoritism, Isaacman's nomination has been favorably received by much of the space community.

Or nominations, rather, for there have been two of them. Donald Trump first tapped Isaacman for the top NASA job in December 2024, when he was still president-elect. Isaacman sat for a hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation in April, which advanced his nomination to the full Senate, but lawmakers didn't get the chance to vote. Trump abruptly withdrew Isaacman's nomination in late May, halting the confirmation process and leaving NASA with an indefinite acting administrator.

At the time, that position was held by Kennedy Space Center Director Janet Petro. In July, however, with no prospects for a new NASA administrator nomination on the horizon, Trump handed the role to Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who has remained in the acting administrator position ever since.

Trump's reversal on Isaacman came amidst a public falling out between the president and Musk, with Trump posting on his social media site Truth Social that he hadn't realized Isaacman was "a blue-blooded Democrat, who had never contributed to a Republican before."

Isaacman came back into the spotlight again in early November, when a Politico report exposed a 62-page document, known as "Project Athena," that outlines Isaacman's vision for NASA. After it was made public, Isaacman called the document a tentative list of "ideas, thoughts on the direction of the agency" and how it might operate in a leaner, more efficient way. Trump renominated Isaacman for NASA chief on Nov. 4 (a day after the Politico report published), which paved the way for his official appointment today.

President Trump's fiscal year 2026 budget proposal slashed NASA's budget by nearly 25% and cut the agency's science funding by 47%. When pressed during his two Senate nomination hearings this year, Isaacman voiced support for much of the administration's space agenda, including landing astronauts back on the moon before China does so and sending humans to Mars. Isaacman also indicated his commitment to spend NASA's funds as directed. It's still unclear what that budget will be; Congress aims to restore NASA funding to previous years' levels, though a final appropriations bill has yet to be passed.

"Mr. Isaacman emphasized the importance of developing a pipeline of future scientists, engineers, researchers, astronauts, to support the science and technology development and align with NASA's objectives," Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said before lawmakers began their roll call vote this afternoon, in a statement that announced her support for his confirmation. "I look forward to working with administrator Isaacman on the future STEM talent with both NASA and more broadly, with the aerospace and innovation sector."

Aerospace engineer Michi Benthaus made spaceflight history on Saturday morning (Dec. 20).

Blue Origin launched Benthaus and her five crewmates on a suborbital spaceflight from the company's West Texas launch site on Saturday, lifting off at 9:15 a.m. EST (1415 GMT; 8:15 a.m. local Texas time).

Benthaus became the first wheelchair user ever to reach the final frontier.

The launch was originally scheduled to occur on Thursday, but that attempt was called off due to an "issue with built-in checks prior to flight," Blue Origin commentators said during the livestream that day.

Benthaus, who works at the European Space Agency, has used a wheelchair since suffering a mountain-biking accident in 2018. Joining her on the Saturday's flight are investors Joey Hyde and Adonis Pouroulis, aerospace engineer Hans Koenigsmann, entrepreneur Neal Milch and self-proclaimed "space nerd" Jason Stansell.

Koenigsmann's name and face are familiar to many space fans, for he worked at SpaceX from 2002 to 2021. He served as the company's vice president of build and flight reliability for the final 10 years of that tenure and participated in many post-launch press conferences in that capacity.

Blue Origin designated the mission NS-37, because it was the 37th liftoff of New Shepard, an autonomous, fully reusable rocket-capsule combo.

New Shepard flights are suborbital and brief, lasting just 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown. Passengers get to see Earth against the blackness of space and experience a few minutes of weightlessness.

They also get astronaut wings. New Shepard gets above the 62-mile-high (100 kilometers) Kármán line, the widely recognized boundary where outer space begins.

As of Saturday, 16 of New Shepard's 37 flights have carried passengers; the other 20 have been uncrewed research missions. The 16 crewed flights have lofted a total of 92 people, though just 86 individuals — six passengers have been repeat customers.

Blue Origin has not disclosed how much it charges for a seat aboard New Shepard.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 12:45 p.m. ET on Dec. 22 to correct an error: New Shepard has now launched 16 crewed missions to date, not 17.

SpaceX launched two more batches of Starlink satellites today (Dec. 17), in a pair of launches from both U.S. coasts.

First up was a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 29 of the broadband internet relay units (Group 6-99) into low Earth orbit from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The satellites were successfully deployed about an hour and five minutes after the 8:42 a.m. EST (1342 GMT) liftoff on Wednesday.

"Deployment of 29 Starlink satellites confirmed," SpaceX reported on social media.

The Florida flight's first stage booster (B1094) completed its sixth flight, landing on the "Just Read the Instructions" droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

Then came 27 more Starlink satellites (Group 15-13), riding atop a Falcon 9 rocket launched from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Lifting off at 10:27 a.m. EST (1527 GMT or 7:27 a.m. PST local time), the mission was on track to deploy its payload about an hour after leaving the ground.

The California flight's first stage booster (B1063) performed its 30th propulsive landing, touching down on the droneship "Of Course I Still Love You" in the Pacific Ocean.

The California flight's first stage booster (B1063) performed its 30th propulsive landing, touching down on the droneship "Of Course I Still Love You" in the Pacific Ocean.

The 56 (in total) Starlink satellites launched on Wednesday add to SpaceX's megaconstellation, which now numbers more than 9,400 units in orbit. The network provides access to the internet to areas around the globe where other options for connectivity is sparse, as well as enables in-flight wifi and cell-to-satellite service on select carries.

Wednesday's dual launches were SpaceX's 164th and 165th Falcon 9 flight of the year.

The California-based startup is soliciting proposals for ground-based and space-based experiments to fly aboard Haven-1 as well as for potential private crewed missions to the International Space Station (ISS), although the latter are contingent on awards by NASA.

Vast says Haven-1 will be the world's first crewed commercial space-based research and manufacturing facility when it reaches low Earth orbit, with the lab due to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as soon as the second quarter of 2026. The 31,000-pound (14,000 kilograms) space lab is designed to accommodate crewed visits totalling up to 160 astronaut days on board during its planned three-year lifespan.

The company, which has moved fast since its founding in 2021, says Haven-1 is well kitted out to host experiments in a diverse range of areas, including on-orbit pharmaceutical development, stem cell research, plant growth and human research and tech demos.

"The opportunity to expand access to microgravity research upon the world's first commercial space station is historic," Vast Principal Scientist Meghan Everett said in a statement. "We need to build on the heritage of the ISS National Lab and help scientists and industry continue world-changing research breakthroughs that are only possible in the novel environment of microgravity."

Vast adds that it is keen on research that could assist human exploration of the moon and Mars and breakthroughs that can benefit humans on Earth, such as studies of bone, muscle and cardiac health, medical tech and stem cell research and regenerative medicine. Vast has already secured partners for Haven-1 including Redwire, Yuri, Japan Manned Space Systems Corporation (JAMSS), Interstellar Lab and Exobiosphere.

In early November, Vast's Haven Demo launched on a Falcon 9 aiming to test critical systems for Haven-1 in orbit. Haven-1 itself is planned to be a stepping stone to a larger and more permanent presence in space, according to Vast, with the company aiming to secure support for the planned Haven-2 habitat through NASA's Commercial LEO Destinations program.

The milestone came on a mission called Remora, a newly revealed collaboration between the companies Starfish Space and Impulse Space. One of Impulse Space's dishwasher-sized Mira orbital transfer vehicles used Starfish software to get within a mere 4,100 feet (1,250 meters) of another Mira, in a key demonstration of autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) tech.

"Together with our partners at Starfish, we brought this mission from concept to execution in less than a year," Impulse Space President and Chief Operating Officer Eric Romo said in a statement today (Dec. 15). "Our team is ready and able to execute quickly and deliver versatile, complex operations where success is paramount. We’re looking forward to more RPO missions across more orbits in the future."

That statement announced the existence of Remora and gave some key details about the mission, which Impulse and Starfish developed in just nine months.

It involved outfitting a Mira with a single, lightweight camera and Starfish's core guidance, navigation and control (GNC) software suite —two programs called Cetacean and Cephalopod, which ran on a peripheral flight computer.

The modified Mira launched in January 2025 on SpaceX's Transporter 12 rideshare mission, which hauled 131 payloads to low Earth orbit (LEO). This was the second Mira to reach orbit, as indicated by the name Impulse Space chose for its mission: LEO Express 2.

Mira conducted a number of operations on LEO Express 2; it deployed two cubesats, for example, and performed several precision engine burns to showcase the abilities of its propulsion system. And then, unbeknownst to the rest of us, it embarked on the Remora mission.

Using Cetacean and Cephalopod, the spacecraft rendezvoused autonomously with the first space-flown Mira, which launched on SpaceX's Transporter 9 flight in November 2023 and performed the LEO Express 1 mission.

The close approach occurred in late October over a period of several hours. Mira chronicled the operation with its onboard camera, and we get to see a few snapshots of the progress: Impulse and Starfish released photos showing the target Mira from a distance of 6.2 miles (10 kilometers), 4 miles (6.5 km), 1.2 miles (2 km) and 4,100 feet (1,250 m).

"With Remora, we set out to validate our unique approach to autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations in orbit," Starfish Space Co-Founder Trevor Bennett said in the same statement.

"Proving this capability is a major milestone for Starfish, and gives us tremendous confidence as we move toward our first Otter launches next year," he added.

Otter is a small, versatile vehicle that Starfish is developing to provide a variety of satellite-servicing functions, from inspection, refueling and repair to the de-orbiting of dead or dying craft.

Remora wasn't the first demonstration of Otter's planned capabilities. A trailblazer called Otter Pup 1 launched on SpaceX's Transporter 8 mission in June 2023.

Otter Pup 1 was supposed to rendezvous with the space tug that deployed it into orbit, but that parent vehicle experienced an anomaly that scuttled that plan. Starfish came up with a new idea, however, successfully maneuvering Otter Pup 1 within 0.6 miles (1 km) of a different space tug in April 2024.

And Otter Pup 2 launched this past June on SpaceX's Transporter 14, tasked with conducting the first-ever private satellite docking in LEO. So there may be some more news coming from Starfish in the not-too-distant future...

SpaceX launched 29 Starlink satellites from Florida early Monday morning, marking the 100th Falcon 9 flight from

The rocket lifted off at 12:25 a.m. EST (0525 GMT) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The two-stage SpaceX launch vehicle reached space about 8 minutes and 40 seconds after leaving the ground.

The Falcon 9's upper stage then deployed the 29 Starlink broadband internet relay satellites (Group 6-82) after about an hour, following a coast period and a second firing of its single Merlin engine.

"Falcon 9 lifts off from Florida for the 100th time in 2025," SpaceX wrote on social media. "Deployment of 29 Starlink satellites confirmed."

Meanwhile, the rocket's first stage completed it use, separated and used its engines to fly back to the Atlantic Ocean and the autonomous drone ship "A Shortfall of Gravitas." The landing on four deployable legs completed the booster's (B1092) ninth flight.

Monday's launch from Florida followed another successful Starlink deployment flown from California the day before. The east coast mission was SpaceX's 163rd Falcon 9 flight in 2025, with another scheduled for Tuesday (Dec. 16) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

Editor's note: This article was updated on Dec. 15 to note the number of Falcon 9 flights from Florida in 2025.

Google recently unveiled Project Suncatcher, a research "moonshot" aiming to build a data centre in space. The tech giant plans to use a constellation of solar-powered satellites which would run on its own TPU chips and transmit data to one another via lasers.

Google's TPU chips (tensor processing units), which are specially designed for machine learning, are already powering Google's latest AI model, Gemini 3. Project Suncatcher will explore whether they can be adapted to survive radiation and temperature extremes and operate reliably in orbit. It aims to deploy two prototype satellites into low Earth orbit, some 400 miles above the Earth, in early 2027.

Google's rivals are also exploring space-based computing. Elon Musk has said that SpaceX "will be doing data centers in space", suggesting that the next generation of Starlink satellites could be scaled up to host such processing. Several smaller firms, including a US startup called Starcloud, have also announced plans to launch satellites equipped with the GPU chips (graphics processing units) that are used in most AI systems.

The logic of data centers in space is that they avoid many of the issues with their Earth-based equivalents, particularly around power and cooling. Space systems have a much lower environmental footprint and it’s potentially easier to make them bigger.

As Google CEO Sundar Pichai has said: "We will send tiny, tiny racks of machines and have them in satellites, test them out, and then start scaling from there … There is no doubt to me that, a decade or so away, we will be viewing it as a more normal way to build data centers."

Assuming Google does manage to launch a prototype in 2027, will it simply be a high-stakes technical experiment – or the dawning of a new era?

The scale of the challenge

I wrote an article for The Conversation at the start of 2025 laying out the challenges of putting data centers into space, in which I was cautious about them happening soon.

Now, of course, Project Suncatcher represents a concrete program rather than just an idea. This clarity, with a defined goal, launch date and hardware, marks a significant shift.

The satellites' orbits will be "sun synchronous", meaning they’ll always be flying over places at sunset or sunrise so that they can capture sunlight nearly continuously. According to Google, solar arrays in such orbits can generate significantly more energy per panel than typical installations on Earth because they avoid losing sunlight due to clouds and the atmosphere, as well as night times.

The TPU tests will be fascinating. Whereas hardware designed for space normally requires to be heavily shielded against radiation and extreme temperatures, Google is using the same chips used in its Earth data centers.

The company has already done laboratory tests exposing the chips to radiation from a proton beam that suggest they can tolerate almost three times the dose they'll receive in space. This is very promising, but maintaining a reliable performance for years, amidst solar storms, debris and temperature swings is a far harder test.

Another challenge lies in thermal management. On Earth, servers are cooled with air or water. In space, there is no air and no straightforward way to dissipate heat. All heat must be removed through radiators, which often become among the largest and heaviest parts of a spacecraft.

Nasa studies show that radiators can account for more than 40% of total power system mass at high power levels. Designing a compact system that can keep dense AI hardware within safe temperatures is one of the most difficult aspects of the Suncatcher concept.

A space-based data center must also replicate the high bandwidth, low latency network fabric of terrestrial data centers. If Google's proposed laser communication system (optical networking) is going to work at the multi-terabit capacity required, there are major engineering hurdles involved.

These include maintaining the necessary alignment between fast-moving satellites and coping with orbital drift, where satellites move out of their intended orbit. The satellites will also have to sustain reliable ground links back on Earth and overcome weather disruptions. If a space data-center is to be viable for the long term, it will be vital that it avoids early failures.

Maintenance is another unresolved issue. Terrestrial data centers rely on continual hardware servicing and upgrades. In orbit, repairs would require robotic servicing or additional missions, both of which are costly and complex.

Then there is the uncertainty around economics. Space-based computing becomes viable only at scale, and only if launch costs fall significantly. Google's Project Suncatcher paper suggests that launch costs could drop below US$200 (£151) per kilogram by the mid 2030s, seven or eight times cheaper than today. That would put construction costs on par with some equivalent facilities on Earth. But if satellites require early replacement or if radiation shortens their lifespan, the numbers could look quite different.

In short, a two-satellite test mission by 2027 sounds plausible. It could validate whether TPUs survive radiation and thermal stress, whether solar power is stable and whether the laser communication system performs as expected.

However, even a successful demonstration would only be the first step. It would not show that large-scale orbital data centers are feasible. Full-scale systems would require solving all the challenges outlined above. If adoption occurs at all, it is likely to unfold over decades.

For now, space-based computing remains what Google itself calls it, a moonshot: ambitious and technically demanding, but one that could reshape the future of AI infrastructure, not to mention our relationship with the cosmos around us.

Almost 10 years to the day since it successfully landed its first rocket stage, SpaceX today (Dec. 14) recovered its 550th Falcon 9 booster.

The touchdown came after the rocket's first stage had lofted 27 Starlink satellites into space, lifting off from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Sunday at 12:49 a.m. EST (0549 GMT or 9:49 p.m. PST local time on Dec. 13).

The Falcon 9 rocket's upper stage was on track to deploy the satellites into low Earth orbit about an hour after they left the ground.

Unlike the first Falcon 9 first stage landing in on Dec. 21, 2015, which arrived back on land, Sunday's booster (B1093) fired one of its nine Merlin engines and deployed its four landing legs to come to rest atop the autonomous drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You" stationed in the Pacific Ocean.

The flight marked the stage's ninth trip to space and back.

With the addition of the 27 satellites (Group 15-12), the Starlink megaconstellation now has over 9,300 active units out of the more than 10,000 that have been launched since 2019. The Starlink network provides broadband internet access to regions around the world, as well as enables wifi on airlines and cell-to-satellite access on select providers.

Sunday's launch was SpaceX's 162nd Falcon 9 flight in 2025, and 580th overall.

That bullet was one of the nine spacecraft that launched atop a Chinese Kinetica 1 rocket on Tuesday (Dec. 9) from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert. It zoomed dangerously close to a Starlink satellite, according to SpaceX, which was none too pleased with the close shave.

"As far as we know, no coordination or deconfliction with existing satellites operating in space was performed, resulting in a 200-meter close approach between one of the deployed satellites and STARLINK-6079 (56120) at 560 km altitude. Most of the risk of operating in space comes from the lack of coordination between satellite operators — this needs to change," Michael Nicolls, vice president of Starlink engineering at SpaceX, said via X on Friday evening (Dec. 12).

Kinetica 1 is a 100-foot-tall (30 meters) solid-fuel rocket operated by CAS Space. The company, which is based in Guangzhou, responded to Nicolls' post, saying that it did its due diligence as the launch services provider (LSP) but is looking into the incident nonetheless.

"Our team is currently in contact for more details. All CAS Space launches select their launch windows using the ground-based space awareness system to avoid collisions with known satellites/debris. This is a mandatory procedure. We will work on identifying the exact details and provide assistance as the LSP," CAS Space said via X on Friday night.

"If confirmed, this incident occurred nearly 48 hours after payload separation, by which time the launch mission had long concluded. CAS Space will coordinate with satellite operators to proceed. This calls for re-establishing collaborations between the two New Space ecosystems," the company added in another X post a few hours later.

Tuesday's Kinetica 1 launch lofted "six Chinese multifunctional satellites, an Earth-observation satellite for the UAE [United Arab Emirates}, a scientific satellite for Egypt and an educational satellite for Nepal," according to China Daily. Nicolls' post did not specify which of these spacecraft zoomed close to the Starlink satellite.

The coordination that Nicolls cited is becoming more and more important, for Earth orbit is getting more and more crowded. In 2020, for example, fewer than 3,400 functional satellites were whizzing around our planet. Just five years later, that number has soared to about 13,000, and more spacecraft are going up all the time.

Most of them belong to SpaceX. The company currently operates nearly 9,300 Starlink satellites, more than 3,000 of which have launched this year alone.

Starlink satellites avoid potential collisions autonomously, maneuvering themselves away from conjunctions predicted by available tracking data. And this sort of evasive action is quite common: Starlink spacecraft performed about 145,000 avoidance maneuvers in the first six months of 2025, which works out to around four maneuvers per satellite per month.

That's an impressive record. But many other spacecraft aren't quite so capable, and even Starlink satellites can be blindsided by spacecraft whose operators don't share their trajectory data, as Nicolls noted.

And even a single collision — between two satellites, or involving pieces of space junk, which are plentiful in Earth orbit as well — could spawn a huge cloud of debris, which could cause further collisions. Indeed, the nightmare scenario, known as the Kessler syndrome, is a debris cascade that makes it difficult or impossible to operate satellites in parts of the final frontier.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 10:05 a.m. ET on Dec. 13 to include another X post by CAS Space.

Blue Origin announced today (Dec. 11) that it's targeting Dec. 18 for its NS-37 mission, which will send six people on a brief trip to suborbital space and back.

One of the passengers is Michaela (Michi) Benthaus, an aerospace engineer at the European Space Agency who has used a wheelchair since suffering a spinal cord injury in a 2018 mountain-biking accident. She is poised to break new ground for access and inclusion in human spaceflight.

NS-37 will lift off from Blue Origin's West Texas site on Dec. 18 during a window that opens at 9:30 a.m. EST (1430 GMT; 8:30 a.m. local time). The company will stream the action live, beginning about 40 minutes before launch.

As its name suggests, NS-37 will be the 37th overall flight of Blue Origin's autonomous New Shepard vehicle, which consists of a crew capsule and a rocket, both of which are reusable.

New Shepard flights last 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown. Passengers feel a few minutes of weightlessness and see Earth against the blackness of space.

The five folks who will get this experience on NS-37 along with Benthaus are investor Joey Hyde, aerospace engineer Hans Koenigsmann, entrepreneur Neal Milch, investor Adonis Pouroulis, and self-proclaimed "space nerd" Jason Stansell.

Other space nerds may recognize Koenigsmann's name: He was one of the first employees at SpaceX, working there from 2002 to 2021. For roughly half of that time, he served as the company's vice president of build and flight reliability and was a frequent participant in launch webcasts and press conferences.

Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, also released the NS-37 mission patch today, along with an explanation of what some of its symbols mean. Here's that explanation, verbatim from the company:

• The DNA symbolizes the importance and impact of science to Neal Milch. 
• The hippo represents Michaela (Michi) Benthaus' favorite animal. Her plush hippo, which comforted her in the hospital after her accident, will join her in space. The tennis ball symbolizes another of Michi's competitive passions. 
• A baobab tree, iconic to South Africa, represents Adonis Pouroulis' roots. 
• A spiral galaxy symbolizes Joey Hyde's astrophysics research. 
• A dog-bone shape, stars in the crew capsule windows represent the number 201, and "K" are in memoriam of Jason Stansell's brother. 
• The shards represent Blue Origin's commitment to breaking down the barriers to accessing space, including cost, nationality, and ability.  

For the 300th time this year, a rocket has lifted off for Earth orbit.

SpaceX on Thursday (Dec. 11) launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 29 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The broadband internet relay spacecraft entered Earth orbit about eight and a half minutes after leaving the ground at 5:01 p.m. EST (2201 GMT).

The Starlink satellites (Group 6-90) were on track to be deployed into the SpaceX megaconstellation about an hour into the flight.

The Falcon 9's first stage (Booster 1083) completed its 16th mission, landing back on the autonomous droneship "Just Read the Instructions," stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Starlink network now numbers more than 10,000 satellites, with more than 9,100 active and in use. The commercial service provides internet access to underserved areas around the world, as well as enables cell-to-satellite and airline WiFi for select carriers.

Thursday's launch was SpaceX's 161st Falcon 9 flight of the year, 606th mission overall and marked the 300th orbital launch attempt worldwide, according to the website Next Spaceflight.

Elon Musk's company has been private since its founding in March 2002. Over the past six days, however, speculation has swirled that SpaceX will hold an initial public offering (IPO) next year, offering investors the chance to buy shares for the first time.

The Wall Street Journal and The Information first reported this plan last Friday (Dec. 5), and other outlets soon followed up. For example, a Bloomberg story on Tuesday (Dec. 9) suggested that SpaceX will seek a valuation of $1.5 trillion, which would make it one of the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world. The IPO, which is apparently targeted for mid- to late 2026, could raise a record $30 billion or more.

On Wednesday (Dec. 10), Ars Technica's Eric Berger posted a story confirming the IPO rumors and offering an explanation for the move: SpaceX wants to raise money to pay for the buildout of data centers in space, which Musk and a growing number of people believe will be a key enabler of the coming AI revolution.

"Foremost among Musk's goals right now is to 'win' the battle for artificial intelligence. He is already attacking the problem at xAI and Tesla, and he now seeks to throw SpaceX into the fray as well," Berger wrote. "Taking SpaceX public and using it to marshal an incredible amount of resources shows he is playing to win."

SpaceX's initial off-Earth data centers will be modified versions of the company's Starlink broadband satellites, according to Berger, who has written two books about SpaceX. But the company's long-term vision involves setting up AI-satellite factories on the moon and launching them into space using railguns, he added, citing a Dec. 7 X post by Musk.

Berger's sources are apparently reliable, for Musk backed the piece in a Wednesday X post. "As usual, Eric is accurate," the billionaire wrote.

The IPO news has stirred concern among some space fans, who worry that a publicly traded SpaceX won't be as free to pursue its Mars-settlement plans, which hinge on the development and operation of the company's giant, fully reusable Starship rocket. After all, establishing a city on Mars will be extremely expensive, with little financial return in the short term — not exactly the mission profile that most investors are keen to support.

However, Berger thinks Musk views the IPO as a way to help fund Mars settlement, which the billionaire has long stressed is his overarching goal and the reason he founded SpaceX in the first place.

"Musk has frequently expressed a concern that there may be a limited window for settling Mars," Berger wrote. "Perhaps financial markets collapse. Perhaps there’s a worse pandemic. Perhaps a large asteroid hits the planet. Taking SpaceX public now is a bet that he can marshal the resources now, during his lifetime, to make Mars City One a reality. He is 54 years old."

The launch of a new batch of SpaceX Starlink satellites lit up the predawn sky in southern California today (Dec. 10) as the company marked its 160th flight of a Falcon 9 rocket this year.

Lifting off at 6:40 a.m. EST (1140 GMT or 3:40 a.m. PST local time) Wednesday from Vandenberg Space Force Base's Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E), the 27 broadband internet satellites (Group 15-11) were deployed into low Earth orbit just over an hour into the flight.

"Deployment of 27 Starlink satellites confirmed," SpaceX officials posted to social media.

The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket completed its 18th flight, landing back on the autonomous droneship "Of Course I Still Love You" positioned in the Pacific Ocean.

The Starlink megaconstellation now numbers more than 9,000 operational satellites, including the more than 3,000 launched just this year. The network provides access to the internet to areas around the world where there was no or sparse coverage, as well as enables WiFi access on commercial airliners and cell-to-satellite service on select providers.

Wednesday's launch was SpaceX's 165th overall launch of 2025 (including Starship test flights) and the 605th mission in the company's history.

SpaceX just launched a secret payload for the U.S. military.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off into cloudy skies from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today (Dec. 9) at 2:16 p.m. EDT (1916 GMT) on a mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) called NROL-77.

The NRO, which is part of the Department of Defense, operates the United States' fleet of spy satellites.

Those spacecraft and their missions tend to be classified, and NROL-77 is no exception. The NRO's press kit, which you can find here, says the mission "carries a national security payload designed, built and operated by NRO."

There are no details, though the kit does reveal that the mission patch features a flying squirrel, along with the words "Another One Gone — Today, Tomorrow and Beyond'."

"The flying squirrel is a symbol of hard work and endurance — always active gathering foundational knowledge from the space domain for the nation and its allies," NRO officials wrote in the press kit. "Every mission counts, every decision matters, and every advancement propels us further. 'Another One Gone — Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond' embodies the relentless pursuit of excellence."

NROL-77 was the third mission that SpaceX has launched this year for the NRO and U.S. Space Systems Command, according to the company. However, it was the seventh Falcon 9 flight of 2025 carrying the "NROL-" prefix. The others — NROL-153, NROL-57, NROL-69, NROL-192, NROL-145 and NROL-48 — launched between January and September.

The Falcon 9's first stage successfully landed back at Cape Canaveral 8.5 minutes after launch today as planned. It was the fourth mission for this particular booster, which is designated 1096.

We don't know when and where the Falcon 9's upper stage will deploy the NROL-77 payload. SpaceX's mission description doesn't provide that information, and the company cut its webcast off shortly after booster landing at the request of the NRO.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 2:28 p.m. ET on Dec. 9 with news of successful launch and booster landing.

The first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket just set a new record for a "flight-proven" booster, landing for the 32nd time after helping loft Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit.

The company's Booster 1067 lifted off on Monday (Dec. 8), accelerating an upper stage and 29 broadband internet satellites skyward. The 5:26 p.m. EST (2226 GMT Dec. 8) launch from Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida proceeded as planned after a one-day stand down due to poor weather conditions.

The first stage climbed towards space for about two and a half minutes before separating from the upper stage and then making a propulsive return to Earth. It landed on the autonomous droneship "Just Read the Instructions," which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

The 32nd use is another step toward SpaceX's goal of flying its Falcon 9 first stages 40 times.

The Falcon 9 upper stage, meanwhile continued on its climb and, after a coast and a second firing of its Merlin engine, was expected to deploy the Starlink satellites (Group 6-92) about an hour after leaving the ground.

There are now more than 9,100 operational relay units in the Starlink network, which provide access to broadband internet to regions around the world that do not have other means of connecting. The service also supports WiFi connectively on commercial airliners and cell-to-satellite service on select carriers.

Monday's launch from Florida was SpaceX's 158th Falcon 9 launch of the year and 510th reflight of a first stage since 2017. The company launched another set of 29 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Sunday (Dec. 7).

Jared Isaacman, the billionaire tech entrepreneur and sponsor of SpaceX's private Polaris spaceflight program, faced a key vote on Monday evening (Dec. 8) before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which determined whether or not to send his nomination as NASA chief to the full Senate. And the vote passed.

"Mr. Isaacman, I know that you are as committed to American supremacy in the final frontier as is this committee and the entire Senate," Committee Chairman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in an emailed statement on Monday evening. "My hope is that you will be confirmed and in this role before the end of this year."

The hearing began Monday at 5:30 p.m. ET (2230 GMT). The Senate committee had said the proceedings will be broadcast live, but that turned out not to be the case.

Isaacman has flown to space twice. He privately funded both missions, which launched groundbreaking spaceflights aboard SpaceX Crew Dragons. The first, Inspiration4, was also the first all-civilian launch, while his second, Polaris Dawn, included the first civilian spacewalk.

In his nomination hearing before the committee last week, Isaacman faced questions scrutinizing his relationship with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and probing his position on NASA's science and human spaceflight programs. It was Isaacman's second such hearing before the committee, which had the opportunity to press similar questions to him in April, during his first round through the nomination process.

Despite a positive and mostly bipartisan reception by lawmakers, a vote for Isaacman's confirmation earlier this year was halted when President Trump withdrew his nomination in May. Janet Petro, acting NASA Administrator at the time, later ceded the role to Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy when Trump appointed him to the position in July.

Isaacman quietly stepped aside, but little movement was made over the summer to nominate a new NASA chief as Duffy juggled dual roles at the space agency and DOT. Then, an early November report from Politico exposed a 62-page document, known as "Project Athena," outlining Isaacman's vision to outsource certain aspects of NASA to the commercial sector in order to operate a leaner, more efficient agency. A day after that report published, Trump renominated Isaacman for NASA's acting administrator.

In addition to Isaacman, seven other federal appointments face votes this evening, including John DeLeeuw, of Texas, and Michael Graham, of Virginia, to the National Transportation Safety Board, Steven Haines, of Virginia, as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Analysis, Robert Harvey, of Florida, as Federal Maritime Commissioner, Richard Kloster, of West Virginia, to the Surface Transportation Board, Adm. Kevin E. Lunday as Commandant of the United States Coast Guard and McCormack, of Virginia, as Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 6 p.m. ET on Dec. 8 with the news that the hearing will not be webcast after all, then again at 6:45 p.m. ET with the news that the committee had advanced Isaacman's nomination to the full Senate.

These were just some of the considerations raised when SpaceX billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman once again appeared before a Senate committee Wednesday (Dec. 3) for a bid at NASA chief.

This wasn't Isaacman's first rodeo before the Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation in Washington, D.C. But the eight-month gap between the two nomination hearings in April and December showed just how much has changed in NASA, as the race with China heats up, the effects of the costly 43-day government shutdown persist, and worries about the agency's budget accelerate.

There might be a narrow window of time to confirm Isaacman before even more change arises. NASA's continuing resolution for funding only gives it money until the next deadline for the U.S. budget at the end of January—and if fiscal 2026 is not agreed upon, the government will shut down again.

Here are five key findings from the hearing showing some of the important things to Isaacman, and the committee, as the nomination enters an expected committee vote on Monday (Dec. 8).

1. Déjà vu

Like that black cat in 'The Matrix', Isaacman made a repeat appearance before the Senate committee on Dec. 3. He appeared to sail through the O.G. hearing on April 9, impressing the committee and space fans alike with his testimony: not only was he an advocate for NASA's moon and Mars aims, but his space experience included funding and commanding two SpaceX missions to Earth orbit in September 2021 and September 2024.

But to the space world's surprise, President Donald Trump abruptly revoked his required nomination for Isaacman on May 31, just days before Congress appeared to be ready to confirm Isaacman as administrator. It was said that Trump was not impressed with Isaacman's past donations to the Democrats, and aside from that, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk finished his 130-day appointment as a "special government employee" just the day before. (We didn't know this when Isaacman's nomination was pulled, but Musk and Trump were clearly unhappy with each other as their "very public bromance", as NPR put it, descended into attacks and insults on social media in early June.)

Isaacman said at the time that some folks had "axes to grind" and he was a convenient target. NASA was led in an acting capacity by former reality TV star and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. Then in November came another development: after weeks of rumors, Trump reversed course for a renomination on Nov. 4 amid a reported power struggle for NASA's governance.

Isaacman definitely got questions from lawmakers about what happened; while he said he "wouldn't even begin to want to speculate", it was pointed out that he lately has made donations to organizations close to the U.S. president's ideals. But Isaacman maintained a middle course, emphasizing the donations were because he was interested generally in politics, and adding: "I was grateful for the opportunity in the first place."

2. Is the current Artemis plan feasible?

Isaacman told lawmakers that his testimony was tinged "with a message of urgency" in the final months before the expected liftoff of Artemis 2, a four-astronaut around-the-moon mission with three NASA astronauts and a Canadian astronaut on board. That could fly in February 2026 if schedules hold, marking the first moon mission by any humans since 1972.

Artemis 2 seeks to test out the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for humans ahead of the landmark Artemis 3, which may put boots on the surface later in the decade if a human landing system (HLS) is ready in time. But there's a rub: following years of NASA concerns about SpaceX's progress on the Starship lander, Duffy pledged in October to reopen competition for the Artemis 3 moon-landing contract, which SpaceX won back in 2021.

Isaacman (whose ties to SpaceX were also a feature of the hearing, as discussed below) didn't quite answer if he plans to follow through on Duffy's threat, but he had this to say: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has since won an Artemis astronaut-landing contract as well for HLS, and it is good to have more than one company available for all Artemis landings.

"I think that competition is fantastic. I think the best thing for SpaceX is a Blue Origin right on their heels, and vice versa," Isaacman said. "I have no particular interest in one provider versus another. My interest is in making sure the objective is achieved."

If you're wondering what the rush is to land humans on the moon quickly, it's mainly because of China — which Isaacman also discussed extensively in the hearing. "Artemis is the key, I believe, to both beating China to the lunar surface and to maintaining a U.S. presence at the moon," Isaacman said.

3. Winning the space race against China

Isaacman's opening statement made lots of reference to China, which the Trump administration (and in latter years, the Biden administration) framed as a threat to U.S. security in space. China has been very active beyond Earth in the past decade, with multiple moon missions, a Mars mission, and its growing Tiangong space station that hosts both astronauts and science experiments. Aside from that, there are rumors that China is engaging with U.S. satellites in space critical to infrastructure like communications.

"We are in a great competition with a rival that has the will and means to challenge American exceptionalism across multiple domains, including in the high ground of space," Isaacman said of China. "This is not the time for delay, but for action, because if we fall behind — if we make a mistake — we may never catch up, and the consequences could shift the balance of power here on Earth."

Simply put, China has been framed as a threat on three fronts: concerning satellite security, because it is trying to put astronauts on the moon by 2030 (alongside Russia and and before the U.S. can get there), and because the International Space Station is slated to retire in the early 2030s with no clear path to planned American private stations (creating a possible gap in lucrative private research dollars that Tiangong could use.)

Isaacman said he would "will never accept a gap" that China could fill. His testimony also emphasized that the U.S. has a strong network of companies (dating back to the Soviet Union-U.S. rivalry in the 1960s) that can help out. Many other companies, he noted, are much newer and a few of them could grow quickly to help out against the Chinese situation if given the right support.

"Where NASA can play a role is consistent in the past, which is sharing its expertise and talent to help these new companies. When NASA does tend to figure out the near-impossible, and it's matured enough technology to hand it off to industry, […] innovation can improve upon the capability and lower cost. That's a great outcome," he said.

4. The future of NASA's science programs

On May 30 — one day before Isaacman's first nomination was pulled — the Trump administration revealed its budgetary plan for NASA, to the chagrin of space advocates. While the administration said changes were needed to focus on moon and Mars missions, the measures proposed to meet that goal were drastic.

The proposal slashed NASA funding by nearly 25%, from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion, mainly in science. It said NASA would cancel the Gateway moon-orbiting space station (a keystone of agreements for international partners in the Artemis Accords). It would phase out much of the existing Artemis hardware: SLS and Orion. And NASA's workforce would drop by a third.

Congress extensively debated the budget, and some pieces were put back together (Gateway was brought back in, and the SLS and Orion were funded through Artemis 5, for example.) But other pennies began to drop. Roughly 4,000 NASA employees exited swiftly under a deferred resignation program offered before the budget was finalized. Lab closures at the heart of NASA science, its Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, were said to happen during the height of the government shutdown; although NASA has said it has authorization to proceed, the matter recently attracted Congressional scrutiny.

The NASA budget remains unfinalized, with jobs and as many as 41 active and planned science missions hanging in the balance, as Congress continues negotiations for the greater U.S. 2026 fiscal-year budget. Meanwhile, in November Politico received a leaked, 62-page "Project Athena" plan from Isaacman's team that proposed moving some NASA missions to the private sector, and treating the agency more like a business.

When asked about NASA's science portfolio and Project Athena, Isaacman repeated two themes.

For science, he said a few times that he would be best poised to make budget decisions only after getting a detailed look at the plans for NASA (implying that he also believes they have been shifting quickly); he also said Goddard "is very important to spearheading the scientific efforts of NASA."

At the same time, if made administrator, Isaacman promised to spend his allocated funds per the direction of Congress; officially, the NASA administrator is responsible for "overseeing successful implementation" of the agency's mission with accountability to the U.S. president himself", according to the agency.

As for Athena, Isaacman reiterated what he has said since the document was made public: it was a tentative plan containing "ideas, thoughts on the direction of the agency, research requests" that were supposed to be revised after he learned more about NASA as its chief.

5. The shadow of Elon Musk

Isaacman's relationship with SpaceX — remember, he paid the company undisclosed amounts of money for two missions in space — has been a feature of both nomination hearings, especially in questioning from Senator Ed Markey (D-MA).

In April, Markey repeatedly asked if Musk was there in-person at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Florida estate, when Trump interviewed Isaacman for NASA's top post late last year. Back then, Isaacman declined to answer directly. Markey once again put the question to Isaacman on Wednesday.

"I wanted to give you one more chance to set the record straight. Was Elon Musk in the meeting at Mar-a-Lago when President Trump offered you the job?" Markey asked.

After Isaacman said the interview happened in a "ballroom-type setting" with "dozens of people moving in and out," Markey persisted. "It's a very simple question," Markey said. "Was Elon Musk in the room when President Trump offered you the job?"

"Senator, my interview, my conservations, were with the president," Isaacman answered, then repeated his previous point: "There were dozens of people moving in and out of the room, and I don't think it's fair to bring any of them into this matter."

"So once again, you're refusing to tell us whether Elon Musk was in the room that day, and that actually makes me think that Elon Musk was in the room that day, but that you understand that it's a clear conflict of interest that he was there," Markey said.

Markey also asked how much the billionaire paid for his spaceflights. Isaacman didn't answer that question, apparently because he had a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with SpaceX. But Isaacman also pointed out that he bought the missions from SpaceX because it is the only American company capable of orbital missions from the U.S. If there had been competition, he noted, he might have paid less.

When asked by Markey, Isaacman also said he would have no issue asking SpaceX to release him from the NDA to disclose how much he paid SpaceX. But Isaacman also emphasized that to the best of his knowledge, to date he has been making the required ethical (and conflict-of-interest) disclosures required for his nomination.

SpaceX launched a new batch of its Starlink satellites today (Dec. 7).

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the 29 internet broadband relays lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 12:58 a.m. EST (1758 GMT or 9:58 a.m. PST local time) on Sunday.

About nine minutes later, the rocket's second stage reached low Earth orbit. After a coast and second engine burn, the Starlink satellites (Group 11-15) were set to be deployed an hour after leaving the ground.

To plan, the Falcon 9's first stage (B1088) completed its 12th flight, making a propulsive landing on the "Of Course I Still Love You" droneship stationed in the Pacific Ocean.

SpaceX's Starlink constellation, which now totals more than 9,100 operational satellites, provides internet access to areas around the world where other means of connecting are either sparse non existent. The service also supports wifi on commercial airliners and cell-to-satellite connections for mobile providers.

Sunday's launch from Vandenberg was SpaceX's 115th Starlink launch and 157th Falcon 9 flight of the year,

One traveler on board that mission, which does not yet have a set launch date, is Michaela "Michi" Benthaus. Her voyage carries special significance: She is on a trajectory to become the first wheelchair user in space.

In 2018, Benthaus became wheelchair-bound after a mountain biking accident resulted in a spinal cord injury. Passionate about space travel, Benthaus was selected to fly in 2022 with AstroAccess on a parabolic flight, becoming one of the first wheelchair users to test accessibility experiments in weightlessness.

Since then, Benthaus' journey has included 18 parabolas and first-of-its-kind accessibility experiments, with a focus on demonstrating innovative methods for making sure that differently abled people can anchor, maneuver and secure themselves in microgravity.

Paving the way

Currently, Benthaus is at the TUM School of Engineering and Design in Munich, Germany and is a young graduate trainee at the European Space Agency (ESA).

AstroAccess is a project of SciAccess, Inc., dedicated "to promoting disability inclusion in human space exploration by paving the way for disabled astronauts."

Founded in 2021, AstroAccess has conducted five microgravity missions in which disabled scientists, veterans, students, athletes and artists perform demonstrations onboard parabolic flights with the Zero Gravity Corporation — the first step in a progression toward flying a diverse range of people to space.

The message from AstroAccess: "If we can make space accessible, we can make any space accessible."

Historical context

Former NASA official Alan Ladwig considers the upcoming suborbital launch of Benthaus as "a historical flight." He is the author of "See You in Orbit? Our Dream Of Spaceflight" (To Orbit Productions, 2019).

Ladwig's career at NASA began in 1981, when he joined as a program manager for the Shuttle Student Involvement Project. He later played a significant role in the Space Flight Participant Program, which was designed to allow civilians, including teachers and journalists, to experience space travel.

"First, some historical context," Ladwig told Space.com. In June 1984, the space shuttle program's STS-41D mission experienced an abort at T-4 seconds. The six astronauts safely egressed, but it was a moment of high anxiety, he said.

"In 1985, a National Finalist for the Journalist in Space Program was a paraplegic," Ladwig said. "Citing the STS-41D incident, an astronaut complained to me that it would be highly dangerous if this person would have been selected. If getting out of the [shuttle] orbiter needed to be done quickly, how was he supposed to exit safely with a paraplegic? At this point, safely flying a civilian was controversial, much less a person with a disability."

Equal opportunity

Ladwig recalled that the late Harriet Jenkins, who was the head of the then NASA Office of Equal Opportunity, led a study on the possibilities for people with disabilities to fly on the space shuttle.

"If memory serves me, her report came out in late 1985 … and back in the day when equal opportunity wasn't considered woke," he said.

With the space shuttle Challenger accident in January 1986, Jenkins' report was quietly put on the back burner, Ladwig said. "In any case, after the accident, it was clear it would be a long time before any [other] civilian would fly on the space shuttle, much less a person with a disability," he said.

ESA's Parastronaut project

But times have changed. For example, the ESA astronaut class selected in November 2022 included John McFall, a former Paralympic athlete, Ladwig said. His selection was part of a Parastronaut Feasibility Project to determine if people with disabilities can safely participate in a mission to the International Space Station.

"The study, completed in 2024, concluded it was feasible to integrate a person with a disability on ISS," said Ladwig, "but I'm not aware of any specific plans to do so."

In Ladwig's view, AstroAccess is to be commended for flying people with disabilities on parabolic flights. The current effort for a Blue Origin flight with Michaela Benthaus "will be an important step for opening up space travel to all who have orbital dreams," he concluded.

SpaceX launched yet another batch of its Starlink internet satellites to orbit on Thursday (Dec. 4), sending 28 of them up from California's central coast.

A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 28 Starlink spacecraft lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base Thursday at 3:42 p.m. EST (2042 GMT; 12:42 p.m. local California time).

The rocket's first stage came back to Earth 8.5 minutes later, landing in the Pacific Ocean on the SpaceX drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You." It was the fourth flight for this particular booster, which is designated 1097.

The Falcon 9's upper stage continued carrying the 28 Starlink satellites toward low Earth orbit, where they will be deployed about an hour after liftoff, if all goes to plan.

They'll join a megaconstellation that's by far the largest ever assembled. SpaceX currently operates more than 9,000 Starlink satellites and has launched more than 10,000 of them over the past 6.5 years.

Today's launch was the 156th Falcon 9 liftoff of 2025, extending SpaceX's single-year record. More than 70% of them have been Starlink missions.

In April, during Jared Isaacman's first nomination hearing for the post of NASA administrator, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts asked repeatedly if SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk was in the room when President Donald Trump offered him the job of NASA chief. Isaacman declined to answer directly.

On Wednesday (Dec. 3), Isaacman appeared before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for the second time, as Trump has tapped the 42-year-old billionaire again after abruptly pulling his nomination on May 31. And Markey still wants an answer.

"I wanted to give you one more chance to set the record straight. Was Elon Musk in the meeting at Mar-a-Lago when President Trump offered you the job?" Markey asked on Wednesday, referring to Trump's Florida estate, where the then-president-elect interviewed Isaacman late last year.

Isaacman, who founded the payment-processing company Shift4, gave us a few more details this time but still danced around the question.

The interview "was in a ballroom-type setting," he told Markey. "There were dozens of people moving in and out that I would not say were in the meeting."

"It's a very simple question," Markey pressed. "Was Elon Musk in the room when President Trump offered you the job?"

"Senator, my interview, my conservations, were with the president," Isaacman responded. "There were dozens of people moving in and out of the room, and I don't think it's fair to bring any of them into this matter."

"So once again, you're refusing to tell us whether Elon Musk was in the room that day, and that actually makes me think that Elon Musk was in the room that day, but that you understand that it's a clear conflict of interest that he was there," Markey said.

The senator laid out his conflict-of-interest concerns during Isaacman's first nomination hearing on April 9, citing Isaacman's "deep personal and financial ties" to Musk.

Isaacman has long stressed that he has no real personal relationship with Musk, but there certainly are financial ties. Isaacman organized, funded and commanded two pioneering spaceflights to Earth orbit using SpaceX hardware: Inspiration4 in September 2021 and Polaris Dawn, which pulled off the first-ever private spacewalk, three years later.

However, since the retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet in 2011, SpaceX has been the only American organization capable of flying people to and from orbit — a point that Isaacman made on Wednesday, stressing that going with Musk's company was not a sign of favoritism.

During the second hearing, Markey asked Isaacman how much he paid for his two spaceflights. But the billionaire demurred, apparently because of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) he signed with SpaceX.

"So you won't tell what you paid the man who publicly campaigned for your nomination," Markey replied. "Will you request that SpaceX release you from the NDA so that you can provide the committee with this information?"

Isaacman said that he has "no issue" with making that request.

Despite Markey's grilling of Isaacman on Wednesday, the billionaire appears to be on a glide path for confirmation as NASA chief.

Most of the other senators on the committee, including the Democrats, struck a more positive tone in their questions. And Isaacman is broadly popular in the spaceflight community, as evidenced by a letter of support signed by 36 astronauts, which the billionaire cited during Wednesday's hearing.

But you never know. After all, the signs all pointed to Isaacman being confirmed by the Senate in early June, but the rug was pulled out from under him with just a week or so to go.

Isaacman spoke Wednesday (Dec. 3) before the U.S. Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation in Washington, D.C., which was holding its second hearing to consider his nomination as NASA administrator.

Isaacman is a private astronaut who has funded and commanded two SpaceX missions to Earth orbit, and was widely considered to be a shoo-in for administrator after his first hearing before the committee on April 9. But on May 31, President Donald Trump abruptly revoked the nomination, citing concerns with Isaacman's past donations to Democratic political candidates and his ties with SpaceX. (At the time, Isaacman said some people had "axes to grind" and that he was "a good, visible target.")

Fortune changed in Isaacman's favor when Trump renominated him on Nov. 4, in the wake of media reports saying there was a power struggle occurring over NASA's management. (The agency is currently led, in an acting capacity, by former reality TV star and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy.)

Isaacman, who founded the payment-processing company Shift4, struck a cautious tone about the twists and turns in his livestreamed testimony during Wednesday's hearing. "I wouldn't even begin to want to speculate why the president nominated me, withdrew it and renominated me, other than to say I was grateful for the opportunity in the first place," he told the committee.

Isaacman added that he has made donations to both the Republican and Democratic parties and said his only connection with SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk (who also held a temporary, prominent role related to cost-cutting in Trump's administration) has been the two private astronaut missions, which launched in September 2021 and September 2024.

Isaacman declined to divulge exactly how much he paid to fly those missions — he apparently is bound by a non-disclosure agreement with SpaceX — but said that he is complying with all ethical requirements related to his nomination.

'This is not the time for delay, but for action'

In his opening statement, Isaacman told committee members that his remarks come "with a message of urgency" because, in his mind, NASA needs a permanent administrator ahead of the launch of the Artemis 2 astronaut mission around the moon, which is currently set for February 2026.

The Artemis program aims to return astronauts to the moon's surface in 2028 and to set up a long-term sustainable presence on and around Earth's nearest neighbor not long thereafter. NASA is assembling a coalition of industry and international partners to help make this happen. Artemis has become one of the vehicles by which the United States has sought to compete with China, which is co-leading its own space alliance with Russia and seeks to land astronauts on the moon by 2030.

Congressional hearings in recent months have stressed that the U.S. is in a new "space race" with China, but the two political parties have generally disagreed about how to approach that issue. For example, Democrats have criticized Trump's proposed deep cuts to NASA's science budget, which they say would hinder the development of technological advances needed to keep the U.S. in front. But many Republicans argue that streamlining NASA's approach is necessary to focus dollars on expensive crewed moon and Mars missions.

Isaacman's opening statement echoed the need to win the new space race. "We are in a great competition with a rival that has the will and means to challenge American exceptionalism across multiple domains, including in the high ground of space," he said of China. "This is not the time for delay, but for action, because if we fall behind, if we make a mistake, we may never catch up, and the consequences could shift the balance of power here on Earth."

The billionaire lauded the Trump administration's spending on human spaceflight in the administration's "One, Big Beautiful Bill" that passed July 4. As far as science goes, Isaacman's opening statement said his plan is to "make the most efficient use of every dollar allocated" for future programs on the scale of the Hubble Space Telescope or the James Webb Space Telescope. (During the hearing, Isaacman was asked about the proposed 47% cut to NASA's science budget for 2026. "If I'm confirmed, I'd love to get my arms around where we are presently at," the billionaire said.)

In his opening statement, Isaacman also pushed for a deeper relationship with industry, so as to "not rely exclusively on the taxpayer." While arguing that he is "not here for personal gain, to favor or enrich contractors," he cited increased spending on privately developed nuclear propulsion and power, as well as reusable launch vehicles, as key to NASA's moon-to-Mars approach.

And Isaacman promised that NASA "will never accept a gap" in research after the International Space Station's retirement in 2030 and the operation of new, privately owned U.S. space stations. If such a gap does open up, China may rush to fill it with its Tiangong space station, critics have said.

From Athena to Artemis

Much has happened in the nearly eight months since Isaacman's first nomination hearing. Here are some of the other topics that were addressed on Wednesday.

Goddard lab closures: Exclusives from Space.com cited pending lab closures at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and Congress is now scrutinizing the process by which this was said to have happened during the government shutdown. Isaacman told committee members that he is reading the same news reports as others and added, "Goddard is very important to spearheading the scientific efforts of NASA." But, as with the proposed science funding cuts, Isaacman emphasized that he would need time to understand what is going on before making any decisions. He added that he would allocate the budget as directed by Congress. (Budgets proposed by presidents aren't enacted until Congress passes them.)

Artemis 3 landing system: Duffy pledged in October to reopen competition for the Artemis 3 moon-landing contract, which SpaceX won back in 2021. When asked about this idea on Wednesday, Isaacman carefully spoke at the program level, pointing out that Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has since won an Artemis astronaut-landing contract as well. "I think that competition is fantastic. I think the best thing for SpaceX is a Blue Origin right on their heels, and vice versa," he said. "I have no particular interest in one provider versus another. My interest is in making sure the objective is achieved."

Project Athena: A month ago, Politico received a leaked, 62-page plan called "Project Athena" that was penned by Isaacman. It outlines an approach that would move some of NASA's missions to the private sector while operating the agency more like a business. But, as the nonprofit Planetary Society pointed out, Athena was written long before some of the more recent changes at NASA cited above, and Isaacman has always framed it as a proposal. In his testimony on Wednesday, Isaacman reiterated that the document is an interim collection of "ideas, thoughts on the direction of the agency, research requests" that he plans to amend as he receives more data.

Supersonic flights: Isaacman's testimony also included individual discussion on a few NASA programs, including NASA's efforts to develop a "quiet" supersonic jet that could help bring ultrafast passenger flight back to the U.S. That program saw the X-59 make a historic first test flight in October. Isaacman was asked how NASA can help industry to continue innovating for programs like this, without undue regulation. The agency, Isaacman said, is "funded by taxpayers to explore the near impossible in air and space" and would hand off technology to industry "where competition can drive innovation and bring down costs." Isaacman added that he is watching Boom Supersonic, a private company also innovating in supersonic flight, but kept his recommendations more general about the industry-versus-government flex point. "I actually don't think NASA is at its best when it's doing what industry is doing, because at that point, talent would naturally probably gravitate to industry where they get the advantage of, who knows, appreciating stock options and such."

Isaacman's hearing took place alongside that of Steven Haines, who is being considered for nomination as the assistant secretary of commerce for industry and analysis. Committee chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has said he is hoping to open the vote for Isaacman's confirmation on Monday (Dec. 8), putting Isaacman on track to potentially take the reins permanently for NASA before Congress adjourns for the holidays.

Isaacman's chances appear to be quite good. As noted above, he seemed set to be confirmed before Trump withdrew his nomination back in May. And that support seems to have persisted or even strengthened over the past six months. For example, as Isaacman noted in his written testimony for Wednesday's hearing, Duffy has endorsed him, and 36 NASA astronauts have signed a letter backing his nomination.

Benthaus, an aerospace engineer at the European Space Agency, is one of the six passengers on Blue Origin's next space tourism launch, the company announced today (Dec. 3). She'll become the first wheelchair user ever to reach the final frontier.

Here's some information about Benthaus and her five crewmates on the upcoming flight, which Blue Origin calls NS-37. (The company has not yet announced a launch date, but we should learn that soon.)

• Michaela (Michi) Benthaus "has dedicated her career to scientific collaboration for the advancement of interplanetary exploration," Blue Origin wrote in a description of the NS-37 crew. A spinal cord injury, suffered in a mountain biking accident in 2018, affected Benthaus' ability to walk but not her passion for the final frontier. She flew on a weightlessness-inducing parabolic airplane flight in 2022 and completed a two-week-long analog astronaut mission in Poland in 2024.
• Joey Hyde, an investor who recently retired from "a leading hedge fund," according to Blue Origin. He holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics and has long been fascinated by human spaceflight.
• Hans Koenigsmann, a German-American aerospace engineer who worked for SpaceX from 2002 until 2021. For the last 10 of those years, he served as the company's vice president of build and flight reliability, the higher-up who's ultimately responsible for the safety and success of space missions.
• Neal Milch, an entrepreneur and executive who currently chairs the board of trustees at Jackson Laboratory, a nonprofit biomedical research institute that was established in Maine in 1929.
• Adonis Pouroulis, a mining engineer, investor and entrepreneur with a focus on natural resources and the energy sector. "His career and philanthropic work reflect a consistent commitment to education and the responsible and sustainable development of Earth’s resources," Blue Origin wrote.
• Jason Stansell, "a self-proclaimed space nerd" based in West Texas, according to Blue Origin. "Jason is looking to inspire healthy skepticism and promote science education through his experience. He is also dedicating his flight to his brother, Kevin, who passed away in 2016 to a hard-fought battle with brain cancer."

As its name suggests, NS-37 will be the 37th flight of Blue Origin's reusable New Shepard rocket-capsule combo. Each of these suborbital jaunts lasts just 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown but gets above the 62-mile-high (100 kilometers) Kármán Line, the widely regarded boundary of outer space.

Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, has not disclosed how much it charges for this experience.

NS-37 will be the 16th crewed flight overall for the autonomous New Shepard, and its seventh such mission of 2025. To date, the vehicle has carried 86 people to and from suborbital space (but just 80 individuals, as six of them have been repeat customers).

The U.S. Air Force has given SpaceX permission to develop Space Launch Complex-37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station as a launch site for Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built. All 11 of the giant vehicle's test flights to date have flown from Starbase, SpaceX's facility in South Texas.

SLC-37 could end up hosting up to 76 Starship launches and 152 landings every year, provided the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration determines that the airspace impacts aren't too onerous.

The approval, delivered via a Nov. 20 Record of Decision (RoD), wraps up a long and drawn-out environmental review that included a series of public hearings.

Some people in those hearings raised concerns about the impact of Starship launches on the diverse flora and fauna of the Space Coast. In the RoD, Air Force officials said they will "implement mitigation measures to avoid, minimize or compensate for" any such environmental ill effects.

Those measures will help safeguard on-site populations of threatened and/or vulnerable species such as the southeastern beach mouse, Florida scrub-jay, tricolored bat and eastern indigo snake, according to the RoD.

SLC-37 was built to support NASA's Apollo program, which put 12 people on the moon between 1969 and 1972. The site consists of two pads, A and B, though the former never hosted any launches.

SLC-37B served as the jumping-off point for eight Saturn I and Saturn IB missions from 1964 to 1968, the last of which launched the Apollo 5 mission to low Earth orbit. Pad B then lay fallow until 2002, when it began hosting launches of Delta IV rockets, the last of which flew from the site in April 2024.

SpaceX is next in line to use the facility. It plans to launch Starship from both SLC-37A and SLC-37B as well as historic Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, which is next door to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

"With three launch pads in Florida, Starship will be ready to support America’s national security and Artemis goals as the world’s premiere spaceport continues to evolve to enable airport-like operations. We’d like to thank the Department of the Air Force (@usairforce), 45th Space Force (@SLDelta45), and U.S. Fish and Wildlife (@USFWS) for their effort on the environmental review," SpaceX wrote in an X post on Monday (Dec. 1).

In that post, the company also said that Starship-related construction at SLC-37 has already begun.

Starship, a two-stage vehicle that stands more than 400 feet (122 meters) tall, is designed to be completely and rapidly reusable. SpaceX believes the vehicle will help humanity settle Mars and establish a footprint on the moon. As SpaceX noted in that X post, NASA is invested in the vehicle, choosing it as the first crewed lunar lander for its Artemis program of moon exploration.

Twenty-nine newly-launched Starlink satellites are now in low Earth orbit.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the internet broadband relay units lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Tuesday (Dec. 2). The Starlink satellites were successfully deployed 1 hour and 5 minutes after the 5:18 p.m. EST (2218 GMT) liftoff.

"Deployment of 29 Starlink satellites confirmed," SpaceX posted to social media.

The Falcon 9 rocket's first stage, Booster 1077 (B1077), completed its ascent and then returned to Earth for a propulsive landing on the autonomous drone ship, "A Shortfall of Gravitas," stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the 25th flight for the rocket, according to a mission description on SpaceX's website.

The Starlink satellites (Group 6-95) joined the more than 9,100 operational relays forming SpaceX's megaconstellation.

Tuesday's launch was the 155th Falcon 9 flight of 2025, out of SpaceX's 160 missions in total this year (to date).

A Russian spaceflyer was pulled from SpaceX's next astronaut mission for violating U.S. national security regulations, according to a media report.

Oleg Artemyev, of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, had been manifested on SpaceX's Crew 12, a four-person mission scheduled to launch toward the International Space Station (ISS) as early as February.

Fellow cosmonaut Andrei Fedyayev recently took his place, a "decision made in connection with Oleg Artemyev’s transfer to another job," Roscosmos officials said today (Dec. 2) in a statement (in Russian; translation by Google). But that's not the whole story, according to the Russian investigative site The Insider.

This morning, The Insider reported that Artemyev, 54, was apparently removed from Crew 12 for violations of ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations), a U.S. law that seeks to safeguard national security by restricting the dissemination of sensitive information and technology.

"The cosmonaut allegedly photographed SpaceX documentation and then 'used his phone' to export classified information," The Insider wrote (in Russian; translation by Google), citing the work of launch analyst Gregory Trishkin.

"My contacts confirm that a violation occurred and an interdepartmental investigation has been launched," Trishkin told The Insider. "Removing someone from a mission two and a half months before the mission without a clear explanation is more of an indirect sign, but it's indicative. It's very difficult to imagine a situation in which an experienced cosmonaut could inadvertently commit such a gross violation."

The Insider also cited a Sunday (Dec. 1) report by a Russian-spaceflight channel on Telegram called "Yura, Forgive Me!" According to that report, the violations occurred last week, when Artemyev was training at SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California. He allegedly photographed SpaceX engines and other sensitive tech with his phone.

Crew 12 is the 12th operational astronaut mission that SpaceX will fly to the ISS under a contract with NASA. Space.com reached out to SpaceX and NASA for comment about the Artemyev situation but has not yet heard back.

Artemyev has spent a total of 560 days in space across three long-duration missions to the ISS, which launched in March 2014, March 2018 and March 2022.

That last flight lifted off just a month after Russia invaded Ukraine, kicking off a war that continues to this day. In July 2022, Roscosmos posted photos of Artemyev and two of his cosmonaut colleagues on the ISS holding the flags of two Russian-backed separatist territories in Ukraine. NASA and the head of the European Space Agency (ESA) condemned the photo op, stressing that the orbiting lab should not be used as a platform for wartime propaganda.

Crew 12 is scheduled to launch no earlier than Feb. 15. It will send Fedyaev, ESA's Sophie Adenot and two as-yet-unnamed astronauts to the ISS for a roughly six-month stay.

All eight docking ports for spacecraft on the current configuration of the International Space Station (ISS) are fully occupied for the first time in the complex's history, NASA officials said in a statement on Monday (Dec. 1). (Construction of the ISS began in 1998, but the complex didn't have that many ports in the beginning.)

The ISS is so full up that controllers had to temporarily move aside a robotic spacecraft to make room for an astronaut taxi last week. NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev of the Russian space agency Roscosmos arrived aboard Russia's Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, which docked at the Russian Rassvet module on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 28), for an expected eight-month mission.

Before the Soyuz crew got there, Mission Control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston used the ISS' robotic Canadarm2 to move Northrop Grumman's Cygnus-23 cargo spacecraft, "to provide appropriate clearance" for the incoming crewed spacecraft, NASA officials stated. Cygnus-23 was then reinstalled at the Earth-facing port of the station's Unity module. (That's spacecraft No. 2 of eight, for those of you keeping track.)

There's another Soyuz vehicle at the ISS as well — Soyuz MS-27, which is installed at the Russian Prichal module. But its orbital stay is coming to and end: Soyuz MS-27 is scheduled to depart the ISS with NASA's Jonny Kim and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky on Dec. 8, for a landing soon thereafter in Kazakhstan.

The remaining five spacecraft at the ISS are the Russian Progress-92 and Progress-93 robotic cargo spacecraft, which reside at the Russian Poisk and Zvezda modules, respectively; the Japanese HTV-X1 cargo craft, berthed at the nadir port of the station's Harmony Node 2; and two SpaceX Dragon capsules.

These Dragons are at the two other ports on Harmony used for visiting spacecraft. One is the Commercial Resupply Services-33 (CRS-33) robotic cargo capsule, at the Harmony Node 2 forward port. The other is the Crew-11 Dragon, on Harmony's space-facing port. (Harmony in fact has six ports, but three serve as attachments to the Destiny, Columbus and Kibo ISS modules.)

As its name makes clear, Crew-11 is an astronaut mission. Its crewmembers make up the remainder of the Expedition 73 long-duration astronauts on the ISS: NASA's Zena Cardman and Michael Fincke, Kimiya Yui from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and Oleg Platonov from Roscosmos. The quartet will return to Earth sometime in 2026.

The U.S. Senate will hold a hearing to consider billionaire tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman's re-nomination for NASA chief on today (Dec. 3), and you can watch the action live.

The hearing, before the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, begins Wednesday at 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT).

It will stream live on the committee's website and on YouTube. Space.com will carry the feed as well, if (as expected) it's made available.

This will be the second such hearing for Jared Isaacman, a private astronaut who has funded and commanded two SpaceX missions to Earth orbit.

The first occurred in April and seemed to go well, setting Isaacman up for confirmation in early June. But on May 31, President Donald Trump abruptly pulled his nomination, citing Isaacman's past donations to Democratic political candidates and concerns about his relationship with SpaceX boss Elon Musk. (That relationship is purely professional and would not affect his activities as NASA chief, according to Isaacman.)

If the Senate confirms Isaacman, the founder of the payment-processing company Shift4, he will take the reins from Sean Duffy, who currently serves as the agency's acting administrator. Duffy is a former reality TV star who is also head of the Department of Transportation.

Isaacman won't be the only person appearing before the committee on Wednesday. The senators will also consider the nomination of Steven Haines to be an Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Analysis.

SpaceX has now launched 60 missions from California this year.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off Tuesday (Dec. 2) from Vandenberg Space Force Base on the Golden State's central coast at 12:28 a.m. EST (0528 GMT; 9:28 p.m. local California time on Dec. 1).

The Falcon 9 carried 27 of SpaceX's Starlink satellites toward low Earth orbit, where they will join more than 9,000 other spacecraft in the huge and ever-growing broadband megaconstellation.

The rocket's first stage came back to Earth as planned, touching down on the SpaceX droneship "Of Course I Still Love You" about 8.5 minutes after liftoff. It was the 20th mission for this particular booster, which is designated B1081.

The Falcon 9's upper stage, meanwhile, deployed the 27 Starlink satellites about 62 minutes after launch.

Tuesday's liftoff was SpaceX's 60th of the year from Vandenberg, according to SpaceflightNow. That's impressive, but the company's East Coast operations are even more prolific: Ninety-four Falcon 9 missions have lifted off so far in 2025 from Florida's Space Coast. (SpaceX flies out of pads at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, which are next door to each other).

The company has also launched five suborbital test flights of its Starship megarocket so far this year. All of these missions have lifted off from Starbase, the company's site in South Texas.

SpaceX kicked off the first day of the last month of the year by lighting up Florida's Space Coast with an early morning launch.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 29 Starlink satellites lifted off from NASA Kennedy Space Center's Complex 39A at 2:44 a.m. EST (0744 GMT) on Monday (Dec. 1).

About nine minutes later, the mission reached its preliminary orbit, setting up the Starlink satellites (Group 6-86) to be deployed about an hour later.

"Deployment of 29 Starlink satellites confirmed," SpaceX noted on social media at 3:50 a.m. EST (0850 GMT).

In the interim, the Falcon's first stage booster (B1095) returned from its fourth flight to make a propulsive landing on the autonomous droneship "Just Read the Instructions" stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

The 29 Starlink satellites add to SpaceX's broadband internet network, which now has just over 9,100 operational units in low Earth orbit, according to satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.

Monday's launch was SpaceX's 153rd Falcon 9 flight of the year, of which 110 have carried Starlink satellites. In total, SpaceX has dedicated 331 missions to date to populating its megaconstellation since 2019.

SpaceX scrubbed the planned launch of 140 satellites, all aboard the same Falcon 9 rocket, just over 15 minutes before their planned liftoff from a seaside pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The company did not disclose a reason for the delay. The next opportunity to launch the mission, called Transporter-15, will be Friday (Nov. 28), at 1:19 p.m. EST (1819 GMT).

"There are a thousand ways that a launch can go wrong and only one way that it can go right," a SpaceX spokesperson said during live launch commentary. "So, given that, we are overly cautious on the ground, and if the team or the vehicle sees anything that looks even slightly off, we'll stop the countdown."

Transporter-15 is a SpaceX rideshare mission designed to carry dozens of small satellites into orbit for a variety of customers. SpaceX initially hoped to launch the mission on Nov. 19, but has seen repeated delays for the flight.

The satellites riding aboard the Falcon 9 are an ecclectic mix of commercial satellites, Earth-observation spacecraft and other vehicles. The Earth imaging company Planet Labs, for example, has 36 small "SuperDove" satellites riding alongside two of its larger Pelican Earth-observation satellites. The European Space Agency, meanwhile, has a pair of HydryoGNSS satellites on board to monitor Earth's water cycle.

Two launch providers, ExoLaunch and SEOPS, each have a collection of different spacecraft aboard Transporter-15 for various clients. Varda, a company that launches experiments that can return to Earth on reentry capsules, will fly its fifth spacecraft, called W-5, on the mission. And there are dozens of other satellites representing companies from around the world, including Taiwan and Italy.

The Falcon 9 rocket on Transporter-15 includes a first stage that has flown 29 times before. If all goes well, the first stage will return to Earth after liftoff to land on SpaceX's drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You" in the Pacific Ocean so it can be returned to shore for eventual reuse.

Satellites come in all shapes and sizes, each designed for a specific mission. Some monitor weather patterns and natural disasters, others beam your favorite shows to your living room, and a few even help scientists unlock the secrets of the universe.

But how much do you really know about their history, technology, and impact on our daily lives?

Whether you're a space enthusiast or just curious about the wonders above, this quiz will test your knowledge of the machines that keep watch over Earth and beyond.

Try it out below and see how well you score!

High-altitude platform stations, or HAPS, have been around for a while, but the technology hasn't fully taken off yet. Google spent 10 years trying to develop balloons that would hover in the stratosphere above remote rural areas and beam internet to residents but abandoned that project, called Loon, in 2021, concluding that it couldn't be made sustainable.

Four years later, companies such as World Mobile Stratospheric and Sceye say they are on the verge of making internet-beaming from the stratosphere, the layer of Earth's atmosphere roughly 6 miles to 31 miles (10 to 50 kilometers) above the planet, a reality. Moreover, they claim that their offerings will be better and cheaper than that of satellite megaconstellations in low Earth orbit (LEO), which too have been developed with the promise of connecting the world's unconnected.

Richard Deakin, the CEO of World Mobile Stratospheric, said HAPS have failed to make it so far because they couldn't support power-hungry antennas needed to beam down high-bandwidth internet across vast swaths of land. Previously-tested high-altitude balloons and airships have relied on photovoltaics to generate power, which only provide "a couple of hundred watts," according to Deakin.

He said that his company's HAPS, an autonomous plane called the Stratomast, will be powered by liquid hydrogen, allowing it not only to hover for six days at an altitude of 60,000 feet (18 km), but also generate enough electricity to support a 10-by-10-foot (3 by 3 meters) phased-array antenna that could connect 500,000 users on Earth at the same time. After six days, a new aircraft would arrive to take over the service while the first returns to the base for refuelling.

Deakin says users will get 200 megabits per second (Mbps) of connectivity directly into their smartphones from Stratomast. That would be a vast improvement over Starlink's current direct-to-device offering of 17 Mbps, which is currently only capable of supporting emergency text messaging. Even AST SpaceMobile, which is building a constellation of giant orbiting antennas to beam internet directly to smartphone devices, can sustain only about 21 Mbps.

"When the Stratomast is flying, all these old satellites are going to be in museums," Deakin said.

The 4-metric-ton (4.4 tons) Stratomast aircraft, made of lightweight carbon fiber, has a 184-foot (56 m) wingspan, equivalent to that of a 120-metric-ton (132 tons) Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane. A single Stratomast will cover an area of 6,000 square miles (15,000 square km). Such a wide reach means that the whole of Scotland could be covered with just nine Stratomast platforms, Deakin said. World Mobile Stratospheric estimates the cost of running such a system would be around just £40 million ($52 million US) per year, allowing the company to provide 200 Mbps of internet connectivity to Scotland's 5.5 million inhabitants at a cost at about 60 pence per person per month.

"That's enough for TV, computer broadband, the whole thing…,"Gregory Gottlieb, the head of aerial platforms at World Mobile, told Space.com.

In comparison, the cheapest Starlink subscription, only covering areas with low demand, currently costs $40 a month. And price is only one of the drawbacks of LEO satellite internet. To be able to connect to Starlink satellites, users need dedicated terminals. Although Starlink's downlink speeds reach up to 250 Mbps, the bandwidth gets diluted as the number of users grows. For example, troops on the frontline in eastern Ukraine complain that Starlink bandwidth limits the use of ground robots, as most terminals there only get about 10 Mbps.

"There really isn't any satellite constellation that can serve more than one person per square kilometer [0.4 square miles]," Mikkel Frandsen, the founder and CEO of another HAPS developer, New Mexico-based Sceye, told Space.com. "That's kind of the upper end."

Sceye, founded in 2014, has developed an airship-like HAPS powered by solar energy, which has already completed several successful test flights. In August last year, the Sceye airship became the first stratospheric platform that successfully survived a night in the stratosphere without sinking after sunset and remained in a required position above a fixed spot on Earth. The problem of drift and difficulties with station-keeping were among the issues that led to the demise of the Google Loon project, according to Frandsen.

In June, Sceye received a "strategic investment" from Japanese telecommunications operator SoftBank, which hopes the technology will allow it to provide next-generation connectivity to users even in the most underserved areas. Sceye also recently won a contract from NASA to host Earth-observation payloads.

Frandsen said that Sceye doesn't want to compete with satellite internet providers but thinks that megaconstellations, even when fully deployed, will not be able to satisfy the world's need for connectivity.

"All satellite constellations, when they're combined, will not do anything other than [make] a little dent in the global demand for connectivity," he said. "They're going to do fine business at the prices they're charging, but they're not going to serve billions of people. Space isn't all that scalable. They're going to serve millions of people."

LEO satellite megaconstellations such as SpaceX's Starlink orbit a few hundred kilometers above Earth's surface. In the past five years, they have replaced distant geostationary satellites, which orbit 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth, as the dominant technology for delivering internet connectivity from space. But the growth in the number of satellites concerns space sustainability experts. The more objects hurtling around the planet, the higher the risk of collisions that could pollute near-Earth space with thousands of dangerous fragments. Moreover, atmospheric physicists worry about the growing amount of metal being burned up in the atmosphere during satellite reentries.

"HAPS are a really interesting domain because I think, in many ways, they cover the best of terrestrial and the best of satellite — high-altitude systems without suffering from the drawbacks," said Deakin.

Gottlieb said that HAPS could provide a convenient, flexible and easily replaceable alternative to satellite internet at times of growing geopolitical tensions.

"There is a view that, within 24 hours of any major conflict, low Earth orbit would be unusable for military purposes," Gottlieb said. "We can deploy aircraft at very short notice. We can be agile in terms of spectrum that we're using, and all sorts of different boxes that can go onto our platforms."

Deakin's team has been developing Stratomast since 2019 as part of a collaboration with German telecommunications provider Deutsche Telecom. During tests in Germany and Saudi Arabia, they demonstrated the workings of their novel antenna technology.

Earlier this year, the company was acquired by the U.S.-based telecom provider World Mobile. The company recently partnered with Indonesian telecommunications provider Protelindo to get Stratomast off the ground. The partnership plans to conduct flight tests with their antenna at a lower altitude next summer and hopes to begin stratospheric test flights in 2027.

Sceye, in the meantime, is working on increasing the endurance of its airship and hopes to commence commercial service in 2027.

SpaceX introduced a new Falcon 9 rocket into its fleet on Sunday (Nov. 23), with he launch of 28 satellites for its Starlink megaconstellation in low Earth orbit.

The launch, from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, took place on Sunday at 3:48 a.m. EST (0848 GMT or 12:48 a.m. PST local time). The Starlink satellites were successfully deployed one hour and 19 minutes into the flight.

In the interim, the Falcon 9's first stage, Booster 1100 (B1100) made its first touchdown on a drone ship, "Of Course I Still Love You," stationed in the Pacific Ocean. The landing occurred about eight and a half minutes after the rocket's launch, according to a page about the flight on the SpaceX website.

The Starlink satellites (Group 11-30) added to the more than 9,000 units that comprise the commercial broadband internet network.

Sunday's launch was the second Starlink mission in as many days, following a flight from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Saturday. That liftoff had been SpaceX's 150th Falcon 9 launch of the year.

SpaceX reached another milestone with the launch of 29 more Starlink satellites for its broadband internet low Earth orbit constellation.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 2:53 a.m. EST (0753 GMT) on Saturday (Nov. 22). One hour and five minutes later, the Starlink satellite were deployed from the Falcon's upper stage.

"Falcon 9 completes its 150th launch of 2025," SpaceX posted to social media. "Deployment of 29 Starlink satellites confirmed."

The Falcon 9's first stage (Booster B1080) returned for a ninth time to a successful landing and recovery, in this case on the droneship "A Shortfall of Gravitas" stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, according to a SpaceX page about the mission.

The 29 Starlink satellites (Group 6-79) added to the SpaceX-owned network, which now numbers more than 9,000 active units out of the over 10,400 launched since 2019, according to satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.

In addition to being SpaceX's 150th Falcon 9 launch of this year, Saturday's mission was the 568th flight of the company's launch vehicle since 2010.

On Thursday (Nov. 20), SpaceX rolled out Booster 18, the first stage of the company's first "Version 3" Starship megarocket, to begin its first round of tests ahead of the vehicle's next flight test. V3 will take the torch from Starship V2, which wrapped up a year of growing pains with two consecutive test-flight successes, in August and October of this year.

Now, it seems, V3 will have some growing pains of its own. SpaceX announced that tests on the new booster would begin at the company's Starbase facility in South Texas in a Nov. 20 post on X. "The first operations will test the booster's redesigned propellant systems and its structural strength," the company said. But by Friday morning (Nov. 21), the booster sported signs of serious damage.

In a post on X Friday morning, a user by the name of Starship Gazer, whose profile describes nearly half a decade of documenting Starship's development, posted an image of Booster 18 with much of the bottom portion of the vehicle crumpled like an empty soda can.

It appears in the photo that whatever propulsion and structural integrity tests SpaceX performed overnight did their job, and found some faults in the stainless-steel vehicle.

"Very significant damage to the entire LOX [liquid oxygen] tank section," Starship Gazer said in the post.

It's still too early to know what exactly went wrong, according to SpaceX.

"Booster 18 suffered an anomaly during gas system pressure testing that we were conducting in advance of structural proof testing. No propellant was on the vehicle, and engines were not yet installed. The teams need time to investigate before we are confident of the cause. No one was injured as we maintain a safe distance for personnel during this type of testing. The site remains clear and we are working plans to safely reenter the site," the company wrote on X on Friday.

Visually, Starships V2 and V3 appear very similar. V3 stands a bit taller, though — about 5 feet (1.5 meters) taller than V2 — and also features an integrated "hot stage" ring, the structure that connects Starship's two stages. (V2's hot stage ring was a separate component that fell from both Starship stages after separation.) The new booster has also been overhauled to fly under the power of SpaceX's upgraded Raptor 3 engines. Additionally, V3 boosters will sport only 3, instead of 4, grid fins for aerodynamic descent stability control, each of which will be about 50% larger than their V2 counterparts.

The latest mishap stands to slow SpaceX's gained momentum after a rocky year of test flights for Starship V2. That rocket launched five times in 2025, but only managed to reach its mission goals during the last two.

SpaceX did succeed in catching returning Super Heavy boosters back at the launch pad during the first two Starship flights of the year, using the tower's "Mechazilla" chopstick-like mechanical arms. The company then managed to relaunch one of those boosters on a subsequent flight in May. And, while the third Starship launch of 2025 resulted in the loss of both Super Heavy and Ship (the vehicle's upper stage), its final two flights of the year were deemed complete successes; with Ship's deployment of a set of Starlink satellite mass-simulator payloads, safe reentry through Earth's atmosphere and soft splashdown of both stages at their respective target zones at sea.

Recent successes notwithstanding, Starship's setbacks in the first half of the year, and now this new incident with V3 before it even gets off the ground, raise some questions about the spacecraft's readiness for SpaceX's biggest current customer.

NASA has contracted SpaceX to use Starship as the lunar lander for the agency's Artemis 3 mission, which will return astronauts to the surface of the moon for the first time sinc 1972. NASA is targeting 2027 for that mission, but recent reports on internal SpaceX timelines push those estimates to no earlier than 2028.

How the failure of Booster 18 will affect that timeline, and what it means for the V3 booster design as a whole, is yet to be seen, but NASA may not be waiting around to find out. Even before V3 rolled out for testing, the space agency had begun eyeing other moon lander options in light of SpaceX's delayed progress in developing Starship.

Starship was also recently criticized by former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, during a Sept. 3 Senate Commerce Committee hearing led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and titled "There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise." In his remarks, Bridenstine criticized Starship's design architecture and stressed the number of milestones it still needs to achieve before being qualified to land humans on the moon.

For example, before flying any Artemis astronauts, SpaceX still must demonstrate in-orbit cryogenic fuel transfer between Ship upper stages vehicles and land at least one uncrewed Ship on the moon. One of Bridenstine's harshest criticisms focused on what SpaceX estimates it will take to accomplish those feats. After launching the Starship lunar lander to Earth orbit, it could take a dozen or so additional Starship launches to supply the lander with enough fuel to make the journey. (The exact number is a matter of debate, as SpaceX and NASA have made different estimates.)

Now, those goal posts will sit on the back burner as SpaceX determines how best to fuel its V3 booster on the ground without buckling under the pressure.

Another SpaceX launch, another milestone.

A Falcon 9 rocket launched from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight (Nov. 20) at 10:39 p.m. EST (0339 GMT on Nov. 21), carrying 29 of SpaceX's Starlink internet satellites to orbit.

It was the 100th liftoff of the year from the Sunshine State, a nice round number that had never been reached before.

The rocket's first stage came back to Earth as planned about 8.5 minutes after liftoff tonight, touching down in the Atlantic Ocean on the SpaceX droneship "Just Read the Instructions." It was the 23rd flight for this particular booster, which carries the designation 1080.

The Falcon 9's upper stage, meanwhile, continued hauling the Starlink craft toward low Earth orbit, where they'll be deployed about 65 minutes after launch.

'SpaceX is responsible for the vast majority of this year's record-breaking rocket traffic from the Space Coast, which features two side-by-side spaceports: Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

Elon Musk's company has now launched a total of 149 Falcon 9 missions in 2025, more than 90 of them from Florida. (The others have flown from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.) That total, which increases every other day or so, is a record; the previous high, set in 2024, was 132 Falcon 9 launches.

SpaceX has also launched five suborbital test flights of its giant Starship Mars rocket in 2025, all of them from its Starbase site in South Texas.

The milestone occurred on Nov. 13, during the launch of NASA's twin ESCAPADE Mars probes from Florida's Space Coast. New Glenn's first stage came back to Earth about nine minutes after liftoff, touching down in the Atlantic Ocean on Blue Origin's drone ship "Jacklyn."

The booster looked pristine, its white, gold and blue livery sparkling in the afternoon sun. It was quite a departure from the baseline visual most of us have of a landed rocket — consider a soot-streaked SpaceX Falcon 9 booster, for instance, its char marks worn like a badge of honor.

But there's a simple explanation for the difference between a landed Falcon 9 and a landed New Glenn — their respective propellants.

SpaceX's Merlin engines, which power both stages of its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, run on liquid oxygen and RP-1, a rocket-grade form of kerosene. Kerosene creates soot when it burns, and Falcon boosters therefore fly through self-generated clouds of this gunk when they come back down to Earth.

New Glenn's BE-4 first-stage engines, on the other hand, burn liquid oxygen and liquid methane, a combo known as methalox. Methane combustion doesn't generate appreciable soot, so the big rocket came home clean last week. (New Glenn's upper stage features two BE-3U engines, which are powered by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.)

SpaceX has developed a methalox engine of its own, by the way — Raptor, which powers the company's next-gen Starship megarocket. Starship is designed to help humanity settle Mars, and methane makes sense as a fuel for a Red Planet rocket, according to company founder and CEO Elon Musk: It can be produced on Mars from components in the planet's atmosphere.

Blue Origin will soon find out if the landed New Glenn booster is in as good a shape as it looks: The rocket just made it back to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Launch Complex 36, where the company will inspect and refurbish it.

The plan is to fly the booster again, and again ... and again.

Each New Glenn first stage is designed to launch at least 25 times, in fact. That level of reuse would be quite a feat, but Blue Origin is following a trail that SpaceX has blazed. Multiple Falcon 9 boosters have dozens of flights under their belts, and one has launched a record 31 times. That soot is just a cosmetic issue, after all.

SpaceX's workhorse rocket soared into space from the California coast after more than a week of delays, carrying more than 100 spacecraft to orbit before making a landing at sea.

The veteran Falcon 9 rocket launched SpaceX's Transporter-15 rideshare mission Friday (Nov. 28) from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Liftoff occurred at about 1:45 p.m. EST (1845 GMT) from Vandenberg's Space Launch Complex-4E, about a half hour into a 57-minute window. The mission had been delayed since Nov. 19, with SpaceX calling off a launch attempt on Wednesday, just 15 minutes before liftoff.

Transporter-15 should take just over 2.5 hours to deploy all of its 140 satellites into a sun-synchronous orbit, where each will begin its own, individualized mission. The first-stage booster's flight, meanwhile, took just over 8 minutes,

The mission continues SpaceX's increasing frequency of rideshare launches, and follows on the heels of the late-summer liftoff of the Transporter-14 flight, which delivered dozens of cubesats, tech demos and research craft into low Earth orbit (LEO).

Not all of Transporter-15's payloads were confirmed or identified before launch. But among those that were we found notable contributions from organizations like the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA), as well as companies and organizations like Planet Labs, SEOPS, Leaf Space and various universities and educational institutions.

ESA's HydroGNSS-1 and HydroGNSS-2 satellites are flying as part of the agency's first Scout mission. They will study Earth's water cycle using the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) reflectometry measurement technique to quite literally "scout for water," according to ESA.

Taiwan launched its FORMOSAT-8A Earth-imaging satellite, as well as three domestically built cubesats: Bellbird-1, Black Kite-1 and TORO-8U-1, from Tron Future Tech, Rapidtek Technologies Inc. and Pyras Technology Inc., respectively. They are designed to test high-speed data transferal communications, Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and conduct remote sensing to monitor algae, plankton and ocean health.

The Pelican imaging satellites 5 and 6, as well as 36 SuperDoves in the "Flock 4H" group, all built by the California-based firm Planet Labs, are also riding on the Transporter-15 mission. Planet Labs' expanding Earth-observation Pelican network is designed to "efficiently capture fleeting and emerging events, especially those that may anticipate new patterns or risks," the company's website says. The accompanying SuperDoves will join Planet Labs' PlanetScope monitoring mission.

SEOPS is using the Transporter-15 flight to demonstrate its custom payload integration capabilities with the deployment of a wide range of student-built, scientific and commercial spacecraft. Those vehicles include four payloads managed by Alba Orbital. Also flying is Hungary's HUNITY, a new "pocketqube" platform for even smaller cubesats, measuring as small as 2 inches (5 centimeters). Two of these pocketqubes are SARI-1 and SARI-2 from the Saudi space agency, which will perform telemetry, IoT experiments and other research. Alba is also flying the ANISCSAT mission from Azerbaijan, which will study environmental conditions in LEO.

SEOPS is managing two cubesats for CS3, called WISDOM and Mauve. WISDOM, part of ESA’s NAVISP program, will test collision avoidance and deorbiting technologies using a 6U cubesat that will separate into two individual 3U spacecraft, while Mauve, a 16U cubesat, will conduct ultraviolet astronomy using a 13-cm telescope.

SEOPS is also handling NASA’s 3UCubed-A, designed to measure precipitating electrons and ultraviolet emissions at Earth's poles, SatRev's PW-6U Earth-imaging satellite for customers in the agricultural and energy industries, and TRYAD-1 and 2, lightning observation satellites built by students at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and Auburn University, and funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

A large portion of the satellites on Transporter-15 will be supported by Leaf Space. In a demonstration of its growing ground infrastructure, the Italian company will add 31 of Transporter-15's payloads to its Leaf Line ground station network — roughly 30% of the launch's total spacecraft. Those 31 will join 140 spacecraft that utilize the network, operated by various commercial customers who rely on Leaf Space for tracking and telemetry data.

You can see a full list of the 140 satellites on Transporter-15 on SpaceX's mission website.

Due to the large number of payloads and the diversity of their missions, the Falcon 9's second stage will feature a longer-than-usual deployment process, beginning about 55 minutes after launch and lasting about 2 hours and 43 minutes.

SpaceX's Transporter-15 mission is the 30th flight for the first-stage booster (called B1071), which has previously launched 18 Starlink missions, four rideshare missions, five national security missions and two missions carrying Earth-observation satellites.

The mission also appeared to be a reflight of the payload fairing, the clamshell-like nose cone protecting the satellite payload. The fairing appeared weathered from past flights much like the first-stage booster. SpaceX said the company planned to retrieve the fairing halves from the sea to recover and reuse them.

"Those fairings will make their way back to Earth for recovery," a SpaceX spokesperson said during live launch commentary.

Editor's note: This story was updated on Nov. 28 to include new photos and confirmation of SpaceX's successful Transporter-15 launch.

The U.S. Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation will hold a hearing on Dec. 3 to consider the nomination of the billionaire tech entrepreneur and private astronaut as NASA chief.

The event will begin at 10:00 a.m. EST (1500 GMT). You'll be able to watch it live; the hearing will stream on the committee's website and on YouTube.

Isaacman, who founded the payments company Shift4, has been through this before: He went through a nomination hearing on April 9, 3.5 months after President Donald Trump first tapped him for the top NASA job.

Isaacman was set to be confirmed by Congress in early June, but Trump abruptly pulled his nomination on May 31, citing his past donations to Democratic politicians and supposed closeness to SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk.

Isaacman funded, organized and commanded two flights to Earth orbit using SpaceX rockets and capsules — Inspiration4 in September 2021 and Polaris Dawn in September 2024. But he has stressed that his relationship with Musk is a business one, and that he would not give SpaceX any preferential treatment should he be confirmed as NASA chief.

Trump had a change of heart on Nov. 4, announcing that Isaacman is his pick for NASA chief after all. If the nomination process goes smoothly this time around, Isaacman will take over for Acting Administrator Sean Duffy, who also leads the Department of Transportation.

Isaacman won't be the only person getting grilled by senators on Dec. 3. The committee will also consider the nomination of Steven Haines to be an Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Analysis.

SpaceX launched another batch of its Starlink internet satellites in a nighttime liftoff from Florida's Space Coast on Tuesday (Nov. 18).

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 29 Starlink spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Tuesday at 7:12 p.m. EST (0012 GMT on Nov. 19).

About 8.5 minutes later, the rocket's first stage touched down in the Atlantic Ocean on the SpaceX drone ship "A Shortfall of Gravitas." It was the 12th launch and landing for the booster, which carries the designation 1085.

The rocket's upper stage deployed the 29 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit as planned about 65 minutes after launch, SpaceX announced via X.

Once they're up and running, the newcomers will push the number of operational Starlink craft above 9,000. That count currently stands at 8,979, according to astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.

So far in 2025, SpaceX has launched 148 Falcon 9 missions, 107 of which have been devoted to building out the Starlink megaconstellation.

The company has also launched five suborbital test flights of its giant Starship rocket this year. Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable.

Growing pains for SpaceX's massive Starship rocket over the past year have stunted the timeline for the still-developing launch vehicle and spacecraft, which is contracted to land astronauts on the lunar surface as a part of NASA's Artemis 3 mission. The space agency is targeting 2027 for that launch, but SpaceX's own timeline seems to contradict that, reinforcing concerns previously voiced by NASA officials over Starship's readiness.

According to an internal SpaceX document obtained by Politico, the company is targeting June 2026 for the first orbital refueling demonstration between Starship vehicles, and an uncrewed lunar landing in June 2027. If Starship manages to breeze through those qualification tests and stick to its current timeline, SpaceX estimates the earliest first attempt to complete a crewed mission to the surface of the moon could take place in September 2028. SpaceX has not yet conferred these dates to NASA, according to Politico, but plans to include them as part of an "integrated master schedule" it will provide in December. The company acknowledges their timeline falls outside their original NASA contract, and hopes to determine new contract deadlines in coordination with the space agency, the report says.

Artemis 3's predecessor, Artemis 2, could launch as soon as February 2026 based on current NASA timelines. That mission will launch astronauts around the moon, but doesn't include a lunar landing. Artemis 1 launched an uncrewed mission to lunar orbit in November 2022, so a delay of Artemis 3 to 2028 will set an average cadence longer than two years between Artemis program missions. By comparison, between 1968 and 1972, NASA's Apollo program launched one of its 11 missions about every 4.5 months.

But the internal SpaceX document obtained by Politico shows the company's timeline for Starship no longer aligns with NASA's. Starship entered the test flight phase of its development in 2023 with the first integrated launch of its Ship upper stage with its Super Heavy booster. In its first two years, the vehicle has reached some significant milestones, including the return and recovery of a Super Heavy booster using its launch tower's "Mechazilla" chopstick-like arms to catch the rocket out of mid air.

This year, however, has been a different story. Of Starship's five launches of 2025, the first three were not considered successful. Each resulted in the loss of the Ship upper stage either in space or during reentry. Starship's latter two launches of the year represented complete turn-arounds for the "Block 2" version of the vehicle, and managed to successfully demonstrate some of the spacecraft's critical capabilities.

SpaceX is designing Starship for complete reusability — something never yet accomplished for an orbital launch vehicle. The company has perfected reflight refurbishment with its smaller Falcon 9 rocket booster, and while SpaceX has completed 500 launches and counting of its previously-flown boosters, the rocket's second stage still remains a one-time-use vehicle.

With Starship, SpaceX is aiming for reusability of the entire system. The company has already demonstrated two Super Heavy reflights, and completed successful soft-touchdowns in the ocean with Ship during Starship's Aug. 26 and Oct. 13 test launches. Starship can carry considerably heavier payloads compared to the company's smaller Falcon 9 rocket, and SpaceX hopes to position Starship as humanity's spacecraft to Mars. Company CEO Elon Musk has voiced his hope that Starship will deliver up to 1 million people to the Red Planet in the next 20 years. Before it can do that, however, Starship needs to land NASA astronauts on the moon, and it has several more milestones to reach before the space agency puts its personnel onboard.

While Starship has found some slightly firmer footing on its path to operational qualification, SpaceX still has to prove some of the vehicle's most critical capabilities, including orbital cryogenic fuel transfer between vehicles and an uncrewed lunar landing. To complete its responsibilities for Artemis 3, SpaceX estimates the Starship lunar lander will need up to be refueled in space 12 times to pack away enough propellant to land on the moon and launch back to lunar orbit. Once there, it will rendezvous with NASA's Orion spacecraft, which will ferry Artemis 3 astronauts back to Earth.

So, while terrestrial landing and reusability are crucial for SpaceX's Starship design, they aren't critical for NASA's mission to the moon. Still, the space agency may be at the mercy of SpaceX's design trajectory.

SpaceX launched a powerful ocean-mapping satellite from California early Monday morning (Nov. 17) on a landmark flight — the company's 500th orbital mission with a used rocket.

The Sentinel-6B spacecraft lifted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Monday at 12:21 a.m. EDT (0521 GMT; 9:21 p.m. on Nov. 16 local California time).

"Sentinel-6B rising, extending nearly four decades of the precise sea-level record from space," NASA spokesman Derrol Nail said during the agency's launch webcast.

SpaceX highlighted the reuse milestone in a post on X, as did company president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell.

"Congratulations to the SpaceX team on completing 500 (!!!!) missions with flight-proven rocket boosters. You’ve made the impossible possible with reusable rockets, paving the way to land huge amounts of cargo and lots of people to establish permanent human presence on the moon and beyond with Starship!" Shotwell wrote.

The fully reusable Starship is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built. SpaceX is developing it to help get humanity to the moon and Mars, among other feats. Starship has launched 11 times to date, but those don't contribute to the 500 count; all of Starship's liftoffs so far have been suborbital test flights.

Sentinel-6B is part of the European Union's Copernicus Earth-observing program. The new satellite will measure sea surface heights around the globe with great accuracy, continuing the work of its predecessor, Sentinel 6 Michael Frelich, which launched atop a Falcon 9 in November 2020.

"Monitoring sea-level rise is high on the global agenda," European Space Agency (ESA) officials wrote in a Sentinel-6B mission description.

"In the past 25 years, the average height of the world's oceans has risen by almost 10 cm [4 inches], according to data from Copernicus," they added. "The Copernicus Sentinel-6 mission has become the gold standard reference mission to monitor and record this key consequence of climate change."

Sentinel-6B will do this work using a radar altimeter instrument developed by ESA. The satellite also carries a NASA-provided microwave radiometer, which will determine atmospheric water content, allowing for more accurate interpretation of the altimeter's results.

During its first year of observations, Sentinel-6B will work with Sentinel 6 Michael Frelich, "enabling greater accuracy with precise cross-calibration between the two instruments," ESA officials wrote about the mission, which is a collaboration among the European Commission, ESA, NASA, Eumetsat, and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with support from the French space agency CNES.

The Falcon 9's upper stage deployed Sentinel-6B on schedule about 57 minutes after liftoff, at an altitude of 1,322 kilometers (821 miles). The 3,175-pound (1,440 kilograms) satellite will now go through a series of checkouts, then begin its science mission.

The Falcon 9's first stage, meanwhile, came back to Vandenberg for a landing about nine minutes after liftoff as planned It was the third flight for this particular booster; its previous two missions lofted batches of SpaceX's Starlink broadband satellites, according to the company.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 12:33 a.m. ET on Nov. 17 with news of successful launch and rocket landing, and again at 1:25 a.m. ET with news of satellite deploy.

SpaceX pulled off a doubleheader overnight on Friday (Nov. 14), launching two rockets less than four hours apart from Florida's Space Coast.

The action started Friday at 10:08 p.m. EST (0308 GMT on Saturday, Nov. 15), when a Falcon 9 rocket topped with 29 of SpaceX's Starlink internet satellites lifted off from historic Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.

Everything went according to plan on that mission. The Falcon 9's first stage landed in the Atlantic Ocean on the SpaceX drone ship "A Shortfall of Gravitas" about 8.5 minutes after liftoff, and the rocket's upper stage deployed the 29 satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) about 56 minutes later.

Then, at 1:44 a.m. EST (0644 GMT) on Saturday, another Falcon 9 launched 29 Starlinks from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, which is next door to KSC.

That rocket's first stage aced its landing, which occurred in the Atlantic on the drone ship "Just Read the Instructions." If all goes to plan, the 29 Starlink spacecraft will be deployed into LEO about 65 minutes after liftoff.

The two launches were the 145th and 146th Falcon 9 missions of the year for SpaceX.

More than 100 of these flights have been devoted to building out the Starlink megaconstellation, by far the largest satellite network ever assembled. There are currently more than 8,900 operational Starlink satellites in LEO, and the number is growing all the time.

Three hours and 36 minutes between launches is quite quick, but it's not a record; on Aug. 31, 2024, SpaceX launched two Falcon 9 Starlink missions just 65 minutes apart. One flew from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and the other lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

SpaceX extended its single-year launch record on Monday night (Nov. 10), sending yet another batch of its Starlink internet satellites up from Florida's Space Coast.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off off Monday at 10:21 p.m. EST (0321 GMT on Nov. 11) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, carrying 29 Starlink spacecraft toward low Earth orbit (LEO).

It was the 94th orbital launch from the Sunshine State this year — a new record.

The rocket's first stage returned to Earth as planned 8.5 minutes later. It made a vertical, propulsive landing on the SpaceX drone ship "Just Read the Instructions," which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

It was the third flight for this particular booster, which is designated 1096. On its previous missions, the first stage launched NASA's IMAP space-weather mission and a batch of Amazon's Project Kuiper broadband satellites.

The Falcon 9's upper stage, meanwhile, continued carrying the 29 Starlink satellites to LEO, where they were deployed as planned about 65 minutes after launch.

Monday's launch was the 144th Falcon 9 mission of 2025, and the 104th of the year devoted to building out the Starlink megaconstellation. SpaceX has also launched five suborbital test flights of its Starship megarocket so far this year, bringing its total number of liftoffs to 149.

Those are both records. The previous highs were 132 Falcon 9 launches and 138 total liftoffs, both set in 2024.

"I See You" won't be entirely shot in orbit, but will mix in-space footage with recorded stock footage. This ambitious project hails from Italian producer Andrea Iervolino ("Ferrari," "To The Bone"), his unique astro-centric Space11 Corp production company, and screenwriters Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider. Currently, a lead filmmaker has yet to be determined and any specific plot or casting details have been kept secret.

"I See You" hopes to begin shooting in 2026, but with crowded launch schedules, that date might change. Of course, the key required element of making this all happen is booking a seat aboard a crewed spaceflight  — and that process appears to still be in the works.

Still, adding to the project's credibility is Scott Kelly, the author, speaker, and former NASA astronaut who set records for his year-long stay on the International Space Station. Kelly will soon add another Hollywood advisor gig to his resume of accomplishments when he joins the upcoming production for a romantic drama set in the vacuum of space.

As a seasoned astronaut who flew to space four times on various missions over the course of a 17-year NASA career, Kelly is completely qualified to aid the producer, actors, and director in setting up safety measures and making suggestions on how best to complete this risky proposal.

According to Deadline, Kelly is expected to "lend his first-hand expertise to ensure authenticity in the portrayal of human endurance, isolation, and emotional connection in the vastness of space."

"Having Scott Kelly on board is an extraordinary honor," Iervolino told Deadline. "His experience brings emotional truth and scientific realism to our vision — reminding us that love and humanity transcend every boundary, even in the silence of space."

In 2023, the Russian feature called "The Challenge" did shoot certain sequences in space to be edited into the finished product, giving it the distinction of being the first ever to do so. And of course we've all read news over the past few years of "Edge of Tomorrow" director Doug Liman working with Tom Cruise and SpaceX for a major project shot entirely in outer space, but that seems like much more of a wishful dream than an actual concrete project in development.