Seth Kurkowski

SpaceX launched the two person crew of Crew-9 for NASA early Saturday afternoon from SLC-40. The mission is sending a NASA astronaut and Russian cosmonaut to the ISS for a six month stay, the two spare seats will be used to bring Starliner’s crew back at the completion of their mission.

The launch of Crew-9 is underway and is set to launch at 1:17 P.M. ET from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Update: Launched!

This week, Blue Origin made another step in the right direction in getting its New Glenn rocket to the pad for launch. On Thursday, the company fueled up its New Glenn second stage and conducted a 15-second risk reduction static fire.

SpaceX is set and prepared to launch the two-person crew of Crew-9 on their Falcon 9 rocket to the ISS for a six-month stay. This marks two historic firsts for SpaceX and the US space program, SLC-40‘s first human spaceflight and the first Russian to be at the controls of an American spacecraft.

One mission concluded, one moved into its next phase, and another is getting ready to launch. Here’s a brief recap of the last few days’ worth of human spaceflight stories.

SpaceX is back in the Starship launch testing zone with its Starship rocket down in Starbase, Texas. The company just did its first fully stacked fueling test with the hardware intended for Flight 5. However, SpaceX is still over two months away from getting FAA approval to launch.

SpaceX recovered at least the booster engine section of its most recent Starship flight, per a photo shared by Elon Musk on X. The flight was an overall success for the company, but they are still far away from getting to where they need to be.

ULA finished assembly of its second Vulcan rocket at its Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station last week. The rocket is finishing up final checks before launching an important second certification mission for the U.S. Space Force.

In a detail-packed Forbes report, sources say that Axiom Space is struggling to make payroll, is late on payments to its contractors (including SpaceX), and has begun downsizing some aspects of the company. All this while outside capital has become increasingly difficult to find.

This week the FAA announced new fines against SpaceX for violating its launch license during Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches back in 2023. However, the company states that the FAA was a part of the decision-making for moving forward with one of the violations, and allowed it to continue with its launch.

It’s been over three months since Starship last flew a rather successful mission from South Texas. In what was a big breakthrough in the red tape, SpaceX was granted a multi-launch contract, so where are the launches?

China is leading this week in launches, but SpaceX is set (already has by publishing this) to launch yet another major ESA mission over using domestic options. Rocket Lab will also make a showing this week with a… family-specific mission name.

Early Thursday morning, the crew of the Polaris Dawn mission completed its second major milestone with the completion of SpaceX‘s first commercial spacewalk. This marks another step towards SpaceX’s goal to colonize Mars using their own tech.

Early this morning, the Polaris Dawn mission reached 1,400 km above Earth’s surface. This marks the highest spaceflight since the Apollo missions and beats the records set during NASA’s Gemini program in the 1960s.

This week we’re discussing Polaris Dawn’s return to the launch pad, with a hopeful launch this time, and Blue Origin’s delay in its ESCAPADE mission. But for now, eyes are on Polaris Dawn as it attempts to launch and fight off poor weather forecasts on its historic mission.

The Wall Street Journal reports that SpaceX emailed employees not to travel to Brazil for business or leisure as it continues to be entangled in an X ban by the nation’s supreme court. Non-Brazilian employees were also reportedly relocated quietly.

SpaceXers have been hard at work the last few months, not just getting a second launch tower in place, but making modifications to the company’s first tower. All this is planned for SpaceX‘s next Starship launch, which we expect will feature the first “catch” of a rocket booster.

Blue Origin‘s newly constructed landing barge arrived at Port Canaveral earlier today. Named after Jeff Bezos’ mother, Jacklyn, it will support at-sea landings and recoveries of the company’s New Glenn rocket.

NASA announced in a short statement that the Europa Clipper mission will be able to move past its transistor issue and move on towards launch. The mission will have its next major development milestone next Monday before finally saying “yes” to launch.

UPDATE: The FAA has cleared SpaceX to resume Falcon 9 launches while the mishap investigation continues.

For the second time this year, SpaceX‘s workhorse rocket, and the most launched rocket in the world, is grounded after the booster failed to successfully land on its drone ship out in the ocean. This triggered a mishap investigation by the FAA, which means SpaceX won’t be able to launch again until it can show it won’t cause any risk to public safety.