According to CNBC’s Michael Sheetz, Virgin Orbit will be shutting down and furloughing its employees for at least one week while it looks for funding to continue operations.

Tuesday, Arianespace announced it signed a new contract for two launches, with an option of a third, from the European Space Agency and the Italian Government. However, no response has been made on the validity of Vega-C’s failure investigation.

Hot on the heels of the splashdown of the Crew-5 mission, SpaceX launched the uncrewed CRS-27 Dragon spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station.

Liftoff atop a Falcon 9 rocket came at 8:30 p.m. EDT March 14, 2023, from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The autonomous spacecraft is set to dock to the ISS about a day later to deliver some 6,000 pounds (2,700 kilograms) of supplies to the seven-person Expedition 68 crew living aboard the orbiting laboratory.

The Falcon 9 first stage that flew in support of this mission, B1073, successfully landed on the SpaceX drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas” less than 10 minutes after launch, which was positioned downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. This was the seventh recovery for this booster.

Overall, this was SpaceX’s 17th launch of 2023 — the 16th for a Falcon 9 rocket. The company plans to fly as many as 100 missions this year.

SpaceX is set to deliver thousands of pounds of hardware and science experiments to the International Space Station as part of the uncrewed CRS-27 Dragon resupply mission.

Liftoff atop a Falcon 9 rocket is slated for 8:25 p.m. EDT March 14 (12:25 UTC March 15), 2023, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This will be the 27th resupply mission to the orbiting laboratory under the company’s Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA.

Last week, the US saw the second biggest bank closure in history, with the FDIC taking over Silicon Valley Bank. While SVB specialized in tech startups, space companies also used the bank, including Astra, Rocket Lab, and more.

The premier spaceport in the world, Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station has everything companies need to start launching its rockets to space. Four new companies will join those already operating there with new launch pad allocations by the Space Force.

Earlier today, SpaceX launched another set of satellites to fill out OneWeb’s internet providing constellation of satellites. Today’s launch saw 40 OneWeb satellites launched by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket out of SLC-40 in Florida.

On Wednesday afternoon, Relativity attempted to launch its first Terran 1 rocket out of Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. However, it was not in the cards as the company used up its three-hour window troubleshooting the countdown, but they will be back out there this weekend.

I’ve came across some new details about JAXA’s H3 launch Monday that might change how we look at its failure. We mentioned that inside its payload fairing was the Advanced Land Observing Satellite 3 (ALOS 3), and it turns out that was not a cheap satellite.

Last week, SpaceX launched its first set of Starlink V2 Mini satellites, which will help the company build out their internet service to be more financially viable. Now, a company has shared imagery of one of these satellites with its solar panels deployed which they captured using on-orbit assets.

Last night Japan attempted to launch its H3 rocket carrying the Advanced Land Observing Satellites 3 (ALOS 3). However, while the first stage and solid rocket boosters performed nominally, the second stage failed to light.

Friday, Arianespace released its findings from its independent review commission’s investigation into December’s Vega-C failure, blaming a Ukrainian supplier. Now, it looks like Ukraine disagrees with the commission’s findings.

With humanity on the cusp of returning astronauts to deep space, one organization is attempting to garner support to give the Moon a time zone.

Spearheading this is the European Space Agency, which says space organizations agree “a common lunar reference time” for timekeeping is important for all lunar systems to reference, be they robotic missions or human surface stays.

This week is gearing up to be an exciting spectacle of launches. While not the most packed we’ve seen in the past, we could see the debut of two new rockets.

I really hope this isn’t your first time learning about the three Chinese astronauts (taikonauts) currently on orbit Earth at their nation’s space station. However, earlier this week, two taikonauts performed a spacewalk outside the Tiangong space station but to no fan fair from its space agency.

On December 22, Arianespace launched its second-ever Vega-C rocket from the Guiana Space Centre in South America. However, the launch failed shortly after the second stage ignition, and now we know why.

Probably the two biggest things Rocket Lab is currently working on perfecting this year and in the coming years are tasks its CEO said would never happen. One of those is recovering the Electron’s first stage booster, something that might have a detour from its original idea.

In the wee hours of the night, SpaceX’s Crew-6 and Endeavour Crew Dragon completed its rendezvous with the International Space Station. After following the slow and safe process, Endeavour docked with the ISS and the crew is now onboard.

Last June Astra launched its final Rocket 3 mission, which was a pair of satellites for NASA. Sadly that mission did not end well with a failure in the second stage. The company has now released its report detailing what went wrong.

Ars Technica’s Eric Berger reports that United Launch Alliance has informed interested parties that it is up for sale, potentially throwing the entire industry upside down.