Space Explored

Welcome back to another edition of Terminal Count. Starship has continued to command the news cycle even after its launch last month. That will likely not change for the foreseeable future; however, NASA’s Artemis 2 mission is entering the chat with the start of SLS stacking.

We are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for the first flight of Blue Origin‘s New Glenn rocket. It’s faint, but we can at least now see it as the company has a potentially flight-ready rocket sitting at its launch pad in Florida.

The most recent launch of SpaceX’s Starship rocket showed that the company is making serious progress in getting the vehicle ready for prime time. SpaceX COO, Gwynne Shotwell, believes that Falcon and Dragon’s days are numbered, as soon as 2030.

Over the last four years, one of the many contested decisions made by President Trump was the moving of Space Command‘s headquarters from Colorado to Alabama. While many viewed it as a political move, some viewed it as a right for the state to have.

SpaceX‘s presence down in Starbase has continued to grow over the years as the company ramps up Starship development and flights. However, there has been a slight change in what could have been a massive expansion of SpaceX land, as the company has pulled out of a land-swap deal with the state.

Nearing four years ago, the Arecibo Telescope’s instrument platform collapsed and destroyed the massive radio telescope’s dish below. What caused it has still remained a massive mystery, but a new study might finally shed some light on what could have caused the loss of one of the National Science Foundation’s most important research tools.

What do you do when you build the world’s largest and most powerful rocket? Well, you strap a banana in its payload bay and launch it into space. Bananas seemed to be the theme for Starship Flight 6, while the mission was also a major success.

Later this afternoon, SpaceX is planning to launch its sixth Starship rocket from its facilities at Starbase, Texas. This will be a big moment for the rocket, repeating its awe-inspiring catch and restarting a Raptor engine in space. Here’s the best way to watch Starship Flight 6.

Tomorrow afternoon, SpaceX is attempting to repeat the incredible and catch its second Starship booster using the two arms on the launch tower. This is a daring task, as the catch can go wrong if the booster is only a few inches off; also, no one really wants to be that close to what is basically a massive missile. But SpaceX is once again keeping a human-in-the-loop before a catch attempt is given the GO.

Welcome to Terminal Count, the official weekly rundown of spaceflight news by Space Explored. This week, the story is once again about SpaceX and its Starship rocket. The company is gearing up for not just its sixth flight, but also for three other Falcon 9 launches this week.

SpaceX is now attempting to fly its Starship Flight 6 mission no earlier than Tuesday, November 18, at 4:00 P.M. CST. All of the vehicle’s rocket components are at the launch site and are stacked and ready for launch.

One of the more successful Space SPACs of recent years, AST SpaceMobile announced it has secured a multi-launch contract with Blue Origin to use its New Glenn rocket to deploy the Block 2 Bluebird satellites in 2025 and 2026.

SpaceX has moved out its 31st Starship upper stage to the launch site ahead of Flight 6, expected on November 18. This ship has seen a few changes compared to what came before it but is only the tip of the iceberg for what is to come next.

SpaceX is making its quickest turnaround yet for the Starship rocket, hopefully launching some five weeks after Flight 5. This mission will have more big milestones for the company while other companies still work towards competing with its older Falcon 9 rocket.

Former President Trump came away Tuesday night with a decisive Electoral College victory to return to the White House next year. With this being his second term, how could these next four years look for NASA, the Space Force, and commercial companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin?

Boeing, the once esteemed aerospace contractor has had its hands in almost every national space program since Apollo. However, it seems likely that the company wants to divest itself of almost all of its space programs.

New photos and planning documents show potential Starship-sized expansions at SpaceX‘s Roberts Road facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The company is also planning four Falcon 9 launches this week. Meanwhile, its closest thing to a near-term competitor, Blue Origin, is gearing up to debut its New Glenn rocket.

NASA shared that the Voyager 1 team has moved the spacecraft to a lower-powered transmitter after something triggered its fault protection system. NASA and JPL are still evaluating what caused the loss of communication and the fault system to trigger.

SpaceX is under pressure to keep its part of the bargain as close to the schedule as possible with providing its Starship rocket as NASA’s Artemis Human Landing System. A major component of both that mission and Starship’s Mars mission will be orbital refueling.

Just a couple of weeks ago, SpaceX launched its fifth Starship rocket on its most successful and daring mission yet. It now has a regulatory open lane for a sixth mission, and if recent activity has anything to show for it, it could be sooner rather than later.