Every Cosmic Herald story on U.S. Space Force — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
The Space Force activated SPACEFOR-SOC, its ninth component field command, on Oct. 7, more than 18 months after SOCOM revealed the plan and after Congress paused it. A formal ceremony is still to come, and the service has not yet named a commander.
Read the story →Five days after an automated abort, a Falcon 9 lifted 21 Northrop Grumman Transport Layer satellites from Vandenberg on Oct. 10. That brings the Space Development Agency to 84 of the 126 data-relay satellites planned for Tranche 1, with five of nine launches still to go.
The NRO's first Falcon Heavy launch, NROL-97, lifted off Oct. 1 on side boosters that had flown NASA's Roman telescope a month earlier and a fairing from NROL-95, and it closed out SpaceX's first day with four booster landings.
SpaceX called off the Space Development Agency's T1TL-A launch of 21 Northrop Grumman data-transport satellites in the final minute of Monday's count at Vandenberg, and the next try is set for Thursday, Oct. 8.
AstroForge says its Autonomy-1 mission, launching on Stoke Space's debut Nova Pathfinder rocket in early 2027, will fly its entire mission without a single command from Earth.
The RAF stood up No. III Space Effects Squadron on Sept. 23, 2026 — the UK's first unit built to disrupt, degrade and deny threats to British satellites, backed by £880 million in new funding.
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told a September 14 conference that the US now operates "on-orbit space control weapons," the most direct public acknowledgment yet of an armed American presence in space.
SpaceX's 80th Starlink mission of 2026 flies from California, not Florida, because Falcon 9's Cape Starlink run ended Aug. 25 after roughly 260 flights. Starship is supposed to pick up the slack before year-end, and the FAA has already cleared 44 launches a year at LC-39A.
Five months after killing the $6.27 billion OCX program, the Space Force is starting work on a new GPS ground-control architecture while a Lockheed Martin stopgap keeps the constellation flying.
Gen. Douglas Schiess became the Space Force's third Chief of Space Operations and first four-star general in a Sept. 3 ceremony at Joint Base Andrews, succeeding Gen. Chance Saltzman.
The Senate confirmed Lt. Gen. Douglas Schiess as the Space Force's third Chief of Space Operations, with a Sept. 3 ceremony at Joint Base Andrews set to formally end Gen. Chance Saltzman's nearly four-year tenure.
A new executive order tasks a NASA-chaired commission with designing, in just 120 days, a federal academy meant to train engineers, operators, and future Space Force Guardians.
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