Commercial
Commercial spaceflight news from Cosmic Herald — SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, private space stations, and the new space economy.
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Commercial
Starliner Gets a Reset: An Uncrewed Flight This Winter, Astronauts by 2028, and Vulcan Certification Work
NASA and Boeing outlined a new Starliner plan: an uncrewed engineering flight as soon as December, Woody Hoburg commanding a crewed flight by 2028, Vulcan certification for later flights as Atlas V retires, and about $359 million more for upgrades and certification.
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Commercial
An Asteroid-Mining Startup Bets Everything on a Spacecraft That Takes No Orders
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.
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Commercial
SpaceX Rolls Super Heavy Booster to the Pad Ahead of Starship's First Orbital Flight
SpaceX moved Super Heavy booster B21 to the pad at Starbase for Flight 14, the vehicle's first full orbital attempt, targeted for no earlier than September 28.
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Commercial
SpaceX's 700th Falcon Launch Completes SES's O3b mPOWER Broadband Constellation
SpaceX's 700th Falcon flight delivered the final three O3b mPOWER satellites for SES, completing a 13-satellite medium-Earth-orbit broadband constellation set to be fully operational by mid-2027.
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Commercial
Rocket Lab Challenges NASA's $700 Million Mars Orbiter Pick, Betting on a GAO Do-Over
Rocket Lab filed a GAO protest on September 11 against NASA's ~$700 million award of the Mars Telecommunications Network orbiter to Blue Origin, arguing the evaluation broke with Congress's own eligibility rules.
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Commercial
NASA Adds the Unflown Terran R to Its Launch Services Bench
NASA has added Relativity Space's not-yet-flown Terran R rocket to its NLS II launch contract, giving the company a shot at government payloads before it has even reached orbit.
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Commercial
SpaceX Notches 80th Starlink Launch of 2026 With a 19-Flight Veteran Booster
A Falcon 9 booster that once carried NASA's SPHEREx telescope flew a record 19th mission on Sept. 6, lofting 27 more Starlink satellites and marking SpaceX's 80th Starlink launch of 2026.
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Commercial
Isar Aerospace's Spectrum Rocket Finally Reaches Orbit on Second Try
German startup Isar Aerospace put its Spectrum rocket into orbit on its second attempt, 18 months after a vent-valve glitch ended flight one after 30 seconds, delivering five CubeSats for the first orbital payload from a European commercial launcher.
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Commercial
Falcon 9's Starlink Era in Florida Is Over. Vandenberg Just Became the Workhorse.
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.
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Commercial
NASA Hands Blue Origin $700 Million to Build a Mars Communications Orbiter
NASA picked Blue Origin over a competing Rocket Lab bid for a ~$700 million contract to build a Blue Ring-based Mars telecom orbiter due at the Red Planet by 2030.
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Commercial
Isar Aerospace's Spectrum Becomes First Rocket to Reach Orbit From Western European Soil
Germany's Isar Aerospace flew its Spectrum rocket to orbit from Norway's Andøya Spaceport on September 5, the first orbital launch ever from mainland Western Europe, 18 months after its debut ended in a pad-side crash.
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Commercial
Rocket Lab's 94th Electron Puts Another Synspective Radar Eye in Orbit
Rocket Lab launched its 94th Electron before dawn on September 3, deploying a Synspective radar satellite in a mission that also doubled as a routine demonstration of the FAA's new unified Part 450 launch licensing rules.
