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United Launch Alliance closed out the Atlas V 551's 20-year career hauling 29 more Amazon Leo satellites to orbit, just weeks before Amazon's FCC deadline to deploy half its broadband constellation.
Read the story →Jio Platforms filed IPO papers alongside plans for a 1,600-satellite sovereign broadband constellation, challenging Starlink and OneWeb in India's increasingly contested orbital market.
On June 17, an Ariane 64 rocket lifted 36 Amazon Leo broadband satellites to orbit — the heaviest payload ever lofted by an Ariane rocket, and the debut of upgraded P160C solid boosters that give the vehicle a 10% thrust increase. Europe's commercial heavy lifter is finding its stride.
When a Starlink outage last August left Navy unmanned surface vessels bobbing uselessly off the California coast, it crystallized a strategic anxiety the Pentagon had been managing quietly: the U.S. military is profoundly dependent on a commercial satellite network it does not own or control.
Rocket Lab has built a successful small launch business on the back of its expendable Electron rocket. Now it's attempting something far more difficult: a medium-lift reusable launch vehicle called Neutron, aimed directly at SpaceX's market.
United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur has completed its certification flights and is entering regular commercial service. The rocket is designed to handle everything ULA's Atlas V and Delta IV carried — and it's arriving at a moment when the launch market is more competitive than it has ever been.
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket reached orbit on its first attempt — a significant achievement for a company that spent years being compared unfavorably to SpaceX. But a single successful launch is a beginning, not a business. What comes next will define whether New Glenn becomes a serious player.
Starlink is the largest satellite constellation in history — and the most disruptive to ground-based astronomy. SpaceX has made mitigation efforts, but the fundamental tension between dense LEO constellations and telescope surveys remains unresolved as competitors plan their own systems.
Artemis II is done — but 2026's manifest isn't. NASA's Roman Space Telescope launches August 30, four lunar landers chase year-end windows, Gaganyaan-1 rehearses India's first crewed flight, and JAXA's MMX departs for Phobos. What's still scheduled, what slipped, and which dates to believe.
Barely half over, 2026 had logged 131 orbital launch attempts — driven by a Falcon 9 fleet flying every few days, a surging Chinese sector, and the maiden flight of Europe's heaviest Ariane 6.
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