#BlueOrigin announced plans for #NewGlenn 9×4 in November 2025 but did not disclose when it expected the vehicle to begin flying. The company did not provide a schedule 📆 for the vehicle in the announcement of the new pad https://spacenews.com/blue-origin-outlines-plans-for-second-cape-canaveral-launch-pad/
Proud to honor the legacy of Launch Complex 36. Rebuilding LC-36A and flying again this year remains our priority. Alongside that work, a separate team is beginning work on LC-36B, the operational home for New Glenn's 9x4. We're sourcing 2,500 tons of steel columns that will be integrated with beams and bracing to form 50'x50'x50’ modules. These modules will be stacked to build the 700-foot-tall launch tower.
https://bird.makeup/users/blueorigin/statuses/2087586177465356409
Will "orbital delivery vans" 🚐 (Microlauncher) be replaced by the equivalent of heavy-duty trucks 🚚 ? (to #Space, like #Starship, #NewGlenn or #LongMarch) 🤔
RE: https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/117088542203911650
“Mass is really the bottleneck—every gram counts.”
🇨🇳 Around 8pm on Monday, the 60-metre #LongMarch7A blasted off 🚀 from the #Wenchang Space Launch Site on the southern island of #Hainan. But less than 90 seconds into the flight, the rocket erupted into a fireball 💥 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3363574/chinas-long-march-7a-rocket-explodes-after-launch-satellite-lost
RE: https://mastodon.social/@europeanspaceflight/117081251496318708
🇪🇺 The most recent flight of the upgraded four-booster #Ariane6 launched 36 #Amazon Leo satellites, carrying more than 20 tonnes to orbit on a single mission.
#ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher warned that #Europe was heading towards a shortage of launch capacity around 2030
While #Neutron will be significantly more capable, with a planned payload capacity of up to 15,000 kilograms to #LEO, its availability will initially be limited.
#SpaceX is not accepting Transporter reservations beyond late 2028 or early 2029. That has led companies like Exolaunch and SEOPS to buy their own #Falcon9 rideshare launches. There seems to be a panic 😱 setting in. That has factored into planning for #RocketLab’s #Neutron medium-lift rocket, including customers seeking “longer-term” deals and block buys of launches to guarantee access to space 🌌 https://spacenews.com/spacex-launches-transporter-17-amid-concerns-about-rideshare-programs-future/
#Shotwell : "#Falcon9 will fly for six to eight more years, and then everything will be moved to #Starship"
The Falcon retirement date news was likely celebrated 🥳 by SpaceX’s medium-lift rocket competitors, who could step in and offer dedicated launches to customers that don’t need Starship’s volume capacity https://payloadspace.com/spacex-leadership-map-out-the-future-of-the-starship-program/
Will "orbital delivery vans" 🚐 (Microlauncher) be replaced by the equivalent of heavy-duty trucks 🚚 ? (to #Space, like #Starship, #NewGlenn or #LongMarch) 🤔
The SpaceX Recovery team is still working to recover Flight 13’s Starship from the Indian Ocean. They’ve been overcoming challenging conditions and increasingly rough seas as they attempt to guide the 52m long spacecraft to port
RE: https://mastodon.social/@europeanspaceflight/117052995880802079
🇮🇹 Three members of the Italian #SpaceAgency’s board of directors have resigned, resulting in the board’s dissolution. This will not be the first time #ASI has been placed under the stewardship of an extraordinary commissioner 🔂
🇬🇧 “Do we really want Square Kilometre Array Observatory discoveries to be announced from a #HQ alongside what would be the world’s largest disused 🚫 radio #telescope?”
Jodrell Bank 🔭 was among dozens of facilities, instruments and projects hit by cuts last week. The #RubinObservatory in Chile faces a 20% cut to #UK participation. The Next-Generation Transit Survey, which is searching for solar systems similar to Earth’s, received a 45% cut 📉 https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/aug/03/jodrell-bank-observatory-artists-writers-scientists-letter
According to #NASA, humans have left more than 225,000 kilograms of refuse 🗑️ on the Moon. Over the decades, several nations have contributed to the Moon’s collection of trash : #China 🇨🇳, #India 🇮🇳, #Israel 🇮🇱, #ESA 🇪🇺, #Japan 🇯🇵 https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/how-human-activity-littered-the-moon
📆 July 5, 1969 Japanese diplomats revealed that a small Japanese freighter 🚢 was hit 💥 by wreckage from a Soviet spacecraft while cruising near the coast of Siberia. The Japanese Government 🇯🇵 apparently had decided not to make a public disclosure of its finding because it did not want to provoke an incident with #Moscow https://www.nytimes.com/1969/07/05/archives/soviet-space-debris-hits-japanese-ship-injuring-5.html
Symbolic image : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cargo_ship_USS_Alhena_(AK-26)_1942_torpedo_damage.jpg
These incidents are becoming so common that the #Australian 🇦🇺 #SpaceAgency has put together a trio of steps to take if suspected space debris is discovered.
"Very often they will be made of something like titanium which is really good at surviving. Just don't let them randomly reenter. Bring them down via controlled reentry and then if they are survivable it doesn't matter because you dump them somewhere where there aren't any people" 🤕 https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/metal-spheres-found-in-australia-show-how-little-we-still-know-about-falling-space-debris-experts-say
Sawchuk said five farmers have found at least eight 8️⃣ pieces of space junk in the surrounding area https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/spacex-cbc-debris-space-junk-sask-1.7231571
🇵🇱 February 2025 "The important thing is that no-one was harmed," police spokesperson Andrzej Borowiak said.
A similar piece of debris was discovered in a forest near the #Polish village of Wiry https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62z3vxjplpo
A #satellite 🛰️ image taken on August 3 shows the Normand Ranger 🚢 and #SpaceX's #Starship rocket. Attached to the nose of Starship is a long line https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/03/science/spacex-starship-indian-ocean-recovery-satellite-images
The ship landing was precise, meaning that it would have been caught by the tower arms
https://bird.makeup/users/elonmusk/statuses/2082340308680135085
2025 the #US #SpaceForce issued alerts for ~820 objects entering the Earth’s atmosphere, compared to 110 a decade ago. Huge objects weighing a metric #tonne or more arrive about once a week.
> 300 rockets launched last year, ~four times as many 📈 as a decade ago. Companies should be compelled to use materials that will fully disintegrate. No such #SpaceRegulation exists.
A one-minute error in predicting re-entry changes the landing zone by around 500km 📏 https://www.irishtimes.com/world/2026/08/04/watch-the-skies-what-are-the-chances-of-being-hit-by-a-piece-of-space-junk