Nearly a month has passed since the New Glenn rocket exploded on its launch pad in Florida, creating a massive fireball. It was likely the largest ever rocket explosion at the historic Florida spaceport, and we are still dealing with its implications today.

The rocket’s explosion took out its only launch pad, LC-36A. So even if Blue Origin can quickly diagnose the cause of the failure, it has nowhere to launch the New Glenn rocket from. Company officials, including founder Jeff Bezos, have said the vehicle will return to flight at LC-36A before the end of this year, though there is widespread skepticism about that timeline.

Meanwhile, we have more questions than answers about a rocket that had become increasingly central to the needs of NASA and commercial customers. What does this failure mean for the Artemis Program to land humans on the Moon? What do we know about the timing of Artemis III and the lunar landing mission, Artemis IV? What about the Moon base?

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/ars-live-whats-the-latest-in-the-aftermath-of-the-new-glenn-catastrophe/

During the IPO roadshow, Musk sold investors on future plans to launch data centers into space and build a colony on Mars. Analysts at its lead underwriter Goldman have predicted a 100-fold surge in its AI revenues to $322 billion by 2030.

While describing expanding Starlink as another key growth pillar in its IPO prospectus, SpaceX has never publicly confirmed that it plans to launch a retail mobile service.

There have been months of speculation over SpaceX’s future mobile plans after it paid $17 billion to rival EchoStar for wireless spectrum licenses to bolster its Starlink satellite network last September. Many analysts viewed the deal as laying the groundwork for an eventual retail offering.

In its bond offering prospectus, seen by the FT, SpaceX said that while it expected the Starlink Mobile service currently “to be most impactful for customers in remote areas uncovered by terrestrial mobile networks,” its longer-term ambitions appeared broader.

As its performance improves and satellite constellation grows, the prospectus suggests the company would “compete to be the preferred connectivity experience to our customers no matter where they are located, whether in rural, suburban or urban areas.”

The launch of a consumer Starlink mobile retail service would also complement the company’s existing broadband Internet option, which served 10.3 million customers worldwide as of March.

However, the plans have been met with trepidation by analysts who have cautioned that the idea may simply be a gamble to extract better deals from Starlink’s telecoms partners and warned of the billions of dollars in build costs and radio wave spectrum needed to roll out mobile networks.

New Street Research estimates that the three US mobile network operators have a total of about 1,020MHz of spectrum, while SpaceX has just 65MHz.

David Barden, partner at New Street Research, said that building a “wireless network in saturated markets around the world would be incredibly hard.”

“[But] as a starting point for negotiating the best possible revenue-sharing deal with mobile network operator partners? It makes tremendous sense,” he added.

Additional reporting by Ryan McMorrow in San Francisco

© 2026 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/spacex-plans-to-launch-starlink-mobile-service-in-the-us/

The FAA’s environmental review approved SpaceX’s proposal for two Starfall reentry demonstrations. It did not specify if these demos would happen on one or two missions. SpaceX intends to recover the vehicle, including parachutes and heat shields, “to the to the maximum extent practicable,” the FAA said.

The Starfall vehicle is cylindrical in shape, with a diameter of 10.2 feet (3.1 meters) and a height of 2.5 feet (0.75 meters). Starfall weighs approximately 4,600 pounds (2.1 metric tons) with capacity for about 2,200 pounds (1 metric ton) of payload, for a total weight of 6,800 pounds (3.1 metric tons). Designed exclusively for cargo, Starfall is smaller than SpaceX’s human-rated Crew Dragon spacecraft used for ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

A closer look at the Starfall reentry vehicle.

Credit: SpaceX

The first Starfall Demo mission will spend a few hours in low-Earth orbit, but the vehicle could also fly on shorter suborbital trajectories after launching on either Falcon 9 or the much larger Starship rocket. This version of Starfall is not capable of de-orbiting itself, but instead relies upon its launch vehicle to guide it back into the atmosphere. After separating from its rocket carrier, the disc-shaped vehicle uses compressed nitrogen gas to point its heat shield in the right direction for reentry.

So who might use something like Starfall? The US military is one obvious answer. The Pentagon is already working with SpaceX on a concept named Rocket Cargo or Point-to-Point Delivery, which would use Starship to deliver massive loads of equipment and supplies to far-flung locations in less than an hour. Starship is an enormous vehicle, nearly 20 stories tall and 30 feet wide, that must land at prepared sites. Starfall could prove to be a more versatile option for lighter deliveries.

The military has also signed agreements with Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, and Anduril for studies and development of technologies for global cargo delivery from space. Notwithstanding Starship, which is still undergoing experimental flight tests, SpaceX may have an early advantage with the Starfall delivery vehicle.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/with-starfall-spacex-eyes-an-edge-in-global-cargo-delivery-from-orbit/

NASA’s infrastructure at Kennedy Space Center, the crown jewel of US spaceports, is aging and approaching its limit due to increased demand from private companies, including SpaceX and Blue Origin, a new report finds.

“NASA’s launch infrastructure is vital to providing the agency, other government agencies, and commercial partners access to space for their most complex and expensive missions,” states the report, published by the NASA Office of Inspector General. “Nevertheless, NASA’s launch infrastructure is dated and often does not provide the capacity to meet the growing demands of the agency and its partners.”

The report covers NASA’s launch facilities at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. However, the most noteworthy information in the report concerns the Florida spaceport, where demand from SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch vehicles is expected to stress NASA.

Roads and gas lines

NASA only has a handful of launch pads at Kennedy. Launch Complex 39A is currently leased by SpaceX for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches, and also houses a new launch facility that will soon support Starship launches. Launch Complex 39B is home to NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, and Launch Complex 39C has not been used due to its proximity to this pad. Finally, NASA has built a 10-acre site, Launch Complex 48, that it may lease to small launch vehicle companies.

The space agency’s neighbor to the south, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, has many more pads. This includes the Launch Complex 36A and 36B leased to Blue Origin for the New Glenn rocket.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/report-kennedy-space-center-not-ready-for-era-of-super-heavy-rockets/

That is apparently what happened last week. Rocket Lab had another launch on its schedule for a commercial customer last week, but the company announced a postponement last Tuesday “to conduct additional checkouts,” without offering any additional details. Safety notices began to appear on aviation and maritime websites a couple of days later, just hours before the launch window for Victus Haze opened on Friday.

The launch time, estimated to be approximately 6:20 am EDT (10:20 UTC) on Friday, was set to coincide with the passage of the orbit of one of True Anomaly’s satellites over New Zealand. True Anomaly’s Jackal-0004 satellite launched from California on May 3 on a SpaceX rideshare mission. Publicly available orbit data indicated Rocket Lab’s Victus Haze Puma satellite approached within 60 miles (100 km) of the Jackal satellite just eight hours after launch, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist who expertly tracks space activity using open source data.

Based on previous statements from officials, the Victus Haze mission will unfold with additional maneuvers to bring Rocket Lab’s Puma satellite closer to True Anomaly’s Jackal. Eventually, the satellites are expected to switch roles, with Jackal serving as the inspector and Puma acting as the target.

True Anomaly, a Colorado-based company specializing in building highly maneuverable satellites for national security missions, announced last Thursday that its latest Jackal spacecraft had achieved all of its “test objectives” following its arrival in orbit in early May to demonstrate the satellite’s capabilities for “end-to-end uncooperative rendezvous and proximity operations.”

“Jackal has been fully commissioned and is prepared for its next phase of mission,” True Anomaly said, without articulating what the next phase would entail.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/a-us-military-exercise-in-space-got-underway-with-barely-anyone-noticing/

New launch pad in the works at Cape Canaveral. Space Launch Delta 45, the military unit that runs Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, is exploring the potential creation of a new rocket launch complex for Naval Ordnance Test Unit and US Army missions, Florida Today reports. The new location, known as Launch Complex 51, would be located about 2 miles north of Port Canaveral, making it the spaceport’s closest pad to public areas. LC-51 would encompass about a 50-acre area.

Better real estate… The new pad would replace Launch Complex 46, which lies within the explosive clear zone of Blue Origin’s nearby Launch Complex 36. Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded on that launch pad during a preflight test last month. LC-46’s proximity to LC-36 means the two pads cannot operate simultaneously without disruption. LC-46 has hosted a handful of small satellite launches and hypersonic missile tests in recent years.

Changes in attitude at Latitude. French launch startup Latitude has removed all mentions of the Zephyr name from its website, now referring to its rocket simply as “Our Launcher,” European Spaceflight reports. The rocket, previously known as Zephyr, is a two-stage launch vehicle that will stand 19 meters (62 feet) tall and is designed to deliver up to 200 kilograms (440 pounds) to low-Earth orbit. The company is currently targeting the second half of 2027 for the rocket’s inaugural flight.

Due diligence… Latitude did not explain the reason for the change, but one plausible explanation is trademark risk. The Zephyr name is already trademarked within the aerospace sector by Airbus subsidiary AALTO, whose solar-powered High Altitude Platform Station aircraft bears the name. The Zephyr trademark filing, which was granted by the European Union Intellectual Property Office in 2005, covers unmanned aerial vehicles, satellites, parts and fittings, and “launching apparatus for the aforesaid goods.”

China’s Zhuque-2E breaks up in orbit. The upper stage from a commercial Chinese rocket that launched last week has broken apart in space, spreading debris in a heavily trafficked part of low-Earth orbit home to the International Space Station and a significant portion of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband network, Ars reports. The breakup occurred shortly after the Zhuque-2E rocket reached orbit on June 9 with two satellites providing direct-to-cell communications, perhaps around the time the upper stage was expected to perform a disposal burn. The US Space Force confirmed the breakup event in a post on space-track.org, a website used by the military to distribute orbit data to the public.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/rocket-report-rebuild-begins-at-blue-origin-launch-pad-relativity-targets-mars/

Three months ago, during a flashy event at its Washington, DC, headquarters, NASA announced that it was shifting the focus of its lunar plans from an orbital space station to a Moon base on the surface.

As part of this, officials said work would be paused on the Lunar Gateway planned to orbit the Moon. Of the two elements that were furthest along, NASA also revealed that one of them—the  Power and Propulsion Element—would be repurposed to serve as a core module for a nuclear-electric propulsion demonstration in deep space.

Less was said about the fate of the other major component, the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO). This is the large pressurized module, 6.1 meters long, in which visiting astronauts would spend the majority of their time when visiting the Lunar Gateway. NASA has awarded contracts worth $1.1 billion to Northrop Grumman to design, build, and integrate the habitation module with the Power and Propulsion Element.

After the NASA announcements in March, Northrop Grumman began lobbying NASA and others to include the HALO module as part of NASA’s Moon Base plans. However, Ars has learned this is now unlikely to happen.

Last week, a key contractor for the HALO module, Paragon Space Development Corp., was told to stop working on the space vehicle, two sources told Ars. In 2022, Paragon received a contract worth more than $100 million to develop the life-support system for HALO.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/nasas-1-1-billion-gateway-habitation-module-is-unlikely-to-be-used-for-something-else/

Aleksandr Samokutyaev, Expedition 28 flight engineer, in the International Space Station’s Zvezda service module with a view of space shuttle Atlantis outside the window during the STS-135 mission on July 12, 2011.

Credit: NASA

On July 10, 2011, the US space shuttle Atlantis arrived at the space station, and for nine days, the four STS-135 astronauts joined Samokutyaev and his Expedition 28 colleagues aboard the orbiting laboratory. Not only was it the last time that a shuttle would visit the ISS, but it was the final mission of the 30-year program.

On August 3, 2011, Samokutyaev performed his first spacewalk, venturing outside of the ISS with Volkov to relocate equipment, install a materials science experiment, and hand-deploy a micro-satellite.

After 164 days in Earth orbit, Samokutyaev returned to Earth on Soyuz TMA-21 with Borisenko and Garan, landing safely on the steppe of Kazakhstan.

Cosmonaut Aleksandr Samokutyaev on his first spacewalk outside of the International Space Station on August 3, 2011.

Credit: Roscosmos

Samokutyaev returned to the ISS three years later, this time with Elena Serova—one of only two female cosmonauts in Roscosmos’ corps at the time and only the fourth to fly into space—and NASA astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore on board Soyuz TMA-14M. Samokutyaev spent about two months as an Expedition 41 flight engineer, sharing the space station with cosmonaut Max Surayev, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman (later of Artemis II fame), and ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst from Germany.

On October 22, 2014, Samokutyaev went outside for his second career spacewalk, working with Surayev to jettison unneeded equipment and conduct a detailed photographic survey of the station’s Russian segment exterior. In total, Samokutyaev logged 10 hours and one minute on his two spacewalks.

Samokutyaev then transferred with Serova and Wilmore onto the Expedition 42 crew, working with his 2003 cosmonaut classmate Anton Shkaplerov, as well as NASA astronaut Terry Virts and ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti from Italy. The three returned to Earth on March 11, 2015, adding 167 days to Samokutyaev’s time in space for a total of 331 days, 11 hours, and 23 minutes.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/cosmonaut-aleksandr-samokutyaev-56-is-first-former-iss-crew-member-to-die/

Amazon now has hundreds of flight-ready satellites standing idle in Florida, waiting to join the company’s low-Earth orbit Internet constellation, an Amazon official said Tuesday.

“They’re built, and sitting in a payload processing facility waiting for trips to orbit,” said Steve Metayer, vice president of Amazon Leo Production Operations, during a teleconference with reporters. “And we’re currently manufacturing several satellites a day.”

Metayer spoke on the eve of the company’s next mission, during which an Ariane 64 rocket will launch three dozen Amazon Leo satellites into orbit from a spaceport in French Guiana. Liftoff is targeted for 7:53 am ET (11:53 UTC) on Wednesday.

Arianespace steps up

France-based Arianespace has emerged as a critical partner for Amazon, which, to date, has had the majority of its 331 satellites launched on Atlas V rockets. However, Amazon has just one more mission booked on this rocket, which is operated by United Launch Alliance, as the vehicle is slated for retirement.

To launch the majority of its Leo constellation, Amazon booked rides on three large, new rockets four years ago: 18 launches on the Ariane 6 rocket, 12 launches on Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, with options for 15 additional launches; and 38 launches of the United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket.

But of these new rockets, only Arianespace has delivered so far, with two launches completed this year, another on Wednesday, and more to come. Neither New Glenn (also owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos) nor Vulcan has launched Amazon satellites yet.

“As for Arianespace, they have definitely stepped up,” Metayer said. “They’re very reliable on their manifest dates, and they’re very reliable and safe on their insertions into orbit. So we definitely would continue to look forward to the next 16 launches with them on our existing contract, and we see them being a player long-term beyond that.”

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/amid-launch-bottleneck-amazon-has-hundreds-of-satellites-waiting-to-fly/

The closest analog to what Blue Origin is attempting to do, therefore, concerns the rebuild of Space Launch Complex-40, which was largely destroyed by the AMOS-6 failure.

According to Muratore, SpaceX was not allowed to begin reconstruction work at the launch pad until January 2017. The delay stemmed from the ongoing investigation, which included a grid-by-grid examination of debris, cataloging recovered materials, and launch site remediation. Muratore and other SpaceX engineers spent these four months redesigning the launch pad.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Cargo Dragon spacecraft, seen here with the new launch tower and access arm at SLC-40.

Credit: SpaceX

Trip Harriss, who managed the Falcon 9 fleet operations in 2016, said everyone at the company pitched in to support the investigation and then the reconstruction of the SLC-40 pad. The search for debris lasted from shortly after the explosion until early October, when efforts had to be abandoned due to the approach of the powerful Hurricane Matthew.

During this time, SpaceX pulled out all of the stops, deploying drones and aircraft with sensitive equipment. “At one point, I got a submersible to take into the flame trench, where there was an accumulation of water, to see if we could find any rocket debris,” Harriss said. “But it was just large chunks of concrete.”

Going fast

Launch pads are among the most complex pieces of infrastructure involved in sending a rocket into space. They require a lot of braun, as evidenced by the need for tall and strong steel launch towers. Then there’s the large amount of concrete used for the foundation, flame trench, and surrounding areas.

Last Thursday, during the test failure, one of Blue Origin’s massive launch towers toppled, and the other appears to be seriously damaged. The concrete underneath the rocket also appears to have collapsed in some places. From a structural standpoint, there is likely a significant amount of work ahead.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/how-long-will-it-take-to-rebuild-blue-origins-launch-pad-we-asked-some-spacex-vets/