#launch industry

As China’s launch cadence accelerates, analysts say the country is adding large amounts of spent upper-stage mass to long-lived orbits, raising concern about collision risk and the future stability of low Earth orbit.

A Falcon 9 carrying 29 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral as SpaceX continues to expand its fast-growing broadband constellation.

A new SpaceX prospectus and the company’s next test flight plans make clear that Starship is no longer just an ambitious rocket program. It is central to the company’s launch, Starlink and lunar ambitions.

Rocket Lab says it has signed the largest launch contract in its history, a deal that adds momentum to Neutron while the company works toward a first flight in late 2026.

Rocket Lab announced a block sale of five Neutron launches and three Electron flights as it continues targeting a first Neutron mission no earlier than the fourth quarter of 2026.

A Falcon 9 launch carrying 24 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg added another data point to SpaceX’s extraordinary 2026 cadence, with the company reaching its 51st Falcon 9 mission before May had even begun.

The U.S. Space Force now expects 25 additional high-energy national security launches through 2029, increasing pressure on a market where only two providers are certified and only one is currently flying those missions.

Rocket Lab has launched eight Japanese cubeSats for JAXA, extending a stopgap partnership that emerged after setbacks to Japan’s Epsilon rocket program and giving new space technologies a path to orbit.

New Pentagon budget documents would lift the U.S. Space Force to a proposed $71.2 billion in fiscal 2027, with much of the increase aimed at launches, procurement, and new military space systems.

Blue Origin achieved a major reusability milestone with New Glenn, yet the mission also exposed how far the company still has to go after its payload was left in a lower-than-planned orbit.

Blue Origin’s third New Glenn mission is set to test the company’s first reused booster while carrying AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 satellite to low Earth orbit.

SpaceX is preparing another Starlink deployment from Vandenberg Space Force Base, with a Falcon 9 set to carry 25 V2 Mini satellites into a near-polar orbit.

SpaceX is preparing to launch 119 payloads on its Transporter-16 rideshare mission from Vandenberg, underscoring how the company’s shared-launch model has become a core access point for commercial, government, and small-