Render of future SLC-47 site // Photo: SpaceX A Major Milestone for America’s Next Heavy-Lift Launch System In a landmark decision with wide-reaching implications for U.S. spaceflight, the Department of the Air Force has officially approved SpaceX to redevelop Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for future Starship launches. The announcement, delivered on December 1, 2025, concludes a lengthy environmental and regulatory review and opens the

Soyuz MS-28 Launch // Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls) A textbook ascent with a hidden problem On 27 November 2025, a Soyuz-2.1a rocket lofted the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft from Site 31 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Mikaev and Sergei Kud-Sverchkov to the International Space Station (ISS). The ascent was nominal, rendezvous was on time, and the crew docked safely a little over three hours after li

Render of New Glenn 9x4 launching // Photo: Blue Origin Blue Origin has taken a major step toward turning New Glenn from a single heavy-lift rocket into an entire family of launch vehicles aimed at everything from Amazon’s Kuiper satellites to crewed lunar missions. In a sweeping update released on November 20, the company detailed both near-term upgrades to the current New Glenn and a new super-heavy variant dubbed New Glenn 9×4 . Together, the pair are meant to serve as a f

Photo: Blue Origin Blue Origin has revealed a full-scale, deployable aerobrake system, marking one of the company’s most significant advances in spacecraft atmospheric-entry and orbital-maneuver hardware to date. Designed to use planetary atmospheres to slow spacecraft and reduce propellant requirements, the new system could reshape how missions to the Moon, Mars, and Earth orbit are planned and executed. The aerobrake prototype—shown in a demonstration released by Blue Origi