NASA Spaceflight
• Bastiaan Vellekoop, Chris Bergin
SpaceX has moved Starship Ship 41 to the launch site for stacking with Booster 21. The vehicle’s heat shield includes two tiles recovered from Ship 40 after Flight 13, marking the first use of flown tiles in the Starship program.
Commercial Space
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A research team has acquired the first diagnostic X-ray images in space during a commercial spaceflight, demonstrating that X-ray medicine can be performed beyond Earth. The milestone could support future approaches to diagnosing and treating astronaut injuries during missions where returning to Earth is not practical.
SpaceX has moved Starship Ship 41 to the launch site for stacking with Booster 21. The vehicle’s heat shield includes two tiles recovered from Ship 40 after Flight 13, marking the first use of flown tiles in the Starship program.
President Donald Trump bought as much as $50,000 worth of SpaceX shares and sold up to $15,000 in July, according to a public financial disclosure. The transactions involve Elon Musk’s company, a government contractor, and represent Trump’s latest reported dealings with the firm.
The European Union’s antitrust chief said a proposed satellite venture intended to provide a regional answer to SpaceX will face normal scrutiny from competition authorities. The warning contrasts with strong political support from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and signals that strategic importance will not override competition rules.
Falling launch costs and a rising launch cadence are turning orbital data centers from a speculative idea into a potential commercial business. The concept is also creating unsettled intellectual-property questions as companies consider how ownership and protection of data-center technologies would work in orbit.
Fredrik Gustavsson of SWISSto12 discusses the company’s approach to profitable growth and the use of 3D-printed payloads in the space industry at WSBW 2026. The conversation highlights the intersection of commercial performance and advanced manufacturing in space hardware.
Planet Labs plans to launch its first German-built satellite on a German rocket in early 2027, supported by expanded Berlin production. Separately, Exolaunch has contracted a dedicated SpaceX Starship mission for 2029, while China completed four orbital launches in 45 hours to advance competing LEO broadband constellations.
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SaxaVord has abandoned plans for a shared suborbital launch rail, leaving HyImpulse to bring and operate its own launch system for the second flight of its SR75 rocket. The change adds infrastructure responsibility to HyImpulse’s launch campaign and alters the planned operating model at the spaceport.
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