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Space Force   Supply Chain   Launch Vehicles & Space Transportation   Space Defense & Militarization  
SpaceNews.com • Sandra Erwin

Space Force awards SpaceX $1.6B for 18 Falcon 9 launches under NSSL Phase 3 to deploy sensing & targeting military satellites

The U.S. Space Force has awarded SpaceX two launch task orders worth $1.6 billion for 18 Falcon 9 missions through 2027, carrying Pentagon satellites for detecting and targeting airborne objects. The batch is the largest publicly announced under the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3 program and follows a July 17 $11.4 billion NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 ceiling plus-up.

Also: Spaceflight Now, Breaking Defense, APAC Defence Reporter, Aviation Week, Air & Space Forces Mag, defence-industry.eu, investors.lockheedmartin.com, interestingengineering.com, Defense Daily and 7 more
2026-07-29T14:47:11.389180-07:00
JWST   Launch Vehicles & Space Transportation   Space Exploration & Science Missions   Human Spaceflight & Space Stations   NASA  
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Space.com • Monisha Ravisetti

'It's going to do things that currently are impossible': The Roman Space Telescope, NASA's next great observatory, is ready to launch Aug. 30

By Space.com: Roman's month of Milky Way observations would take Hubble about a century to complete.

Also: Florida Today
2026-07-29T15:50:05.343540-07:00
Launch Vehicles & Space Transportation   Commercial Space  
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Bloomberg • Loren Grush

SpaceX Starship Heat Shield Can’t Support Rapid Flights, Experts Say

By Bloomberg: The heat shield that protects SpaceX’s Starship vehicle as it plummets back to Earth may prove to be a substantial roadblock to Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s path to designing a rapidly reusable rocket, according to three former NASA researchers and experts in the field.

2026-07-29T10:47:23.992719-07:00