WASHINGTON — Dawn Aerospace announced May 22 that it has started taking orders for an uncrewed spaceplane capable of taking small payloads on suborbital flights.

The New Zealand company said it is beginning sales of the Aurora spaceplane, a vehicle capable of carrying six kilograms of payload to an altitude of 100 kilometers. First deliveries of the vehicle are projected in 2027.

Dawn Aerospace is following a model from commercial aviation rather than spaceflight with Aurora, selling the vehicle to customers who will operate it rather than flying the vehicle on its own. That will, the company argues, expand the potential market for the vehicle compared to the traditional approach of selling launch services.

“There are many out there who would love to have this capability and be willing to pay for it, but they simply can’t get their hands on it. It’s not for sale,” Stefan Powell, chief executive of Dawn Aerospace, said of launch vehicles during a May 22 webinar organized by the Global Spaceport Alliance.

He contrasted that with commercial aviation’s approach where airliners are operated not by the companies that build them but instead by airlines. “The airline model presents us with a far more scalable model for transportation, and one that we would really like to draw on.”

That mirroring of commercial aviation extends to Aurora itself. The company has been testing versions of the vehicle for several years, including a flight in November 2024 where the Mark 2 Aurora reached supersonic speeds for the first time. On that flight the vehicle reached a top speed of Mach 1.12 and peak altitude of 25.1 kilometers.

“This is an aircraft with the performance of a rocket, not a rocket with wings,” he said. “That is to say, reliability, reusability and, ultimately, scalability are not afterthoughts but baked in from day one to enable this airline model.”

Dawn Aerospace is working on the new version of Aurora capable of suborbital flights. That includes increased propellant and engine thrust, as well as the addition of reaction control system thrusters to provide control outside the atmosphere. Those modifications will be accommodated within the same outer mold line as the previous version.

The first Aurora suborbital vehicle will be ready for flight within 18 months, starting a flight test program lasting six to nine months. Those test flights will start at low altitudes but quickly progress to much higher altitudes.

On a typical suborbital flig

NASA says long-running budget shortfalls may lead to ISS crew and research reductions.

NASA says a “multi-year” budget shortfall even before the proposed cuts in the fiscal year 2026 budget request have led the agency to consider reductions in crew size and research on the International Space Station.

At a May 20 press conference about the upcoming Ax-4 private astronaut mission to the station, Dana Weigel, NASA ISS program manager, was asked about language in the top-level fiscal year 2026 budget proposal that seeks to reduce spending on the ISS by half a billion dollars, part of $6 billion in overall cuts to the agency.

The so-called “skinny” budget also mentioned reductions in the crew size and research on the station, without providing details. The research that would be performed on the station, it stated, “would be focused on efforts critical to the Moon and Mars exploration programs.”

Weigel said #NASA was facing resource problems with the ISS before the cuts proposed for fiscal year 2026. “Today, the station has been faced with a cumulative multi-year budget reduction,” she said, including the continuing resolution that funded NASA at 2024 levels for all of fiscal year 2025.

A House hearing about how #NASA is dealing with the threat posed by asteroid impacts turned into a discussion about a very different threat: the impact of proposed NASA budget cuts.

The focus of the May 15 hearing by the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee was on NASA’s efforts to discover and track potentially hazardous asteroids, as well as measures to prevent any possible impacts, collectively known as planetary defense.

NASA requested $276.6 million for planetary defense in its fiscal year 2025 budget proposal, a little more than 1% of the agency’s overall budget. Most of that money would go towards the Near Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission, an infrared space telescope designed to more effectively search for asteroids than ground-based telescopes.

While NASA’s investment in planetary defense is modest relative to the overall agency budget, that activity has a high profile that was further raised earlier this year when an asteroid, 2024 YR4, briefly had more than a 3% chance of colliding with the Earth in 2032. Subsequent observations of the asteroid’s orbit effectively ruled out any impact in 2032 or for the foreseeable future.

“Planetary defense is one of the most important objectives” of the agency, said Rep. Mike Haridopolos (R-Fla.), chairman of the subcommittee. He noted one recent survey by the Pew Research Center that found that planetary defense “was the highest priority of American citizens.”

There was little debate about NASA’s work in planetary defense at the hearing. Democratic members of the committee, though, used the hearing as an opportunity to ask the witnesses, including Nicky Fox, NASA associate administrator for science, about budget cuts facing NASA’s science program in the White House’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal.

“This budget, if enacted, would strip away NASA’s storied leadership, disrupt decades of progress in U.S. space exploration and cripple the agency’s ability to pursue bold and ambitious goals going forward,” said Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-N.C.), ranking member of the subcommittee.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), ranking member of the full committee, noted that planetary defense requires NASA to cooperate with other agencies, from the National Science Foundation to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who are also facing severe cuts in the proposed budget. “Will anyone be home to answer the call if a NEO were found to be on a trajectory headered towards to Earth?” she asked.

Members, though, got few additional details about the effect the proposed budget will have on NASA science. Fox said that she has received only the “skinny” budget framework released by the Office of Management and Budget May 2 that cut overall NASA spending by 24% from 2025 levels.

“We have not seen any details on the missions or any direction on the missions other than the Mars Sample Return program and Landsat Next,” she said. The skinny budget specifically called for canceling Mars Sample Return and restructuring Landsat Next, but did not mention any other science missions. “We await the full president’s budget so we can see the priorities and direction on which missions may be supported or not supported.”

That includes NEO Surveyor. At the hearing, Fox and Amy Mainzer, a professor at the University of California Los Angeles who leads the mission, noted that work on NEO Surveyor is going well, with the mission still scheduled to launch no later than June 2028 but potentially as soon as the fall of 2027.

“We have not seen the details of the budget yet” and how it might affect the mission, said Mainzer. “From my perspective, we do not know the impact yet.”

FAA license update brings SpaceX closer to next Starship launch , #SpaceX is a step closer to winning regulatory approval for its next Starship test flight, a critical launch after the previous two failed.

The Federal Aviation Administration announced late May 15 that it updated its launch license for Starship ahead of the vehicle’s next launch. That update incorporated an environmental approval earlier this month allowing SpaceX to perform up to 25 launches per year from its Starbase facility in south Texas, five times the previous annual limit.

The FAA noted, though, that the license update alone does not allow SpaceX to conduct its next Starship launch, known as Flight 9. “SpaceX may not launch until the FAA either closes the Starship Flight 8 mishap investigation or makes a return to flight determination,” the agency said in a statement. “The FAA is reviewing the mishap report SpaceX submitted on May 14.”

On Flight 8 in March, Starship suffered what SpaceX called an “energetic event” in the aft section of the Starship upper stage during its ascent, causing several Raptor engines to shut down and the vehicle to lose attitude control. The vehicle reentered over the Caribbean.

That was similar to a failure on Flight 7 in January. SpaceX said shortly before the Flight 8 launch that the upper stage suffered a “harmonic response several times stronger in flight than had been seen during testing,” stressing the propulsion system and creating propellant leaks that triggered fires. The FAA accepted those findings March 31.

At that time, neither the FAA nor SpaceX had disclosed details about the potential cause of the Flight 8 failure. The FAA stated then that Starship launches would not resume until either it accepted the Flight 8 mishap report or makes another determination that launches can safely resume.

SpaceX is moving ahead with preparations for Flight 9, including a long-duration static-fire test of the Starship upper stage May 13. The company said at the time that it was in “final preparations” for the launch. Airspace and maritime notices indicate a launch could take place as soon as May 22, pending FAA approval.

“Just before the Starship flight next week, I will give a company talk explaining the Mars game plan in Starbase, Texas,” Elon Musk, chief executive of SpaceX, posted on social media May 13, adding that the talk will also be streamed online.

After the two previous Starship failures, some in the Caribbean sought changes to the Starship trajectory to avoid airspace closures and other disruptions caused by falling debris. ProPublica reported May 15 that Stephen Doughty, the United Kingdom government minister responsible for overseas territories like the Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean, contacted the U.S. State Department seeking changes to the Starship flight profile and timing to minimize risks to the islands.

The FAA published May 15 an environmental assessment for updated airspace closures for the Flight 9 launch. The aircraft hazard area, or AHA, now extends to the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos. “The Starship vehicle mishaps from Flights 7 and 8 caused a greater probability of failure of the vehicle and, therefore, a larger AHA,” the document states.

The document states that more than 175 flights would be affected by the airspace closures, many of which would be delayed by an average of 40 minutes to avoid the hazard zone. The launch would also take place “outside peak transit periods,” with an anticipated liftoff at 7:30 p.m. Eastern. In addition, the main airport in the Turks and Caicos, Providenciales International Airport, will close during the launch window.

Space Force, Space Command seek over $2 billion for unfunded programs to counter anti-satellite threats.

The Space Force submitted $1.1 billion and Space Command $1.2 billion in their “unfunded requirements” lists for fiscal year 2025.

The U.S. Space Force and U.S. Space Command submitted a combined $2.3 billion in “unfunded requirements” to Congress last week, with the vast majority of the funds requested for classified programs aimed at space control, space superiority, and space domain awareness. These are broad categories of technologies sought by the military to protect U.S. assets in orbit from anti-satellite weapons being developed by China and Russia.

The unfunded priorities list is an annual ritual in which the military services detail important priorities and capabilities left out of the president’s official budget request. The items in the Space Force’s $1.1 billion and Space Command’s $1.2 billion lists did not make it into the fiscal year 2025 budget proposal the Pentagon submitted to Congress on March 11, which included $29.4 billion for the Space Force. Space Command is a combatant organization that relies on the Space Force to acquire the space hardware and systems needed for operations in the space domain.

Funds needed to improve satellite defense

Gen. Stephen Whiting, head of U.S. Space Command, said in a memo to congressional committees that the funding is crucial to defend U.S. satellites from threats posed by anti-satellite weapons being developed by China and Russia. These weapons, if used, could disrupt Global Positioning System satellite navigation, communications, and intelligence gathering capabilities vital to the U.S. military.

“Chinese and Russian threats in the space domain pose a dangerous challenge to the American military instrument of national power and our modern way of life,” Whiting wrote. “Their increasingly assertive actions have created threats to our critical space infrastructure and national space power, putting all branches of the military at risk.”

He noted that Russia “presents an acute threat as it becomes increasingly focused in its cyber, nuclear and space capabilities.”

The requests for space control, space superiority and space domain awareness technologies did not provide specifics due to classification.

Space control involves measures to ensure U.S. military operations in space while denying adversaries the same. Space superiority is the capability to maintain freedom of operation in space for the United States and its allies. And space domain awareness refers to tracking objects and activities in orbit to avoid collisions and detect potential hostile actions.

#American military leaders are speaking more openly than ever about fighting in space — not just defending it.

At the annual Space Symposium last month, senior officials conveyed a sharper posture focused on “space superiority,” a term rooted in military doctrine that means U.S. forces must be able to operate satellites in orbit without interference, and deny that advantage to enemies.

“Space superiority is now a prerequisite for battlefield success,” Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s chief of space operations, said in a keynote speech. “So regardless of whether or not you believe space superiority will win the next war, it must be recognized that we will most certainly lose without it.”

After decades of treating space primarily as a support domain for earthbound operations, the new rhetoric reflects a broader transformation in U.S. space strategy, one that increasingly views space as a dynamic, contested domain in which the ability to maneuver — and, if needed, strike — is essential.

“Potential adversaries have realized the unique strategic advantage of space superiority,” Saltzman added, given how much military forces depend on satellites for communication, navigation, surveillance and missile warning. “They know, as we do, that control of the ultimate high ground is critical to success in all the other domains.”

Gen. Stephen Whiting, the new head of U.S. Space Command, put it bluntly: “Without space-based capabilities, the joint force cannot shoot, cannot move and cannot communicate the way they need to at the speed and scale necessary to win on the modern battlefield.”

War in space is not inevitable, said Whiting, “but we must apply our best thinking to be ready. There is no longer any debate that space is a warfighting domain.”
A change in the rhetoric

The military often described space as “congested and contested” — carefully calibrated language that avoided open discussion of offensive capabilities.

Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton, the Space Force’s deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs and requirements, acknowledged that the culture has changed. “We’re moving past ‘protect and defend’ and yeah, we’re going to talk about offensive capabilities in space,” he told reporters.

Just days after the Space Symposium, the Space Force released its most explicit blueprint yet for how it plans to defend American satellites — and, if necessary, take aim at enemy space systems — in the event of conflict.

The document, titled “Space Warfighting: A Framework for Planners,” outlines how U.S. forces might assert control of the orbital high ground through a range of offensive and defensive operations, reflecting an evolution in how the military thinks about warfare beyond Earth.

“This document is very specific to space superiority,” said Bratton.

He said the sharpened tone aligns with a broader Pentagon push to instill what military leaders refer to as a “warfighting ethos” — a cultural emphasis on readiness, combat effectiveness and the willingness to engage adversaries directly when necessary.

“We have a new administration that has us very focused on this,” Bratton said. “We’ve got a Secretary of Defense who’s very interested in warfighting ethos and lethality.”
Commercial technology for space dominance

A strategic shift toward space control and superiority, however, will require more than rhetoric. It will also require tangible hardware in orbit. That means deploying systems capable of maneuvering, inspecting and potentially neutralizing other satellites.

Some of the technologies the Space Force is considering for its future arsenal are emerging from the commercial sector, where companies have developed dual-use platforms for satellite servicing, debris removal and space traffic control. Tools such as robotic arms that can grab and relocate spacecraft, autonomous docking and refueling systems, in-space propulsion modules and sensors capable of peering inside satellites can be adapted for defense missions, offering the military a faster and often cheaper path to deploying capabilities that would take years to develop from scratch.

#WASHINGTON — A change in engines will cause the launch of a lunar lander being built for a #NASA-funded mission to slip from 2026 to 2027.

In a May 9 statement, ispace U.S., the American subsidiary of Japan’s ispace, said it will use a new engine called VoidRunner for its Apex 1.0 lunar lander. That lander is being developed by ispace U.S. for a team led by Draper flying a mission that is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

The company previously planned to use an engine from Agile Space Industries called A2200, a bipropellant engine that produces about 2,200 newtons (500 pounds-force) of thrust. However, ispace U.S. said that after a review with Agile, the companies concluded the A2200 “would not be supplied within the originally planned procurement schedule.”

VoidRunner is an engine jointly developed by ispace U.S. and Agile, using a valve system created internally by ispace U.S. The companies did not disclose technical details about the engine beyond that it requires one-fourth the parts “and enabled simplifications to the vehicle-level architecture.” The engine has been test-fired by Agile in a vacuum test stand, the companies noted.

However, switching engines will require changes to the lander design. As a result, ispace U.S. said the launch of what it calls Mission 3 would slip from 2026 to 2027.

“Agile is committed to ensuring our technology fully empowers ispace’s Mission 3 to success. We were confident that VoidRunner meets ispace U.S.’s performance expectations but also drives long-term efficiency,” Chris Pearson, chief executive of Agile Space Industries, said in a statement.

“We are confident in the new propulsion system and renewed collaboration with Agile,” added Elizabeth Kryst, chief executive of ispace U.S., in the same statement.

The Mission 3 lander will be used for a CLPS mission called CP-12 by NASA, with Draper as the lead. The spacecraft will land in Schrödinger Basin on the far side of the moon carrying seismometers, an instrument to measure heat flow in the moon’s interior and sensors to measure electrical and magnetic fields at the lunar surface. NASA awarded Draper the $73 million task order for the CP-12 mission in 2022, then planned for launch in 2025.

Besides the lander, the mission will include two satellites, called Alpine and Lupine, that will serve as communications relays for the lander, which will be out of sight from the Earth on the lunar farside. The satellites, developed by ispace U.S. using buses provided by Blue Canyon Technologies, will be available for other uses after the end of the CP-12 mission.

In a NASA presentation at the Lunar Surface Science Workshop online May 7, the CP-12 mission was still listed as having a launch in the fourth quarter of 2026. It was touted as one of three CLPS missions projected to launch in 2026, along with Intuitive Machines’ IM-3 mission and Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost 2. With the delay in CP-12, Blue Ghost 2 is now in line to be the first CLPS mission to attempt a landing on the lunar farside.

While ispace U.S. is working with Draper for this CLPS mission, it is pursuing other opportunities to be involved in CLPS. The company announced April 8 a partnership with Redwire to collaborate on lunar lander missions, including the CLPS program. Redwire is a part of CLPS through its 2020 acquisition of Deep Space Systems, one of the nine original companies selected by NASA to participate in the program in 2018, but has yet to win a CLPS task order.

#WASHINGTON — In a reversal, White House plans to retain the National Space Council, a move that industry officials say could serve as an advocate for space amid pressures to cut budgets.

The White House is expected in the coming weeks to formally announce the National Space Council will continue after speculation that it would not be retained by the new Trump administration. Politico first reported on the move.

A source familiar with the discussions about the council, but not authorized to speak on the record, said that President Trump agreed at a May 5 meeting to stand up the council. That meeting did not give a timeline for publicly announcing the council or hiring an executive secretary who would handle day-to-day operations, although others have said the process for selecting an executive secretary has been ongoing for several weeks.

The council had been inactive for nearly a quarter of a century before Trump reestablished it in 2017. Led at the time by Vice President Mike Pence, the council served as an interagency coordinating body, holding a series of public meetings and releasing policies on a wide range of space issues.

The Biden administration retained the council, with Vice President Kamala Harris leading it. The council had a lower public profile with fewer meetings and policies. It did work on coordinating policies among agencies and issued a proposal for “mission authorization” of novel space activities not currently licensed, although its proposed legislation was not taken up by Congress.

The new Trump administration reportedly was not interested in maintaining the council when it took office in January, with no announcements of new staff for the council or other activities. According to some reports, Elon Musk, chief executive of SpaceX and a close adviser to the president, was opposed to the council, seeing it as unnecessary. Vice President JD Vance, who would chair the council, has also said little about space.

It is not clear what prompted the change, although Musk has publicly stated he plans to spend less time in government activities. Some in the space community, though, see the shift as an opportunity for more advocacy of space within the administration, particularly given a fiscal year 2026 budget proposal that cuts NASA’s budget by nearly 25%.

One industry official noted that the budget proposal was developed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) without a counterweight provided by a space council, an approach that prioritized spending reductions. The outcome might be different with the space council in place, that person noted, citing rising NASA budgets during Trump’s first term.

“After the space council is stood up, OMB will have a seat at the table, but they won’t own the table,” the source said.

Rocket Lab says its planned acquisition of a German optical communications supplier is key to its plans for both bidding on large constellations and eventually developing its own.

In a May 8 earnings call to discuss the company’s first quarter financial results, Rocket Lab executives said work to close its latest deal, the acquisition of optical communications terminal supplier Mynaric, was “progressing well” towards closing it later this year.

Rocket Lab announced March 11 its agreement to acquire Mynaric for an initial $75 million plus up to $75 million in additional payments tied to revenue targets. The deal depends on Mynaric completing a restructuring process under German law that started in February and is ongoing.

“There’s a couple regulatory processes that you’ve got to get there, but the first is to get through the bankruptcy process,” Adam Spice, chief financial officer of Rocket Lab, said of Mynaric. The timing of resolving those regulatory processes is uncertain, he said, “but everything seems to be on track.”

Mynaric ran into financial problems that triggered the restructuring because of problems producing its laser terminals, which Rocket Lab believes it can correct. “The biggest issue is just production, and that’s an area where we’re very, very strong in,” said Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab.

Private Japanese lunar lander enters orbit around moon ahead of a June touchdown