SpaceX scrubbed the maiden flight test of its Starship/Super Heavy booster on Monday due to a frozen valve at the start of a busy two-week period that could see the company conduct five launches.

On April 17, 2023 SpaceX scrubbed the maiden flight test of its Starship/Super Heavy booster due to a pressurization issue with the first stage. SpaceX has announced that the next attempt will be made on Thursday, April 20, 2023.

With an increasing number of launches, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced it is “taking steps to optimize and equitably manage the airspace in the vicinity of launch sites” using a “Set of objective factors” in order to minimize disruptions ahead of a busy summer travel season.

It’s been the dream of space advocates for decades – reusable rockets and spacecraft that could provide safe, routine, frequent and affordable access to space. Vehicles that could launch to space, return to Earth and fly again with minimal refurbishment. In short, spacecraft and boosters with airplane-like operations that would open up space to a broad range of activities. SpaceX’s Starship will be the largest rocket ever flown and the […]

Some time next week, SpaceX will debut the most powerful rocket ever built, the fully-reusable Starship/Super Heavy behemoth that could provide routine, affordable and safe access to space for the first time in human history. In the meantime, ESA will launch an ambitious mission to study three of Jupiter’s moons that contain subsurface oceans.

A Congressionally-mandated review by the Rand Corporation has recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) be given the authority to formulate safety regulations to protect passengers and crew members on commercial human spaceflights when a regulatory moratorium expires on October 1, 2023.

U.S. commercial human spaceflight is set to accelerate over the next two years as SpaceX launches more commercial missions into orbit, Blue Origin’s New Shepard resumes suborbital flights, and Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity completes its test flight program and enters commercial service.

Welcome to this week’s launch roundup.

A Chinese company’s new rocket succeeded on its maiden flight, Israel orbited a satellite for the first time in three years, and the inaugural flight of SpaceX’s Starship/Super Heavy system might happen in the next few weeks.

Starlink is having problems, ISAR just raised $165 million, and Boeing’s Starliner is delayed again.

OneWeb said it can now offer global broadband service following the launch of 36 satellites aboard an Indian LVM III booster on Sunday. Relativity Space looked on the bright side following the failed maiden launch of its new Terran 1 booster. And a new Chinese rocket is set to debut this week.