TAL
Talk Around Town: Space for Humanity Claims It's Launching the World's First Citizen Space Agency
The Denver nonprofit says it's rebranding big and inked a Virgin Galactic charter deal—but so far, only its own press release is doing the talking.
Space & Science
Research, rockets, and discoveries beyond the fence line.
Subscribe to the Science feedTAL
Talk Around Town: SpaceX Said to Have Passed on Three Space Force Missions as Falcon 9 Fades
Anonymous sources tell Politico that SpaceX declined three military launches and rivals couldn't step up, leaving the Pentagon in a real pickle.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA's 'Artemis Acceleration' Briefing Could Reveal What a 2028 Moon Landing Actually Looks Like
NASA says it's holding a live briefing October 23 to detail its overhauled Artemis path, but the agency's own watchdog has already flagged some bumpy road ahead.
TAL
Talk Around Town: SpaceX's B1085 Booster Hits 19 Flights, and That's Barely Worth a Yawn Anymore
Booster B1085 flew its 19th mission on Bandwagon-5, per specialist trackers—a number that would've broken records years ago but now barely raises an eyebrow.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Fifty Years of GOES Satellites May Be the Quiet Revolution Nobody Talks About Enough
Chatter around the anniversary of GOES-1 suggests half a century of geostationary weather eyes has quietly changed everything, and the next chapter may already be in the works.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Rocket Lab Says Neutron Is Slipping to 2027 After a Busted Carbon Dome
Rocket Lab confirmed its fourth schedule revision for Neutron after engineers found air pockets in a carbon-composite dome—and the medium-lift market may feel the pinch.
ADA
Talk Around Town: ADAspace Says Its 'Star Compute' Satellites Are Fixin' to Become a 2,800-Bird Orbital Supercomputer
Eight more AI computing satellites rode a Zhuque-2E rocket into orbit, and ADAspace claims it's building the biggest sky-high supercomputer anybody ever dreamed up.
TAL
Talk Around Town: SpaceX CRS-35 May Have Just Handed the ISS Its Final Solar Upgrade
A Falcon 9 hauled the last Redwire iROSA pair to the ISS on October 13, 2026, but astronauts still need to bolt the things on.
SPA
Talk Around Town: SpaceX CRS-35 May Have Just Hauled the Last Solar Arrays the ISS Will Ever Need
A Falcon 9 lit out from Florida on October 13 carrying what NASA says are the station's final Roll-Out Solar Arrays plus a trunk full of brain organoids and artificial retina hardware.
TAL
Talk Around Town: SpaceX's CRS-35 Dragon Hauls Final Solar Arrays and Lab Gear to the ISS, Sources Say
SpaceX reportedly launched CRS-35 on October 13, 2026, carrying 6,300 pounds of cargo including the last iROSA solar arrays, according to specialist outlets.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA's 360-Page Space Station Shopping List Might Not Fill the Shelf in Time
NASA dropped a final commercial station RFP, but analysts warn that signing contracts and having a working station before the ISS splashes down are two very different things.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Apollo 7 Turns 58 — The Ornery Shakedown Flight That Saved the Moon Race
Fifty-eight years ago today, three bickering, sniffling astronauts rode a Saturn IB into history and quietly rescued America's shot at the Moon.
TAL
Talk Around Town: A SpaceX Falcon 9 Hauled 21 Military Satellites for the SDA, Sources Say
Chatter and corroborating coverage suggest a Falcon 9 delivered 21 Northrop Grumman-built SDA satellites to LEO around October 9–10, 2026.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Pentagon's Military Mesh Network Creeps Closer, But That 2027 Target Is Still Just a Target
SpaceX hauled 21 Northrop Grumman-built satellites to orbit on October 10, 2026 — the fourth of nine planned runs to build the Space Force's PWSA mesh network, which the Pentagon says it wants ready in 2027.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Cowboy Space Claims Its Reason-1 Satellite Could Beam Power From Orbit
The satellite is up there, confirmed. Whether Cowboy Space can actually zap electricity down to Earth with a laser, the company says, remains to be seen.
TAL
Talk Around Town: South Korea's Nuri Rocket May Have Nailed a 15-Satellite Haul — Or Maybe 14
Officials and wire services can't quite agree on the final headcount, but South Korea's homegrown rocket reportedly stuck its fifth landing with a record payload.
TAL
Talk Around Town: ULA Says Its 100th Launch Was Flawless — But One Source Ain't So Sure
ULA claims a perfect 100-for-100 record after its 2015 Atlas V Morelos-3 mission, but NASASpaceFlight.com counted one partial failure in the prior 99.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA Says Crew-13 Just Set the Fastest U.S. Docking Run to the ISS
Four astronauts hitched a ride on SpaceX's Crew Dragon 'Grace' and, according to NASA, beat every prior American spacecraft to the station by a country mile.
TAL
Talk Around Town: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Hauled a Secret NRO Payload — but What's Up There?
Reporters confirmed liftoff, boosters, and a tripleheader; the actual payload on NROL-97 is classified and nobody outside the government knows what got delivered.
TAL
Talk Around Town: SpaceX's Crew-13 Finally Blasts Off After a Leaky Dragon Held Things Up for Three Weeks
Four astronauts from three agencies reached orbit October 1, 2026 — but docking and the full six-month mission are still ahead and unconfirmed.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Aviation Week Says NASA May Be Secretly Trying to Fly the SR-71A Blackbird Again
Two named former engineers tell Aviation Week they were approached with job offers. NASA ain't saying squat, and the engineering hurdles are something fierce.
VAR
Talk Around Town: Varda Space Claims $251M Series D Could Birth the First Medicine Made in Orbit
Varda Space Industries says it closed a $251M round at a $1.6B valuation, but no space-made drug has ever entered human trials.
SPA
Talk Around Town: Starship Finally Kissed Orbit, But Nobody's Saying Why It Came Home Early
SpaceX says Flight 14 was a success after Starship reached orbit and dropped 26 Starlink satellites, but the early curtain call has folks asking questions.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Starship Finally Kissed Orbit on Flight 14 — Warts, Wonky Engines, and All
SpaceX's giant rocket reportedly reached orbit for the first time on September 28, 2026, though engine trouble cut the party short by several hours.
USS
Talk Around Town: Three Classified Space Force Rockets in 16 Days — Starshield Whispers Grow
SpaceX launched a third secret Space Force bird from Vandenberg in just 16 days; Spaceflight Now suspects Starshield satellites, but the government ain't saying.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Could That Fourth Classified Falcon 9 Be Speeding Up a Secret Starshield Constellation?
Chatter is swirling that USSF-385 may be part of a Starshield buildout blitz — but payloads are classified and plenty remains unknown.
NAS
Talk Around Town: NASA Hands Out $650,000 for Mars Meal Plans Nobody's Cooked Yet
NASA named five winners of its Mars to Table food-design challenge, but every single dish remains a paper recipe with no prototype and no mission timeline.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA Says Its New PRIMA Telescope Could Launch by 2033
NASA's PRIMA far-infrared observatory has entered Phase B, the agency says, with a 2033 target and a $1.2B cost cap.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA's Crew-13 Dragon Is Supposedly Fixed and Eyeing October 1 Liftoff
After a leaky oxidizer valve benched the mission for nearly three weeks, NASA says the Dragon capsule called Grace is cleared for an October 1 launch attempt.
TAL
Talk Around Town: A Data-Integration Press Release Somehow Landed on the Space-Science Desk
Nucleus Research's 2026 Data Integration Value Matrix, covering enterprise software vendors, turned up in a space-science trend queue — and nobody can quite explain why.
CHI
Talk Around Town: China Flung Four Different Rockets to Orbit in 45 Hours, and the Week Wasn't Even Done
Six orbital missions in six days, four different rockets in under two days — China's launch sector lit up like a county fair midway in mid-September 2026.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Rocket Lab Says Its Electron Hit Flight 96, Dropping Synspective's 12th Radar Bird Into Orbit
Rocket Lab claims its Electron rocket nailed its 96th flight, hauling Synspective's 12th StriX SAR satellite to a 572 km orbit — the company says it's halfway to a 30-satellite constellation.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Space Shuttle Enterprise's 50th Is Being Celebrated, and the Fan-Power Story Behind It Still Slaps
Fifty years after Trekkies rewrote aerospace history with 100,000 letters, NASA and New York's Intrepid Museum are marking the milestone—and current ISS astronauts say it still matters.
SPA
Talk Around Town: Space Shuttle Enterprise Turns 50 — Star Trek Fans, a President, and a Shuttle That Never Left Earth
NASA and ISS astronauts are marking 50 years since the Enterprise rollout, a milestone confirmed across multiple independent sources.
TAL
Talk Around Town: The U.S. May Be Using Space Deals to Build a Diplomatic Fence Around the Moon
Djibouti signed the Artemis Accords as the 72nd nation, and the State Department says its new Space Catalyst Partnership ties commercial space access to Accords membership.
TAL
Talk Around Town: The Space Force Says It's Got Weapons Up There — But That's About All It'll Say
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink confirmed the U.S. has on-orbit space control weapons, but nearly every detail beyond that admission remains officially undisclosed.
SPA
Talk Around Town: SpaceX Claims 700th Falcon Mission While Finishing SES's MEO Broadband Network
SpaceX says a September 13 Falcon 9 launch hit the family's 700th mission mark while closing out SES's 13-satellite O3b mPOWER constellation.
TAL
Talk Around Town: SpaceX's 700th Falcon Shot May Signal a New Era for Commercial Satellite Launches
SpaceX hit a big round number, and SES's MEO broadband constellation is reportedly done — but those final three birds aren't in service yet.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Is NASA's 'Most Colorful Universe' Story Fresh News or a 2014 Classic Riding Back Into the Feed?
A NASA page about Hubble's ultraviolet deep-field study resurfaced in June 2026, but the science dates to 2014 — and nobody's confirmed a new finding.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Rocket Lab's 'Happily Ever Faster' Mystery Launch Has Folks Whispering BlackSky
Rocket Lab shot an unnamed Earth-observation satellite to orbit on September 10, and observers are already placing their bets on who the secret customer might be.
TAL
Talk Around Town: A Giant LEGO Moon Base Is Allegedly Coming to The Henry Ford This Fall
The Henry Ford says a touring LEGO-and-NASA exhibit opens October 18, 2026—but the show's educational claims rest entirely on the museum's own promotional materials.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Europe's Space Surge May Be Drawing a Hard Line With Washington
Isar Aerospace reportedly hit orbit, Amazon says it's doubling down on Ariane 6, and US firms reportedly skipped Macron's summit under White House pressure.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Venturi Space Claims Its New Alta Luna Rover Could Be the Moon Base's Workhorse
Monaco-based Venturi Space says it has revealed a compact tracked rover concept at a Paris summit, but no flight deal backs the pitch.
NSP
Talk Around Town: Trump's 1,000-Launches-a-Year Space Goal May Be All Hat and No Cattle
The White House signed a bold new space launch policy, but experts and officials are asking the same thing: where in tarnation is the money?
TAL
Talk Around Town: Stoke Space Claims ~$1B Series E and a Bigger Nova Rocket Eyeing Falcon 9 Territory
Stoke Space says it closed roughly a billion dollars and unveiled a larger rocket it describes as beating Falcon 9 on payload — but this yarn belongs on the space-science desk, not here.
TAL
Talk Around Town: 31 Years Ago, NASA's Dog Crew II Pulled Off a Milestone Nobody's Talking About
Space Shuttle Endeavour's STS-69 mission was NASA's 100th crewed spaceflight, and the crew had dog nicknames — yes, really.
ARI
Talk Around Town: ArianeGroup and ESA Are Studying Whether They Can Light More Ariane 6 Candles
ArianeGroup CEO Christophe Bruneau says the company is studying a launch-rate ramp-up, but no commitment has been made and solid-propellant supply is a sticking point.
MAR
Talk Around Town: Mars's Southern Belly Might Be a Simmering Pot, and Scientists Are Losing Their Minds Over It
A peer-reviewed Nature study says Mars's southern interior runs 200–400°C hotter than the north and may be partially molten — and nobody knows why.
TAL
Talk Around Town: India Says EOS-05 Is Now Headed to Geosynchronous Orbit — But It Ain't Home Yet
ISRO says its first-ever geosynchronous imaging satellite lifted off September 4, 2026, but the bird still has to drive itself the rest of the way home.
EUR
Talk Around Town: ESA Chief Warns Europe May Be Fixin' to Run Out of Rockets by 2030
ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher says Europe is weighing faster launch cadences, but no decision has been made and the 2030 crunch remains a projection.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA's Roman Space Telescope Is Off — But the Real Show Ain't Started Yet
The $4.3 billion Roman observatory lifted off August 30, 2026, but science data won't arrive until early 2027, so hold your horses.
TAL
Talk Around Town: ESA Might Crank Up Ariane 6 and Vega-C Launch Rates, One Official Says
ESA's director general is talking about higher launch cadences for Ariane 6 and Vega-C, but the agency says no decisions have landed yet.
TAL
Talk Around Town: ESA Chief Warns Europe May Run Out of Rockets Right When It Needs Them Most
ESA's director general says a satellite demand spike around 2030 could swamp available launch capacity, and a cadence ramp-up is being studied — but nothing is decided.
TAL
Talk Around Town: York Space Claims a New Spacecraft Built for the Sky's Sketchiest Neighborhood
York Space Systems says it has unveiled a platform for very low Earth orbit — but those claims are unverified. Meanwhile, the broader VLEO race is undeniably real.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA's Roman Telescope Is Finally in the Sky After Surviving Four Kill Attempts
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope lifted off August 30, 2026 — nine months early and under budget — after Congress blocked four White House bids to gut or kill it.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA's Roman Telescope Finally Shot Into Space After Years of Budget Knife-Fights
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope rode a Falcon Heavy off the pad on August 30, 2026 — but Lord, did Congress have to wrestle Washington to let it happen.
TAL
Talk Around Town: A Recycled Spy Satellite Just Blasted Off to Map a Billion Galaxies
NASA's Roman telescope rode a Falcon Heavy into orbit today — and its mirror, NASA confirms, used to belong to a Cold War spy program.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA's Roman Telescope Finally Flew — After Four Cancellation Attempts
The $4.3 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope lifted off August 30, 2026, surviving four White House cancellation bids to become astronomy's widest-eyed survey machine.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA's Roman Telescope Is Sitting on the Pad — But That Rocket Ain't Lit Yet
NASA says Roman is officially 'go for launch' for August 30, but weather and late gremlins could still spoil the party.
TAL
Talk Around Town: A Repurposed Cold War Spy Scope May Be About to Shake Up Cosmology
NASA's Roman Space Telescope was scheduled to ride a Falcon Heavy on August 30, 2026 — but as of press time, confirmed liftoff success is still pending.
TAL
Talk Around Town: SpaceX Says Florida Falcon 9 Starlink Days Are Done — Vandenberg Now Hauls the Whole Load
SpaceX VP Kiko Dontchev says Falcon 9 won't fly Starlink from Florida again; Starship is supposed to take over, but that timeline is murkier than swamp water.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA's ACE Spacecraft Turns 29 — and Its Successors May Finally Be Ready to Take the Wheel
Folks are buzzing that the 29-year-old sentinel at L1 could hand off its space-weather duties to IMAP and SOLAR-1 before its tank runs dry around 2028.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA Says Artemis III Is on Track for 2027, but Three Rockets Have to Cooperate
NASA named its Artemis III crew and is stacking hardware fast, but whether SpaceX and Blue Origin can keep pace is very much an open question.
TAL
Talk Around Town: China's Chang'e 7 Moon Shot Got Rained Out, and Nobody Knows When It'll Reschedule
Tropical Storm Narra chased China's boldest robotic moon mission off the launchpad, and Chinese authorities say the window for this year is shut.
TAL
Talk Around Town: America's Record Rocket Boom May Be Cooking South Texas's Wetlands
The US now accounts for roughly 61% of global orbital launches, and the environmental tab from SpaceX's Starbase may be bigger than the FAA is letting on.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Rocket Lab's Electron Looks Like iQPS's Personal Shuttle Bus, the Company Claims
Rocket Lab says it just flew its ninth iQPS mission; analysts wonder if Electron has quietly become Japan's favorite radar-satellite taxi.
TAL
Talk Around Town: How a 1997 Private Rocket Ride May Have Launched the Philippine Space Age
Twenty-eight years ago, the Philippines strapped its first homegrown satellite onto a Chinese rocket — and the chatter says that one wild ride started something lasting.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Florida's Space Coast May Be Fixin' to Outdo Its Own Record-Shattering 2025
Artemis II already flew, and now the Roman Space Telescope and Crew-13 are queued up — but whether 2026 tops 109 launches is anybody's guess.
SPA
Talk Around Town: SpaceX Claims a 38-Minute Double-Launch Record While Globalstar Eyes Amazon's Wallet
Two Falcon 9s, 38 minutes apart, one classified payload — and Globalstar says the satellites may affect an $11.6B Amazon deal.
TAL
Talk Around Town: 2026 Space Season Swings from Moon Glory to a Fireball That Blue Origin Says It Can Fix by Year's End
Artemis II pulled off a genuine moonshot, but Blue Origin's New Glenn blew itself to kingdom come — and the company claims it can somehow be back flying before 2027.
TAL
Talk Around Town: The 31-cm Satellite That Outlived Its Warranty May Finally Be Handing Off Its Binoculars
WorldView-3 turns 12 today, and the chatter is that its six-satellite Legion successor may be taking over the neighborhood watch.
TAL
Talk Around Town: SpaceX's Falcon 9 Is Flying So Often From Vandenberg That Locals May Forget Quiet Skies
SpaceX hit 90 Falcon 9 flights by August 4, with three West Coast launches in seven days and a Starlink constellation now said to top 10,800 satellites.
TAL
Talk Around Town: SpaceX's Starlink Flock Swells Past 10,900, But Tracker Numbers Are Squirrelier Than a Bag of Acorns
A Falcon 9 hauled 29 more Starlink birds to orbit on August 11, trackers say, pushing the mega-constellation to numbers that depend heavily on who's counting.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Florida's Space Coast May Be Living Through One of Its Busiest Augusts Ever
Chatter and confirmed data suggest the Roman Space Telescope's Falcon Heavy liftoff could crown a remarkably packed month of launches on the Space Coast.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Starlink May Be Closing In on 11,000 Satellites as SpaceX's Launch Pace Goes Hog Wild
Third-party trackers suggest Starlink's fleet has blown past 10,800 active birds, and SpaceX claims even bigger things are coming via Starship.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Iowa Dirt-Movers and a Seattle Startup Say They're Headed to the Moon
Vermeer and Interlune claim they're building lunar excavators for helium-3 mining and NASA Moon Base work — but the timeline is still muddier than a Mississippi bottomland.
TAL
Talk Around Town: ALL.SPACE Claims Its Hydra MAX Is a Wideband SATCOM First — But Only the Company Says So
ALL.SPACE says its new Hydra MAX terminal is a multi-orbit, full-duplex beast. Those are the company's words, and so far nobody else has kicked the tires.
JUN
Talk Around Town: Juno May Be Gone, But It Rewrote Jupiter's Whole Dang Blueprint
Fifteen years after launch, Juno's scientific haul is jaw-dropping — but whether the plucky spacecraft survived past September 2025 is, Lord help us, still anybody's guess.
TAL
Talk Around Town: AST SpaceMobile Gets 3 More Birds Up, But the Company Says 2027 Is the New 'Open for Business'
SpaceX confirmed the launch of BlueBirds 11–13, but AST SpaceMobile says commercial service has slipped to early 2027, partly due to a Blue Origin mishap.
RFA
Talk Around Town: RFA One's Mystery Hiccup May Steal the UK's Shot at Its First-Ever Orbital Launch
German startup Rocket Factory Augsburg says it found a vehicle issue during pressure testing, forcing a de-stack at SaxaVord — and the August 10 window ain't waiting.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Starlink's 10,800-Satellite Sky Hog and the 600th Booster Reuse Raise Big Questions
SpaceX keeps stuffing satellites up yonder like a hoarder filling a barn, and astronomers say the view is getting real ugly.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Byron Donalds Wants NASA to Pack Its Bags for Cape Canaveral
A Florida congressman and gubernatorial hopeful is pushing legislation to drag NASA's HQ south — but the bill hasn't cleared committee, and Ohio is already hollering back.
TAL
Talk Around Town: SpaceX Hauled a Mystery Box to Orbit for the Spy Satellite Folks
A Falcon 9 roared off into the Florida dark carrying a classified NRO payload — but what exactly hitched that ride remains Uncle Sam's little secret.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Huntsville Threw Itself a Moon Party, and Organizers Say 600 Drones Lit Up the Alabama Sky
Rocket City Space Fest wrapped its inaugural run July 16–24, 2026, capped by what festival organizers claim was one of the biggest drone shows in Alabama history.
ROC
Talk Around Town: Why Rockets Cluster Near Coasts and the Equator — And Mountains Don't Help Much
The physics of orbital mechanics, safety, and propulsion explain launch site placement better than history does, though some figures are still debated.
TAL
Talk Around Town: China's Long March 3B Got Zapped by Lightning and Just Kept on Truckin'
Thirty seconds after liftoff on July 23, 2026, lightning struck the Long March 3B, yet the rocket still delivered its Tianlian II-06 satellite, multiple outlets report.
SPA
Talk Around Town: SpaceX Says Starship Flight 13 Is Headed Back to the Pad, Raptor Troubles and All
After four Raptor engines quit at T-0 on July 16, SpaceX says it's swinging again on July 23 — and the stakes, according to multiple reports, couldn't be much higher.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Rocket Lab Lands $266M Space Force Deal — and Analysts Think Hypersonic Testing Is Headed to Alaska
The Pentagon confirmed the dollar figure and the launchpad, but stayed quiet on the rocket and the payload — leaving analysts to connect the dots.
SPA
Talk Around Town: Space Force May Be Steering Nearly $30 Billion Toward Three Rocket Firms
The Space Force reportedly tripled its Lane 1 launch ceiling to $17 billion, and analysts say the combined program could approach $30 billion — though those are ceilings, not guarantees.
TAL
Talk Around Town: India's Skyroot Says Vikram-1 Just Made History as the Country's First Private Orbital Rocket
Skyroot Aerospace claims its Vikram-1 lifted off July 18, 2026, putting India in rare company as only the third nation with private orbital launch capability.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA May Be Fixin' to Launch Roman and Crew-13 Back-to-Back This Fall
Two big NASA missions are reportedly bearing down on the launch pad within weeks of each other — if Florida weather and hardware cooperate.
TAL
Talk Around Town: SpaceX Aims to Fix What Broke on Flight 12 and Send Starship Up Again Today
SpaceX has a 90-minute window tonight to launch Starship Flight 13 — outcome unknown, booster fixes claimed, and the first functional Starlink V3 satellites riding along.
CAP
Talk Around Town: Cape Canaveral Fired Off Three Big Rockets in Eight Days, and the Sky Is Getting Crowded
Three commercial launches in eight days at Cape Canaveral signal a serious traffic jam up there — and Starlink may have company sooner than folks thought.
TAL
Talk Around Town: A NASA Chief Walks Into Baikonur for the First Time in Eight Years
Soyuz MS-29 hauled a mixed US-Russian crew to the ISS, but reporters say Isaacman's rare Baikonur appearance is the real head-scratcher worth watching.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Euclid May Have Just Found the Universe's Oldest Quasars — and Nobody Can Explain Them
ESA's Euclid telescope reportedly uncovered 31 record-old quasars, two blazing when the cosmos was barely 5% its current age — and scientists say they have no good explanation.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Starlink's Sky Herd Tops 10,700 and Astronomers Say the Stars Are Fixin' to Disappear
SpaceX's constellation now claims roughly 75% of active maneuverable satellites in orbit, and scientists warn the sky may never look the same.
SPA
Talk Around Town: SpaceX's B1071 Just Flew Its 35th Time — One Shy of a Record Set Days Ago
Booster B1071 landed safely after its 35th flight, hauling 29 Starlinks to orbit — but the fleet reuse record of 36 already belongs to B1067.
TAL
Talk Around Town: SpaceX's Most-Flown Rocket Is Knocking on the Space Shuttle's Door
Booster 1067 just set a SpaceX reuse record with its 36th flight — and it's now only three missions shy of matching NASA's all-time mark.
NAS
Talk Around Town: NASA Says Roman Space Telescope Could Rewrite the Exoplanet Catalog in One Mission
NASA says its Roman telescope landed in Florida eight months early, targeting an August 30 SpaceX Falcon Heavy ride to L2.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Frontier Space Claims Its Orbital Biotech Lab Is Open for Business
A Cranfield University spin-out says it flew a miniaturized biotech platform to orbit — but the longevity-lab framing is murkier than a catfish pond at midnight.
BIO
Talk Around Town: BioOrbit Claims Its £9.8M Seed Round Could Crystallise Cancer Drugs in Orbit
A two-year-old London startup says microgravity beats Earth labs at shaping protein drugs — but independent verification of that bold claim remains as distant as low-Earth orbit.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA's $30M Robot Rescue of the Falling Swift Telescope Has Lifted Off — But the Hard Part Ain't Here Yet
A commercial robot called LINK launched July 3 to grab a sinking space telescope, the company says — but the tricky docking and boost haven't happened yet.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Giant Titanium Spheres Washed Up in Queensland — Space Junk or Something Else?
Six big mystery balls turned up on Australian beaches, and authorities reckon they might be rocket leftovers — but nobody's pinned down where they came from.
QUE
Talk Around Town: Six Shiny 'Space Balls' Hit Queensland Beaches and Experts Suspect Rocket Leftovers
Six chrome-like metal spheres washed ashore near Forrest Beach, and one expert suspects toxic rocket fuel vessels — but nobody's officially confirmed squat yet.
LIN
Talk Around Town: A Fridge-Sized Robot Tug Might Just Haul NASA's Falling Swift Telescope Back From the Brink
LINK launched July 3, but the hard part — grabbing a satellite never built to be grabbed — hasn't happened yet.
NAS
Talk Around Town: NASA Launched a Robot to Catch a Falling Telescope, But the Hard Part Ain't Done Yet
LINK is up, but the grapple hasn't happened. Here's what we know about the most ambitious orbital rescue since, well, ever.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA's $30M Bet on a Startup May Save a Falling Space Telescope — If LINK Can Pull It Off
The LINK spacecraft launched July 3, but Katalyst Space Technologies' robot hasn't grabbed anything yet — and this has never been done before.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA's $30M Robotic Telescope Rescue Is Still on the Pad — and the Clock's Ticking
A startup called Katalyst Space Technologies says it can robotically grab a falling NASA telescope before it burns up. The rocket hasn't left the ground yet.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA May Pull Off a Historic First-Ever US Robotic Space Telescope Rescue
A startup's spacecraft could grapple a sinking observatory before October's point of no return — but the launch hasn't happened yet.
TAL
Talk Around Town: NASA Says It's Planting a Permanent Moon Base — But Experts Ain't Quite Sold Yet
Administrator Jared Isaacman held a briefing today pitching lunar outpost plans, NASA claims. Independent experts say the timeline is a tall order.
TAL
Talk Around Town: SpaceX Hauls SiriusXM's Biggest Bird Yet Into Orbit, Company Claims a Powerful New Ear in the Sky
A Falcon 9 carried SiriusXM's SXM-11 to orbit on June 28, 2026—the third step in a fleet-renewal push SiriusXM says will juice North American audio coverage for decades.
TAL
Talk Around Town: A Big ol' SiriusXM Bird Rode a Falcon 9 to Orbit, and It Ain't a Cyber Story
SpaceX launched SiriusXM's SXM-11 satellite on June 28, 2026 — but this is a space-science tale, not a cyber-internet one.
TAL
Talk Around Town: SpaceX May Fling a Seven-Ton SiriusXM Bird Skyward Tonight, Weather Willing
A Falcon 9 is reportedly poised to haul the SXM-11 satellite toward orbit late June 28 — but the rocket hadn't left the ground when we checked.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Blue Origin Claims It'll Fly Again This Year After New Glenn Blew Sky-High
New Glenn NG-4 exploded on the pad May 28, 2026, wrecking Blue Origin's only orbital launch site and rattling NASA moon plans.
TAL
Talk Around Town: A Robot Arm on a Deadline Might Snatch NASA's Falling Swift Telescope From Doom
An Arizona startup's three-armed robot, the company says, is set to attempt the first-ever commercial capture of a science satellite never built to be grabbed.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Space Shuttle Endeavour Is Standing Straight Up in Los Angeles, and Lord Have Mercy It's a Sight
The California Science Center gave press a first look at Endeavour in full vertical launch config — and a public opening is penciled in for November 13, 2026.
SPA
Talk Around Town: California Science Center Claims Endeavour Will Be World's Only Full Shuttle Stack on Public Display
Officials say the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center opens November 13, 2026, with Endeavour standing 20 stories tall in full launch configuration.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Space Shuttle Endeavour May Be the Tallest Thing to Hit Los Angeles Since the Last Big Earthquake
The California Science Center says its Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center opens November 13, 2026, promising the world's only complete, upright shuttle stack.
TAL
Talk Around Town: SpaceX's Hush-Hush Disk Capsule Starfall May Be Aiming to Corner Orbital Cargo Return
A flat, flying-saucer-shaped SpaceX capsule lifted off June 23, 2026 — and almost everything known about it came from government paperwork, not the company.
EUR
Talk Around Town: Europe's Rocket Race May Be Heating Up, But Several Timelines Are Still Sliding
Three ESA launcher-challenge contenders have updated their maiden-flight plans, the companies say, but schedules keep slipping and nearly €140M in funding is still in limbo.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Space Coast Retirement Looks Real Pretty Until the Insurance Bill Arrives, Analysts Warn
One financial commentary outlet says rocket-launch backyard dreams could drain fixed-income portfolios if retirees chase oceanfront views over sound coastal math.
ISS
Talk Around Town: That ISS Air Leak Just Got a Whole Lot Scarier, and Nobody's Fully Sure What Comes Next
Five astronauts briefly suited up and sheltered in a docked Dragon after the Zvezda leak reportedly doubled. The second crack remains unpatched and engineers are still figuring things out.
INS
Talk Around Town: London Startup Instinct Space Claims It Can Halve the Cost of Reaching the Moon
Instinct Space says it pivoted to rideshare-compatible lunar landers promising $550K per kg — but the four-person shop has no flights yet.
TAL
Talk Around Town: A Tiny London Startup Claims It Can Land on the Moon for Cheap by 2028
Instinct Space says it has pivoted from lunar GPS to low-cost landers, but every number comes straight from the company itself.
TAL
Talk Around Town: A Four-Person UK Startup Claims It Can Deliver Cargo to the Moon via Rideshare
Instinct Space says its small lander needs no staging or refueling and could reach the Moon from any orbit — but the company has shown no hardware yet.
TAL
Talk Around Town: Blue Origin Tapped for Vandenberg's First Super-Heavy Pad, Though the Site Is Bare Dirt
The Space Force picked Blue Origin for SLC-14, according to Spaceflight Now, but the site has zero infrastructure and New Glenn just blew up.
SPA
SpaceX's Wall Street Debut Put a Rocket Under the Market
SpaceX shares climbed about 19 percent on their first public trading day, according to AP, Axios, and The Guardian, giving the rocket company a market value near $2.1 trillion.