Sunday, March 15, 2026

gudangsatelit

gudangsatelit——Lukman Hakim Abd. Rauf

Saturday, March 14, 2026

Opinions: What makes a program truly 'commercial'?

03/14/2026

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By Dan Robitzski

Welcome back to our weekly newsletter highlighting the opinions and perspectives of the SpaceNews community.

Starliner and Artemis: commercial label vs. commercial discipline

Where is the actual line between a government program and a commercial company? According to a recent article by CounterFlow Solutions founder Dan Garretson, many of the products, services and missions that are broadly considered to be "commercial" today may not fit the bill, given the trend of companies offering highly customized components or spacecraft for anchor customers in the government.

"Commercial structure is what shows up on paper: a services contract, fixed-price mechanisms, private ownership, multiple providers," Garretson wrote. "Commercial discipline shows up in behavior: the buyer constrains itself to a standard offering; anomalies get driven to root cause; architectures are built for repeatability before demand is proven; and learning compounds because the core system holds. We've spent years celebrating structure while quietly ignoring the need for discipline."

In his view, real commercial success and progress in space developments are tied to discipline on both sides of the contract: with government customers and commercial firms emphasizing the need for standardized, repeatable products.

"Commercial markets aren't declared from the top down," he wrote. "They're enforced by competition, repeatability and restraint on both sides of the contract. Without those, expansion stalls. With them, it compounds."

See the rest of the article here

Kazakhstan must choose: be Eurasia's tech broker or become a pawn in the new global space race

As various international alliances vie for leadership in space, Kazakhstan finds itself at an important crossroads. A recent commentary article written by ⁠H.E. Zhaslan Madiyev, Kazakhstan's deputy prime minister of artificial intelligence and digital development; Olaf Groth, a professor at UC Berkeley; and Askar Sinchev, a consultant to Kazakhstan's executive office argues that the nation must decide whether it wants to leverage its historic leadership in space into a strategic position for the future, or if it wants to sit back and balance out competing world powers.

"So, it is clear that Kazakhstan's role in a global space and deeptech economy includes a bridging function that is marked by multi-directional respect," the authors wrote. "But, that is not the same as merely balancing the bigger powers. What is required instead is confident agency and savvy orchestration that focuses on what is right for Kazakhstan. There is no alternative. In a world where space infrastructure, data corridors and deeptech supply chains are becoming the nervous system of geopolitical power, neutrality without agency no longer provides stability; it provides vulnerability."

See the full article and their roadmap for Kazakhstan's future in space here.

A Soyuz rocket at the Baikonuir Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan being prepared for launch to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

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Friday, March 13, 2026

China's Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission moves into spacecraft construction phase

China's Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission is entering flight hardware development, targeting a late 2028 launch to seek out biosignatures on the Red Planet.

NASA selects Centaur for new SLS upper stage

NASA has selected the Centaur upper stage currently used on United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket for future flights of the Space Launch System after Artemis 3.

Chinese official calls for prioritizing Neptune orbiter mission

A senior Chinese space scientist and delegate to the country's national congress is proposing the prioritization of an unprecedented orbiter mission to ice giant Neptune.

LAUNCH

China ends month-long launch hiatus with separate Guowang and Shiyan-30 satellite missions

China resumed orbital launch activity Thursday with a pair of missions lifting off from Hainan and Xichang spaceports, launching satellite internet and technology test satellites. The country had not conducted a launch since Feb. 12, when a Jielong-3 solid rocket sea launch carried the PRSC-EO2 remote sensing satellite and other passengers to orbit.

Firefly Alpha returns to flight

Firefly Aerospace's Alpha rocket successfully returned to flight March 11, launching a technology demonstration mission more than 10 months after the rocket's previous launch failed.

First Starship V3 launch slips

SpaceX is pushing back the first launch of the latest version of its Starship vehicle even as NASA is asking the company to accelerate work on a lunar lander version of the vehicle.

COMMERCIAL

Starlab Space fully books commercial payload space on planned space station

The Starlab commercial space station has fully booked its commercial payload space as the joint venture developing it awaits the next phase of a NASA program.

Mantis Space emerges from stealth with $10 million for solar-power constellation

Mantis Space, a New Mexico startup planning a constellation to supply solar power to spacecraft, emerged from stealth March 12 with $10 million in seed funding.

Anduril to acquire space-tracking firm ExoAnalytic Solutions

Anduril Industries said it plans to acquire ExoAnalytic Solutions, a company that operates one of the world's largest commercial networks of telescopes used to track satellites and space debris, in a move that expands the defense technology firm's push into national-security space programs.

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