 | Top Stories
A European spacecraft is on its way to an asteroid after a Falcon 9 launch Monday. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 10:52 a.m. Eastern and deployed ESA's Hera spacecraft on an interplanetary trajectory 76 minutes later. The launch took place despite poor weather forecasts that, at one point, projected only a 15% chance of acceptable weather. Hera will arrive at the asteroid Didymos and its moon Dimorphos in late 2026, studying the effects the impact of NASA's DART spacecraft had on Dimorphos two years ago. [SpaceNews]
Seraphim Space selected 11 startups for the 14th round of its networking and mentoring accelerator program. The cohort comprises a diverse mix of early-stage space businesses spanning from satellite broadband to orbital robotics and includes the first participating companies from Chile, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. A total of 109 companies across 30 countries have participated in Seraphim's biannual accelerator to date, and Seraphim says the program has helped those companies raise more than $540 million. [SpaceNews]
Spanish launch vehicle startup PLD Space outlined ambitious plans Monday for larger rockets and a crewed spacecraft. The company, which launched its first suborbital rocket one year ago, is working currently on Miura 5, a small launch vehicle whose first flight is projected for early 2026. At an event Monday, though, the company said it has plans to develop a much larger vehicle, Miura Next, with Heavy and Super Heavy versions that can place heavy payloads into orbit or send them to the moon and Mars. The company also unveiled Lince, a capsule that can carry 4-5 people, with a first uncrewed orbital test flight scheduled for as soon as 2030. The company acknowledged it will need to raise far more money than it has so far to implement those projects. [SpaceNews]
NASA is looking to apply lessons learned from smallsat science missions to bigger ones. A study completed this summer looked at lessons from "Class D" missions with higher levels of risk that could be used on more expensive, and less risk-tolerant, missions at the agency. The study recommends establishing small, cross-disciplinary teams as well as limiting requirements and making more use of commercial off-the-shelf technologies. [SpaceNews]
The Dominican Republic is the latest nation to sign the Artemis Accords. The country's ambassador to the United States signed the Accords on Friday, NASA announced Monday, making the Dominican Republic the 44th nation to do so. The Accords outline best practices for safe and sustainable space exploration. Signatory nations are scheduled to meet next week at the International Astronautical Congress in Milan. [SpaceNews]
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| Other News
Blue Origin scrubbed the launch of a new New Shepard suborbital vehicle Monday. The vehicle was scheduled to lift off at 9 a.m. Eastern from the company's West Texas test site, but unspecified technical problems delayed the launch by four hours, including a hold with a little more than a minute left in the countdown, before the company called off the launch for the day. Blue Origin has not announced a new launch date for the NS-27 mission, which will be the first flight for a second human-rated New Shepard vehicle the company says is needed to meet growing demand. [Space.com]
Weather has further delayed the return of the Crew-8 mission from the International Space Station. NASA said Monday the departure of the Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying three NASA astronauts and one Roscosmos cosmonaut has been pushed back to no earlier than Oct. 13, citing the effects of Hurricane Milton, which is heading towards Florida. Crew-8 was scheduled to return this week before weather, including the hurricane, at splashdown locations off the Florida coast delayed those plans. [NASA]
SpaceX says it will be ready to launch its Starship vehicle on the next test flight as soon as this weekend if the FAA approves. SpaceX said late Monday it was gearing up for the fifth integrated test flight of Starship as soon as Oct. 13. That launch will include an attempt to bring the Super Heavy booster back to the launch site and have the launch tower "catch" the booster. The FAA did not immediately comment on those plans after previously stating it would not be able to approve a revised launch license for the flight until late November. [KVEO-TV]
A House committee says it will investigate the FCC's decision to revoke rural broadband subsidies for Starlink. The House Oversight Committee said it has asked the FCC to provide details about a decision it made in 2022, and reaffirmed last December, to revoke $885 million in subsidies awarded to SpaceX in 2020 to provide rural broadband services using Starlink. The announcement of the investigation came after Elon Musk claimed last week that had the FCC retained the subsidies Starlink would "probably have saved lives" in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene. The FCC, in its earlier decisions to revoke the subsidies, noted that Starlink had not met standards set by the program for upload and download speeds. [Reuters]
The Indian space agency ISRO is proposing to build a third launch pad at its existing spaceport. The agency said the additional pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre would be used for the planned New Generation Launch Vehicle, a rocket larger than the existing PSLV and GSLV rockets. The pad would also provide redundancy for existing facilities. [India Today]
| |  | Sorry, NASA
"We have to go back – some people don't like when I say it – to the crime scene, basically. Sorry to my NASA friends."
– Patrick Michel, principal investigator for ESA's Hera mission, discussing at a public lecture Sunday how Hera will study the asteroid Dimorphos, which was hit by NASA's DART spacecraft two years ago.
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