Plus: An SpaceX upper stage crashed into the moon
By Dan Robitzski
SpaceX has entered the cargo reentry market with Starfall, a reentry capsule service that completed its first test flight in June. As Jeff Foust reported in a feature for this month’s issue of SpaceNews, Starfall is already making waves in an industry that’s otherwise populated by a small number of startups that are building out their own capsules, preparing for or launching test flights and, in some cases, conducting research for pharmaceuticals and materials development in microgravity.
Thus far, Jeff reported, it’s known that Starfall has carried some novelty, space-themed beer into orbit. But SpaceX’s vertical integration, its near-stranglehold over access to space and its ability to rapidly scale up operations have the rest of the reentry capsule industry on alert.
One issue is that some of these companies, such as Varda Space Industries (which itself has flown six missions), depend on SpaceX for launches — a reliance that could complicate their business as SpaceX enters the fray.
Still, representatives from several cargo reentry companies told Jeff that they see SpaceX as competition, sure, but also as validation for their industry — and an opportunity for them to continue innovating and ride the wave SpaceX may well bring. It would be a shock, though, for them to say otherwise or throw in the towel.
I asked Jeff what he thought of the other companies’ response — how should one weigh the threat of a new heavyweight competitor versus the opportunity that comes with having the floodgates blown open?
“I think these companies would prefer not to have to compete with SpaceX, given its resources and track record (see how the Transporter missions undermined the market for small launch vehicles),” Jeff said. Still, he added, there’s a “chance for them to demonstrate how they can stand out by providing different or better services. (Whether they will succeed, of course, remains to be seen.)”
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SIGNIFICANT DIGIT
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$723M to $1.33B |
The projected cost for converting an engineering model of the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers into PROMISE, or Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping and In-Situ Exploration, to be sent to the south polar region of the moon, according to projections by The Planetary Society.
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CRASH LANDING
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SpaceX has reached the moon! Early Wednesday morning (Eastern US time), a discarded Falcon 9 upper stage that’s been in space since its January 2025 launch crash landed into the moon near Einstein Crater. Typically, upper stages are destroyed upon reentry, but because this particular one launched two lunar landers (Firefly’s Blue Ghost and ispace’s Hakuto-R Mission 2, aka Resilience), it traveled farther and was still orbiting as a piece of space junk that then got pulled into an unintentional crash course.
Because the moon is unpopulated, the crash won’t have much impact (beyond its own crater). But crash landings of this sort could become a serious threat to any future operations on the moon, especially for human crews that might someday stay there.
To that end, SpaceX said that it’s working with NASA on ways to prevent future crash landings down the road.
“One of the things that we’re working on in partnership with NASA and the other appropriate agencies is what is the best future disposal path for high-energy missions that are in the sun-Earth-moon system,” Julianna Scheiman, director of NASA science and Dragon programs at SpaceX, said during an Aug. 3 NASA briefing about the upcoming Crew-13 mission to the International Space Station.
She didn’t elaborate on how disposal of upper stages on future launches might differ from that used on the Firefly-ispace launch. |
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FROM SPACENEWS |
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SpaceX does not plan to build additional Crew Dragon spacecraft beyond the five currently in service, though demand for the spacecraft remains high across the industry.
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The Air Force Research Laboratory has added $11.7 million to a Blue Origin contract aimed at exploring how commercial rockets could be used to transport military supplies around the world, expanding the agreement to about $13 million.
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EchoStar’s Hughes geostationary satellite broadband business has filed for bankruptcy in the United States after years of mounting competition from SpaceX’s Starlink constellation.
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The Space Force Association has developed a visual environment that could make military operations in space more comprehensible to policymakers and the public.
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