A year after the launch of a flawed crewed test flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, NASA has yet to determine the next mission for the spacecraft with mixed signals about the vehicle’s future.

In a statement June 6, NASA said it was still studying options for the next flight of Starliner, expected no earlier than early 2026. That includes whether that next flight will be crewed or uncrewed.

“NASA is assessing the earliest potential for a Starliner flight to the International Space Station in early 2026, pending system certification and resolution of Starliner’s technical issues,” the agency stated. “The agency is still evaluating whether Starliner’s next flight will be in a crew or cargo configuration.”

Ryo Ujiie, ispace's chief technology officer, said the final data received from the Resilience lander—assuming it was correct—showed it at an altitude of approximately 630 feet (192 meters) and descending too fast for a safe landing. "The deceleration was not enough. That was a fact," Ujiie told reporters in a press conference. "We failed to land, and we have to analyze the reasons."

The company said in a press release that a laser rangefinder used to measure the lander's altitude "experienced delays in obtaining valid measurement values." The downward-facing laser fires light pulses toward the Moon during descent, and clocks the time it takes to receive a reflection. This time delay at light speed tells the lander's guidance system how far it is above the lunar surface. But something went wrong in the altitude measurement system on Thursday.

"As a result, the lander was unable to decelerate sufficiently to reach the required speed for the planned lunar landing," ispace said. "Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface."

If NASA were to terminate its contracts with SpaceX, it would effectively mean the end of the International Space Station. The problem with this is that SpaceX also holds the contract to safely de-orbit the space station, which is currently due to occur in 2030. With a mass of more than 400 metric tons, the space station will be the largest human-made object ever to return to Earth and could cause substantial damage in populated areas if not safely de-orbited into a remote part of the Pacific Ocean.

SpaceX also is on the critical path of NASA's program to return humans to the Moon, Artemis. NASA has contracted with SpaceX to use its developmental Starship vehicle as a lunar lander, taking crew down to the surface and bringing them back up to lunar orbit. Although it is true that NASA has also awarded Blue Origin a contract for the same service, it is unlikely that Blue Origin's human lander will be complete for seven to 10 years. This means that if NASA wants to have any chance of beating China back to the Moon, it needs SpaceX to deliver.

For the US military, SpaceX is one of two main contractors that delivers national security payloads into orbit. However, the other provider, United Launch Alliance, has had difficulty getting its new rocket, Vulcan, through the certification process. This has led the US Space Force to begin moving missions from Vulcan to SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. Given SpaceX's reliability and responsiveness, the military has decided to award a majority of future launch contracts to the company.

The reason that Biden did not terminate these contracts, as Trump asserts he might well have, is because SpaceX has generally provided space services to the US government at a lower cost and on a faster timeline than its competitors. Were the Trump administration to sever its relationship with SpaceX, it would effectively set the US space enterprise back a decade or more and give China's ascendant space program clear supremacy on the world stage.

The Tokyo-based company slightly revised the landing time for its Resilience lunar lander in a statement late June 3. The landing, in the Mare Frigoris region of the northern hemisphere of the near side of the moon, is now scheduled for 3:17 p.m. Eastern June 5, seven minutes earlier than previously announced.

The tweak in the landing time, ispace said, came after engineers reviewed maneuvers performed May 28 to lower the spacecraft’s orbit to 100 kilometers. “Their review of the orbit, the performance of the spacecraft, and the landing sequence have resulted in an updated landing time,” the company stated.

Dutch rocket builder T-Minus Engineering has signed an agreement with Canada’s Maritime Launch Services to carry out two rocket launches from Spaceport Nova Scotia in October.

Founded in 2011, T-Minus develops and operates a range of suborbital rockets for microgravity and hypersonic experimentation. In May 2022, during ESA’s PAC Symposium in Biarritz, France, the company unveiled its most powerful suborbital rocket to date, the Barracuda. The rocket stands approximately four metres tall and can carry payloads of up to 40 kilograms to altitudes of around 120 kilometres.

On 3 June 2023, Maritime Launch Services, a Canadian commercial launch facility operator, announced that it had signed an agreement with T-Minus Engineering for the launch of two Barracuda rockets. According to the press release, the two launches will carry various scientific and educational payloads for several customers, whose names were not disclosed. The launches are expected to take place from Spaceport Nova Scotia in October 2025.

Astroscale has completed the critical design review of a servicer aiming to remove a OneWeb broadband satellite from low Earth orbit (LEO) next year, the Japanese venture’s British subsidiary announced June 4.

The review clears the way for assembly, integration and testing of the 500-kilogram servicer’s flight model under ELSA-M, or End-of-Life Services by Astroscale-Multiple.

Mostly funded by Astroscale with support from the UK Space Agency, ELSA-M would use a magnetic mechanism to capture a defunct OneWeb satellite equipped with a compatible docking plate, then release it on a controlled path to burn up in the atmosphere.

Saved you a click:

$300 million

It's an Eric Berger interview with Tom Mueller though, so the article is still worth a read despite the mildly clickbait title.

| Scheduled for UTC | 2025-05-31 13:39 | |

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| | Scheduled for (local) | 2025-05-31 08:39 (CDT) | | Launch provider | Blue Origin | | Launch site | Launch Site One, West Texas, Texas, USA | | Landing site | North Landing Pad | | Launch vehicle | New Shepard | | Booster | NS4 (flight 14) | | Capsule | RSS First Step (flight 13) | | Passengers | Aymette (Amy) Medina Jorge, Dr. Gretchen Green, Jaime Alemán, Jesse Williams, Mark Rocket, and Paul Jeris. | | Mission success criteria | Successful launch and safe landing of booster and capsule |

Livestreams

| Stream | Link | |

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| | Blue Origin | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNfUra5FBaA | | Space Affairs | https://youtube.com/watch?v=LtgdisJRLYY | | The Launch Pad | https://youtube.com/watch?v=w3eANb8Da20 |

Stats

• 4th New Shepard launch of 2025, 32nd overall
• 5th Blue Origin launch of 2025, 33rd overall

https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/7865

New Shepard's twelfth crewed flight. The 6-person crew consists of Aymette (Amy) Medina Jorge, Dr. Gretchen Green, Jaime Alemán, Jesse Williams, Mark Rocket, and Paul Jeris.

Previous mission (NS-31) | Next mission (NS-33)

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Established in mid-2024, Astronstone announced May 29 it had secured more than 100 million yuan ($13.9 million) in part for the development of its AS-1 (Astronstone-1) stainless steel, methane-liquid oxygen reusable launch vehicle, with a “chopsticks” system for first stage recovery.

The AS-1 rocket features a diameter of 4.2 meters, a length of 70m and a takeoff mass of 570,000 kilograms. It can carry up to 15,700 kg to low Earth orbit in expendable mode, or 10,000 kg in reusable mode. Astronstone claims the AS-1 price per kg launched will be 10,000 yuan ($1,340) when reused, or 20,000 yuan ($2,680) when the first stage is expended. Astronstone also has future plans for a much larger, 8.0-meter-diameter AS-2 rocket.

The AS-1 rocket will be powered by a customized version of the 80-ton-thrust Longyun engine developed by commercial rocket engine maker Jiuzhou Yunjian (JZYJ). JZYJ also supplied Longyun engines to Sepoch, which this week conducted a vertical takeoff and splashdown test with its own stainless steel test article.