Space, in brief

SpaceX reported revenue of $14.6bn for July to September, 161% more than a year earlier and well above the $12.7bn analysts expected. [1][2]

It made a profit of $4.4bn, against a loss of $1.1bn in the same months of 2025. [1][4]

This was its first full quarter as a public company, after it sold shares on the stock market for the first time in June. [2][8]

Its rocket business brought in $1.8bn, 84% more than in April to June but only 6% more than a year earlier. [2][3]

That business lost just $7m, close to breaking even, after losing $542m the quarter before. [2]

It flew 35 launches, three fewer than the quarter before, but 12 of them carried paying customers, up from 10. [2]

Reuters reports SpaceX has been putting launches for its own Starlink network ahead of other customers. [1]

SpaceX spent $1.2bn on research in the rocket business, mostly on Starship, its giant new rocket. [2]

SpaceX's AI business, mostly renting computers to AI companies such as Anthropic and Google, brought in $7.6bn: more than half of all revenue and over four times the rockets' share. [1][2]

Starlink, SpaceX's satellite internet, brought in $5.2bn and made the biggest operating profit of any part, $2.4bn. [2][3]

Starlink has 13.6 million home subscribers, and SpaceX had more than 11,100 Starlink satellites in orbit at the end of September. [2][5]

SpaceX spent $19.6bn on buildings and equipment, $16.4bn of it for AI, and expects to spend $35bn to $40bn this quarter. [1][2]

Musk said Starship's next test flight, due next month, will try to catch both of its stages, and he called success more likely than not. [4][13]

SpaceX is asking the US aviation regulator, the FAA, to approve that attempt. [5]

Musk also said SpaceX and Tesla have set up committees of independent directors to study a merger, though no terms are agreed. [8][31]

Why it matters. Watch whether the FAA approves the double catch on Starship's next flight, and whether the high price for renting AI computers holds, since analysts expect it to fall. [5][6]

A Falcon 9 launched Bandwagon-5 from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Tuesday, a day late because of bad weather where the booster lands. [15] Bandwagon is a shared ride: a small satellite of up to 50 kg flies for $350,000, far less than a whole rocket. [15] The 32 payloads included SpaceX's second Starfall capsule, built to bring goods back from orbit. [16] Varda's W-7 capsule carries a test of a cancer medicine, to see whether weightlessness helps it dissolve better. [15] The booster landed on a ship after its 19th flight. [16]

Why it matters. SES and Planet put up a test radio to pass data between satellites at different heights. [18] Shared rides are how small companies reach orbit at all, which is why SpaceX's plan to end Transporter matters to them. [20]

Xona Space Systems, a California start-up, launched six satellites on SpaceX's shared ride on Tuesday, SpaceNews reports. [17] They let it start showing its navigation and timing service working as a group. [17] Xona plans about 250 satellites as a paid alternative to GPS, the positioning system the US government owns. [15] Its satellites fly closer to Earth than GPS ones, so Xona says its signal is at least 100 times stronger. [15]

Why it matters. Almost every phone map and ship finds its place from GPS, which one government runs. A stronger second signal could get through interference that blocks weaker ones, NASASpaceflight reports. [15]

Four US senators from the Democratic party wrote to SpaceX on Monday about the slowing of Starlink for Ukraine's forces from 12 to 14 October. [19] They asked what part SpaceX played, who made or was told of the decision, and who can cut Ukraine's access. [19] The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed US officials, that Musk personally ordered the slowdown, the Guardian says. [7] Musk says the US government sets the limits on Starshield, the military version of Starlink, and the Trump administration denies limiting it. [19][7]

Why it matters. Ukraine's drone units and missile warnings lean on the link, the senators say. [19] Musk was not asked about the report on Tuesday's results call. [7]

Relativity Space, a rocket company in Long Beach, California, said last Friday that the upper stage of its Terran R rocket passed its first full test firing. [14] Terran R is one of four US rockets being built for medium loads, the size Falcon 9 carries, which SpaceX plans to stop selling to others. [14] Ars Technica, a technology news site, guesses Stoke's Nova will fly first, in July 2027, then Terran R in September. [14] It expects Rocket Lab's Neutron in 2028 and Eclipse, from Firefly and Northrop Grumman, in 2029 or later. [14]

Why it matters. Satellite companies do not know which rocket to book for 2027 to 2030, Ars reports. [14] The bigger Vulcan and New Glenn rockets are booked up and cost too much for mid-size satellites. [14]

Reaction Dynamics, a start-up in Quebec, Canada, unveiled Borealis on Tuesday, a rocket meant to lift 6,000 kg to low orbit, first flying in 2031. [20] Its smaller rocket, Aurora, would carry about 200 kg and aims to fly late in 2028. [20] Last year it swapped a part-solid engine for an all-liquid one that both rockets can use, and has test-fired it 21 times. [20] It has raised about CDN$50 million and says Borealis needs more than CDN$200 million more. [20]

Why it matters. The company says Canada wants its own way to launch rather than relying on rockets from the US. [20] It also wants the small satellites that would be left looking for a ride if SpaceX ends Transporter. [20]

Astrolab, a California company, will send its FLIP rover to the Moon's south pole later this year on Griffin-1, a lander built by Astrobotic. [21] FLIP carries Spaceborne Computer-4 from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the first powerful computer and graphics chip to be tried on the Moon. [21] It will run a program from NASA's JPL laboratory, first used on Mars, that finds the rover's place by matching the ground around it to a stored map. [21] The Moon has no GPS. [21]

Why it matters. NASA wants these rovers to work for a year, through lunar nights of more than 150 hours without sunlight. [21] A rover that can find its own way keeps working while no astronauts are there. [21]

The US State Department has started Project Constellation, a $5 million, two-year effort to link countries new to space with US companies. [22] The US mission to the international bodies based in Vienna announced it at the US Space Forum last week. [22] Meridian International Center will run it, with the Commercial Space Federation and a policy firm called SPACEAIMS. [22] It aims at more than 70 countries, and at how they vote at the UN committee on peaceful uses of space. [22]

Why it matters. It is the US State Department's second such plan in two months, after $6.5 million in September for satellite internet in rural southern Peru. [22] That one is open only to countries that signed the Artemis Accords, the US-led rules for exploring the Moon. [22]

The US Space Force wants its busiest launch ranges to handle surges of five to eight major operations a day, SpaceNews reports. [24] A launch range is the tracking, safety and weather support around a spaceport such as Cape Canaveral in Florida. The plan is meant to stop ageing equipment from holding back launches. [24] On Tuesday SpaceX flew its 121st launch of 2026. [25]

Why it matters. Nine rockets were due to launch around the world this week alone. [25] SpaceX by itself has launched 121 times this year, from Florida and California. [25]

SpaceX called off a launch of 27 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg in California on Tuesday after what appeared to be a technical problem, and moved it to Wednesday. [5] Its booster, B1063, would make its 36th flight, only the second Falcon 9 booster to fly that many times. [5] A landing would be the 673rd for a Falcon booster. [5] Rocket Lab's Electron is also due on Wednesday, carrying three HawkEye 360 satellites from New Zealand. [25]

Why it matters. China has four launches planned this week, including one from a ship at sea off Haiyang. [25] Flying the same booster again and again is how SpaceX keeps the cost of each launch down.

AnySignal, a US maker of spacecraft radios, will supply Reflect Orbital's first satellite and its next two missions, the companies said on Tuesday. [23] Reflect Orbital wants satellites that send sunlight to chosen places on Earth at night, such as solar farms. [23] AnySignal's single radio does jobs that used to need several, which saves weight and wiring. [23] Its software also lets Reflect use many companies' ground stations through one connection. [23]

Why it matters. Reflect's boss said the deal lets it concentrate on the new parts of its spacecraft. [23] It is the opposite choice to the rocket makers building their own engines: Reflect buys the parts it sees as already solved.

Astronomers at the University of Southampton in the UK want volunteers to search data from TESS, a NASA space telescope, for hidden black holes. [28] They estimate the Milky Way has made more than 10 million black holes, but only about 70 have been found. [28] When a black hole passes in front of a star that orbits it, its gravity bends and brightens the star's light for a moment. [28] Computer programs often mistake star flares for them, so people check the data by eye. [28]

Why it matters. The project, Black Hole Hunters, has had nearly 23,000 volunteers since 2021. [28] Their shortlist tells astronomers where to point scarce telescope time. [28]

The Orionid meteor shower peaks overnight from Wednesday into Thursday, with up to about 20 shooting stars an hour under a dark sky. [29] The meteors are dust shed by Halley's Comet, which last came near the Sun in 1986 and returns in 2061. [29] The grains hit Earth's air at about 66 km a second and burn up. [29] A bright Moon will hide many, but it sets early on Thursday, leaving dark hours before dawn. [29]

Why it matters. Earth crosses Halley's dust twice a year, so the same comet also gives the Eta Aquariid shower in May. [29] The Orionids need no telescope to see. [29]

A team led by Nicole Ford at McGill University in Canada used the James Webb Space Telescope to study gas near Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. [30] Astronomers call every element heavier than hydrogen and helium a metal. [30] The gas holds about 1.8 times as much of them as the Sun, probably from stars that exploded nearby. [30] The study is published in The Astronomical Journal. [30]

Why it matters. This black hole swallows far less gas than giant black holes in other galaxies. [30] Metal-rich gas cools and falls in more easily, but 1.8 times the Sun's share is too little to speed that up much. [30]

NASA has given Samara Aerospace, a US company, a $1.3 million contract to show its satellite-pointing technology in a laboratory. [26] Samara puts tiny parts that move when electricity runs through them inside the hinges of a satellite's fold-out solar panels. [26] They help the satellite aim more exactly. [26] A camera or antenna that points slightly wrong misses what it is aimed at.

Why it matters. The contract covers a test in a laboratory, not a flight in orbit. [26] Every satellite that takes pictures or beams signals needs to point accurately to do its job.

Space Robot, a Chinese start-up, has raised nearly $15 million to build a fleet of servicing spacecraft, SpaceNews reports. [27] A servicing spacecraft catches another satellite, in Space Robot's design with two robot arms. [27] It can then move it, refuel it or repair it. Space Robot launched a test satellite in 2025. [27]

Why it matters. A satellite that can be refuelled does not have to be abandoned when its fuel runs out.