Rocket Report: Indian startup nears first launch; SpaceX’s millenary milestone
Welcome to Edition 9.01 of the Rocket Report! Back in January, I wrote about the 20 launches and landings we were most excited about in 2026. The list included things that were, at the time, officially scheduled to occur this year. I also gave my own view of the probability of each of these events actually happening before December 31. Halfway through the year, we can only count one of the events as completed, and that was NASA’s Artemis II mission in April. Many are now scheduled for next year, proving again that delays are a constant in the space industry. A couple of them—such as the launch of NASA’s Roman Space Telescope—do appear to be on track to happen soon.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Swift Boost Mission reaches orbit. A pioneering commercial mission to reboost the orbit of NASA’s Swift astronomy satellite launched early Friday after attempts earlier in the week were thwarted by bad weather and a technical issue. The Link servicing satellite developed by Katalyst Space Technologies soared to orbit on the tip of a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket that dropped from the belly of a modified L-1011 jetliner over the remote Pacific Ocean. Mission managers called off two launch attempts Tuesday and Wednesday due to poor weather around the L-1011’s staging base on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. On Thursday, “a launch vehicle issue temporarily prevented teams from deploying the rocket” after takeoff of the L-1011.
