We Report Space, Indialantic, FL (2025)

10/26/2025

We Report Space Weekly Rewind
10192025 ~ 10252025

Washington D.C.~
As previously reported, https://wereportspace.com/2025/07/10/a-new-future-for-discovery/ the gloves were off between Texas politician’s vs former astronauts, & Smithsonian Institute, not to mention common sense.
In the latest foray into what has the capability of becoming a nasty cat fight, the Texas coalition of Senators John Comyn, Ted Cruz & Representative Randy Weber have penned a document & sent it to the Department of Justice (DOJ) urging them to “Investigate the Smithsonian”
Maybe somebody needs to remind said lawmakers the Government is effectively shutdown…maybe they should focus on that first???
In any case, the Smithsonian has allegedly misused the Anti Lobbying Act by improperly using appropriated funds to influence Congress regarding the relocation of Discovery.
In the corner of sanity & common sense is Senator Mark Kelly (former astronaut) from Arizona who again is being vocal in keeping the shuttle at the Smithsonian. Not one to pull verbal punches, he said “ “To get it down there [to Houston], you would have to rip off the wings. The head shield, all of those tiles on the bottom, would be stripped off. The white thermal blankets? Gone,” Kelly said in the video released on Tuesday. “If Ted Cruz and Cornyn think they are putting this thing back together, I want to see them get out there. They’ll be out there for the next 10 years trying to figure this out.
“This is the dumbest plan I’ve ever heard in nearly five years in the United States Senate,” said Kelly.
It occurred to this writer that all of this attempt to relocate the Discovery is a way to grab local public support for Senator Cornyn who is currently running for reelection in 2026 & is facing a significant & major challenge from Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton.
As this political arm wrestle progresses, or regresses, we will do our best to keep you updated.

Dongleng Space Center, China ~
Without notice to the media and outside world, China successfully launched the Lijian1 Y8 carrier rocket with 3 satellites for Pakistani. Into planned orbit.
Hainan Launch Site, China~
If one looks at the advances in what is being tested and achieved here in the U.S. and then looks at China, the Long March 8A rocket currently under development there, has now completed certification testing. Over a 3 ½ week period, 4 different test runs were completed utilizing different operating conditions. During these test runs, the upper stage engines (YF-75DB) were reignited 9 different times. The engine will now move into final application development phase.
This engine is being developed to deorbit after a mission and reduce the amount of debris in space.

Launches This Past Week:
10/25/2025 ^CASC Long March 3B XiChang Launch Center, China
10/25/2025 MHI* HTV-X-1 Tanegashima Space Center, Japan
10/23/2025 SpaceX SpainSat NGII Cape Canaveral SFS, Fl
10/23/2025 *CASC Long March 5 (classified) Wenchang Center, China
10/22/2025 SpaceX StarLink 11-5 Vandenberg SFB, Ca.
10/19/2025 *CASC Kinetica-1 TerraX-1 Jiuquan Launch Center, China
10/19/2025 SpaceX StarLink 11-19 Vandenberg SFB, Ca.

*MHI Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
*CASC China Aerospace Science & Technology Corporation
Article: Graham Smith Image: Courtesy Ben Cooper @ launchphotography.com & China_scio

10/24/2025

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fl~

Tonite the weather was near perfect, cool slight breeze, no mosquitos, no delays....nothing but 9 Merlin engines coming to life @ 9:30 PM carrying the SpainSat NGII (New Generation) built by Airbus to space from an easterly trajectory. The useful life of this communications satellite is expected to be around 15 years.

Article: Graham Smith Images: Michael Seeley, Graham Smith

Emre Kelly

10/21/2025

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fl

Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard (Semper Paratus) is the latest Warning/Danger map for mariners. SpaceX will launch SpainSat NG-2 at 9:30 pm from SLC #40

10/19/2025

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fl ~
SpaceX StarLink 10-17
Sundays in Brevard County have a lot of folks boating, going to the beach, visiting with family, or perhaps contending with tourists traveling to the Port to get on a cruise ship.
Probably not tops on the list is watching another SpaceX Starlink satellite launch, given the cadence and frequency of the launches occurring. Even with NASA largely shut down due to budget cuts, SpaceX still is utilizing SLC # 40 for StarLink and paying customers.
However, history is being made with todays launch. The first stage booster (B1067) will be launching for the 31st time. Using figures published by SpaceX, each time a booster can be reused is roughly a $3 million savings.
Heres a list of B1067s previous launches.

19 previous StarLink launches
CRS-22
CRS-25
Crew-3
Crew-4
TelkonSat-113BT
Gallileo L13
mPOWEER-A
PSN MFS
Koreasat-6A
Eutelsat HOTBIRD-F2
Turksat-5B

The 28 StarLink satellites will join the 8,626 currently in orbit, of which 7,455 are in operational condition. (These stats are current as of 10/16/2025 & are provided by Dr. Jonathon McDonald of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Article: Graham Smith Images: Graham Smith

10/19/2025

We Report Space Weekly Rewind
10122025 ~ 10182025
Washington D.C. ~
Change can be a bitter pill to swallow. Even if change is good, it may be hard to deal with…& if change is bad……read on & you decide
With the new political party firmly entrenched and leaders appointed, changes have begun to occur.
While the Artemis project remains in place as of this writing, lets look at the “other” side of NASA the “scientific” side which deals with secrets of space, how our universe originated, improving life on earth & seeing if there is life outside our planet. (Overall NASAs mission is to be responsible for the United States civil space program and for research in aeronautics and space exploration.)
A huge portion of these deals with scientific research. Planning a scientific mission requires an immense amount of team work, multiple meetings & planning sessions of scientists, leaders, writers, researchers, engineers as well as manufacturers and software A good number of these folks are tops in what they do and many possess multiple degrees. Typically design, research, planning & building take years
The current group of political leaders have called for cost cutbacks within the space industry (50% of all science budgets). & put the science side of NASA under a microscope….When the dissection was done 19 active science missions were wiped off the table. 2 of these had been in the planning stage since before 2000 Financially (just the money for the research projects) hit the scales to the tune of $12 BILLION in taxpayer investment dollars & about 180 years of involvement of all the workers combined.
Even if the tables were to be reversed, the workers, the knowledge, the multiple think tanks are gone…..being snapped up by various other space industry firms.
One might ask “Where does this leave us”?
With the Government shutdown at an impasse, everything is stopped, this includes the actual cuts. Even before the shutdown, key members of the Senate & House were scrambling writing/rewriting appropriation bills to try an modify & lessen the cutbacks the administration is proposing. With uncertainty hanging in the abandoned hallways and desks of NASA buildings the “trickle down” effect has begun and contractors’ other agencies & statisticians and long-term planners thinking of what the budgets may look like in the next 2-3 years.

Kennedy Space Center, Fl ~
Amidst the doom & gloom of government layoffs, & budget cuts to NASA,
a “glimmer of hope” took place on the evening of October 16th. Arriving via a specially modified crawler from the Launch Abort Systems facility , the Orion spacecraft was moved inside the VAB for stacking atop the SLS rocket.
When the stacking is complete, Artemis II will be moved to the pad for a practice countdown. Once completed there exists a possibility of a launch no earlier than February, 2026.

StarBase, Texas
With thousands of employees, residents, tourists & media, SpaceX achieved a stunning success with Starship 11 closing out this important phase of testing. Next up is Version 3.
According to different officials from SpaceX, Version 3 Starship will be a brand-new cat under the skins. What is known, the first stage booster (super heavy) will sport redesigned booster grid fins, along with internal changes while the upper stage will be totally redesigned, the docking adapters refitted & newly redesigned to permit propellant transfers in space (something the Chinese have already successfully performed. Also, expect different Raptor engines.

Launches this past week:
10/17/2025 CASC* Long March 6A Taiyuan Launch Center, China
10/16/2025 SpaceX StarLink 10-52 Cape Canaveral SFS, Fl
10/15/2025 CASC* Long March 8A SatNet Wanchang Launch Site, China
10/15/2025 SpaceX Tranche 1 Transport Vandenberg SFFB, Ca
10/14/2025 Rocket Lab Corp Electron Mahia Peninsula New Zealand
10/13/2025 SpaceX Amazon Kuiper KA-03 Cape Canaveral SFS, Fl
10/13/2025 SpaceX StarShip 11 (sub-Orbital) Star Base, Texas
10/13/2025 CASC* Long March 2D Shiyan 31 Jiuquan Launch Center, China

*CASC China Aerospace Science & Technology Corporation
Article: Graham Smith Image: NASA, SpaceX

.china

10/16/2025

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fl ~
This morning, while many residents were waking up to their first cup of Joe, or stepping into the showers to ready themselves for work, SpaceX added another launch to their impressive list of statistics
This mornings launch @ 5:28 was the 130th launch of 20254 for a Falcon9, and overall the 135th mission of 2025. The first stage booster (B-1095) landed safely chalking up the 521st successful recovery.
Next Up: Another Falcon 9 launch, this time from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Ca on Saturday Oct 18th.
Article: Graham Smith Image: Michael Seeley

10/14/2025

Starbase, TX might be where the big action is tonight, but over on the Space Coast, there's still satellites to launch: At 9:58pm (EDT) on Monday October 13, 2025, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sent the Project Kuiper KF-03 mission to space, as seen here from South Merritt Island. Image Credit: Michael Seeley - We Report Space

10/14/2025

Yesterday evening, SpaceX launched the 11th Flight of the Starship from Texas. Deemed a success, SpaceX continues to develop and test the worlds most powerful rocket. While they have not yet made a full Earth orbit attempt with the Starship portion of the rocket, progress continues to both the Starship and first stage booster with each launch. As with some other launches, the first stage booster did not make an attempt at a catch landing back at the launch site rather it landed in the Gulf of Mexico (America) East of the launch site. This is a "streak shot" image of the Starship as seen from Cocoa Florida about 45 miles East of Orlando several minutes into flight. Image Credit: Michael Howard - We Report Space

10/12/2025

The scheduled launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Kuiper KA-03 communications this evening @ 8:29 pm, has been pushed back approximately 48 hours. New launch date/time is Monday Oct 13 @ 8:08 pm

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10/12/2025

We Report Space Weekly ReWind
10052025 ~ 10112025
Corn Ranch, West Texas ~
The BE-3PM engine fired on the Blue Origin rocket and used its 100,000 pounds of thrust to carry the NG-36 capsule with 6 people above the Karman line. The Karman line is the internationally established edge of space @ 62 miles or 100 Km above the surface of the earth.
As the booster is autonomous, it landed back at the launch pad. The 6 explorers were Dana Karagussova, Will Lewis, Dr. Clint Kelly, Aaron Newman, Vitalli Ostrovsky & Jeff Elgin.
In a statement from Blue Origin: "Today’s mission is a testament to the relentless spirit of exploration exhibited by this crew," said Phil Joyce, SVP, New Shepard. "We are reminded of the profound effect that seeing Earth from above has on each astronaut. This experience fosters a deeper connection to our planet and drives us to continue working together to push the boundaries of what is possible."

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fl ~
Blue Origin has landed a $78.2 million dollar contract for expanding the satellite ground infrastructure processing. The 3-year contract awarded by the U.S. Space Force came about by utilization of “Commercial Solutions Opening” competition.
This contract marks the second of the year. Earlier AstroTech a division of Lockheed Martin landed a $77.5 million dollar award for similar work @ Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Col. Dan Highlander, director of operations integration at Space Systems Command’s (SSC) said “This second CSO award reflects our continued commitment to meet both national security and commercial launch requirements,” The public-private partnership behind the new capacity enables us to cost-share with commercial industry to our mutual benefit.”

India ~
Soon to be the newest select club of world members to be flight testing hypersonic missiles, the Indian Defense Research & Development Organization (DRDO) is finishing up build of a new class of hypersonic missiles.
In flight testing will occur before EOY 2025. When has been released is the speed will exceed at a minimum of Mach 5, aiming for Mach 6 (7400 Kph/4600mph) with the capabilities of making major distinct turns. Information released is limited, but it is known to be a 2 stage missile and possess the capability to change targets mid-flight.

Washington D.C. ~
It was only a matter of time since President Trump announced the relocation of Space Command from Colorado Springs, Co to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.
Congressman Jeff Crank who had campaigned heartedly on keeping the Space Command in his district was apparently dissatisfied that the new permanent Headquarters were awarded elsewhere, Rep Crank has decided to crank up behind the scenes politicking to lengthen the process…Me thinks that another way of saying wasting tax payers money. He also stated that the initial projected loss of jobs had decreased from about 1700 to 100 jobs.
Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper said Colorado’s Congressional delegation doesn’t “have many cards” when it comes to blocking the Space Command relocation.

Launches this past week:
10/11/2025 OrienSpace Gravity 1 Coastal Waters off of China
10/08/2025 Blue Origin NG-36 Corn Ranch, Texas
10/07/2025 SpaceX StarLink 11-17 Vandenberg SFB, Ca.
10/07/2025 SpaceX StarLink 10-59 Cape Canaveral SFS, Fl
Article: Graham Smith Image: Courtesy of tfimedia, xinhuanet

10/07/2025

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fl ~

With the beaches of Brevard County littered with macroalgae (seaweed) from recent offshore storms, partially cloudy skies with scattered rain drops, SpaceX sent ther latest batch of StarLink satellites (10-59) into LEO (Low Earth Orbit @ 2:46 AM

Article: Graham Smith Image: Michael Seeley

10/05/2025

We Report Space Weekly ReWind
09282025 ~ 10042025
NASA~Washington D.C. ~
In what comes down to a political version of “Chicken”, the U.S. Government shutdown has started with no real compromise in reach by either side of the aisle at the moment. At stake are Government jobs, projects many of which were planned months & years ago.
NASA is caught up in the middle of this, with news reports earlier this week saying 83 % of the NASA workforce nationwide (approx. 15,000) will be furloughed. Reports as late as Friday are saying many of the layoffs will be permanent.
Congressman Mike Haridopolos spoke from Capitol Hill Thursday about working to end the shutdown.
“I do believe this will be a short-term situation,” Haridopolos said. “I think, hopefully, both sides will come to common sense solution so we can open the government back up. That Artemis II mission is our first time going around the moon with astronauts since 1972. That is still on schedule, nothing changes, whatsoever.”
It makes no difference as to who comes out ahead on this as there are no winners. The American taxpayer/public are definite losers.

Wallops Island. Va ~
After a short hold on their pad, Rocket Lab Corp launched “Justin”, an Electron rocket on a sub orbital classified mission for the U.S. Government. It is believed this mission is to center around its HASTE (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron) program.
Just prior to launch, Rocket Lab was busy signing a contract for multiple launches with Synspective for 21 launches StriX Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites. To date Rocket Lab has previously launched 6 of these satellites. It is not known if the additional launches will be from Wallops Island or from Rocket Labs other launch site in New Zealand.

Washington D.C. ~
The hornets’ nest is buzzing about the waste of millions of tax pay dollars for moving the Space Shuttle Discovery that is currently on display at the Smithsonian Institute has picked up has picked up a new key supporter of fighting against the move to Texas.
Former astronaut and Commander of the Discovery, now Senator from Arizona Mark Kelly is joining forces with Senators Mark Warner, Tim Kain & Dick Durbin to permanently terminate the Discovery being relocated to Texas and a move that would cost several millions of tax dollars and be a logistical nightmare to implement.

Briggs, Texas ~
As reported by Reuters, Firefly Aerospace announced that the core booster for its Alpha rocket suffered a major anomaly during ground testing. The anomaly occurred during propellant loading & initial test firing. At the time of this report, it is known there are no injuries being reported
The first stage booster would have flown a small satellite for Lockheed Martin from Vandenberg Space Force Base, later this year.
Firefly released a statement confirming the rocket "experienced an event that resulted in a loss of the stage." The company confirmed all personnel were safe and said ground teams followed "proper safety protocols."
"Regular testing is part of Firefly’s philosophy," the company said in a statement. "We test each critical component, engine, and vehicle stage to ensure it operates within our flight requirements before we ship to the launch pad. We learn from each test to improve our designs and build a more reliable system. We will share more information on the path forward at a later date."

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. – In a press release on Oct. 1, 2025, the U.S. Space Force’s (USSF) Space Systems Command (SSC) has assigned seven Fiscal Year 2026 National Security Space Launch (NSSL) launch service missions. They are: Five missions have been awarded to SpaceX to launch USSF-206/WGS-12, USSF-155, NROL-86, USSF-149, and USSF-63. Two missions have been awarded assigned to United Launch Alliance (ULA) to launch NROL-88 and USSF-88/GPS IIIF-4. For Fiscal Year 2026, no launches were awarded to Blue Origin which to date has only launched one time with its’ New Glenn rocket. The next opportunity for launch awards will be for Fiscal Year 2027.
In a statement from NSSL: “Space is the ultimate high ground, critical for our national security. With this year’s NSSL Phase 3 Lane 2 mission assignments, we continue to assure access to that high ground,” said Col. Eric Zarybnisky, program executive officer for Assured Access to Space. “Delivering assets to the warfighter is our ultimate mission, and we rely on our strong government-industry partnerships incorporating constant teamwork, open communication and the highest levels of technical acumen to successfully achieve that goal.”

Anhui Provence, China ~
Galactic Energy, a private Chinese commercial space firm, announced the successful test fire of the second stage of PALLAS-1 its reusable liquid launch vehicle

Launches this past week:
10/03/2025 SpaceX StarLink 11-39 Vandenberg SFB, Ca.
09/30/2025 RocketLab Corp Elecftron Wallops Island Launch Center, Va
09/28/2025 CASC^ Shiyan 30 Xichang Launch Complex. China
09/28/2025 SpaceX StarLink 11-20 Vandenberg SFB, Ca.

*CASC China Aerospace Science & Technology Northrop Grumman Corporation
Article: Graham Smith, Michael Howard Image: Courtesy of CGTN, China Daily Newss

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