Author: Mike Wall

SpaceX's next astronaut mission to the International Space Station won't launch on Sept. 12 after all.

That flight, known as Crew-13, has been delayed due to an oxidizer leak in the propulsion system of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, NASA announced on Saturday (Aug. 29).

"Joint NASA and SpaceX teams are performing additional tests and data review and will complete any necessary rework prior to launch," NASA officials wrote in an update on Saturday. "A new target date will be announced once available."

Crew-13 will launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

As its name suggests, it will be the 13th operational astronaut mission SpaceX flies to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA. (The company also conducted a crewed test flight to the orbiting lab, called Demo-2, which launched in May 2020.)

Crew-13 will send NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney of NASA, the Canadian Space Agency's Josh Kutryk, and Sergey Teteryatnikov of Russia's federal space corporation Roscosmos to the ISS for a seven-month stay.

"We expect a very busy mission with lots of station maintenance, both internal and external, with a few EVAs [extravehicular activities, or spacewalks] on the docket," Watkins said during an Aug. 3 press conference.

There will also be "visiting vehicle capture and stowage operations, lots of science — very interesting science experiments that will be flying with us as well — and plenty of outreach," she added.

SpaceX just launched a high-profile mission for NASA, sending the agency's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope into the final frontier on Sunday (Aug. 30) atop a Falcon Heavy rocket.

And the company is gearing up for an important test flight of Starship, the next-generation megarocket that it thinks will revolutionize spaceflight. The upcoming liftoff, the 14th to date for Starship, will see the rocket reach Earth orbit for the first time, if all goes to plan. SpaceX is thought to be targeting mid-September for Starship Flight 14.

Rocket Lab successfully launched a private Japanese radar satellite to orbit early Wednesday morning (Sept. 2).

An Electron vehicle lifted off from Rocket Lab's New Zealand site on Wednesday at 8:01 a.m. EDT (1201 GMT; 12:01 a.m. local New Zealand time on Sept. 3). It carried a single Strix satellite for Synspective, a Tokyo-based Earth-imaging company.

Synspective is assembling a constellation of about 30 Strix satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). These spacecraft — which are named after a widespread genus of owl — use synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to study our planet both day and night, and in all weather conditions.

The Strix constellation will "make it possible to quickly monitor and confirm on-the-ground changes during disasters such as earthquakes and floods at night, as well as in areas that are difficult to access," Synspective's website reads.

"In addition to disaster response, we will leverage our SAR satellite capabilities to promote efficient resource utilization," it adds. "For example, we can use our satellite data to monitor natural resources and urban development, ensuring sustainable and optimal use of land and water."

Eleven Strix satellites have now reached orbit to date, all of them atop Electron vehicles. Rocket Lab is currently the sole launch provider for Synspective and has 16 more missions for the company on its manifest after Wednesday's mission.

All went according to plan on Wednesday, according to Rocket Lab: The Electron's upper "kick stage" deployed the Strix satellite 56 minutes after liftoff, at an altitude of 357 miles (575 kilometers).

The 59-foot-tall (18 meters) Electron is designed to give small satellites dedicated rides to Earth orbit and beyond. Wednesday's mission, which Rocket Lab calls "Owl Around the World," was the rocket's 12th of 2026 and 85th overall.

Rocket Lab has also launched nine missions to date with HASTE, a suborbital version of Electron that allows customers to test sensors and instruments in a hypersonic flight environment. While Electron debuted in 2017, HASTE lifted off for the first time in June 2023.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 11:40 a.m. ET on Sept. 2 with news of successful satellite deployment.

SpaceX just took another step toward the highly anticipated next test flight of its Starship megarocket.

The company conducted an engine test with Starship's giant first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, on the launch pad at its Starbase site in South Texas on Friday (Aug. 28).

"Full duration 33-engine static fire with the Super Heavy booster preparing for Flight 14," SpaceX wrote in a Friday X post that shared two videos of the test.

As that post indicates, SpaceX is gearing up for the 14th test flight of Starship, a megarocket that consists of Super Heavy and a 171-foot-tall (52 meters) upper stage known as Starship, or Ship for short.

The company has already vetted the engines on Flight 14's Ship, firing up all six of them last week at Starbase.

SpaceX is believed to be targeting mid-September for Flight 14, which will be a big milestone in Starship's development — the vehicle's first-ever orbital trip. Ship will also apparently deploy operational payloads into orbit on the flight — a batch of SpaceX's next-gen "Version 3" Starlink satellites.

Ship successfully deployed 20 V3 Starlinks on Flight 13 last month, but on a suborbital trajectory, and the satellites soon crashed back to Earth.

Starship is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, and both Super Heavy and Ship are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable. SpaceX therefore thinks the megarocket can revolutionize spaceflight, helping humanity expand its footprint out into the solar system.

NASA is invested in the vehicle as well. The agency chose Ship as a crewed lunar lander for its Artemis program, which aims to build a base near the moon's south pole in the coming years. If all goes to plan for SpaceX, Ship will fly on NASA's Artemis III mission to Earth orbit in mid-2027 and land astronauts on the moon on Artemis IV in late 2028. (NASA picked a second crewed Artemis lander, Blue Origin's Blue Moon, which could fly on one or both of those missions as well).

LandSpace's first attempt to land a rocket was quite a spectacle, as newly released video footage reminds us.

The Beijing-based company's Zhuque-3 launcher reached orbit successfully during its debut mission on Dec. 3, 2025 — quite a feat for any rocket.

But Zhuque-3 couldn't pull off the twofer. Its first stage experienced problems during the latter stages of its return to Earth, ultimately exploding in a violent fireball near its designated landing pad.

We recently got some up-close looks at that failed return to Earth, thanks to CCTV. On Aug. 20, the state-run Chinese broadcaster released dramatic footage of the landing attempt, which includes video captured from a camera on the booster itself.

Those selfie shots highlight the rocket's resemblance to the paragon of reuse, SpaceX's Falcon 9. For example, we see the rapidly approaching ground through the metal mesh of two hypersonic grid fins, attitude-control devices the Falcon 9 pioneered and popularized.

The CCTV video also shows that Zhuque-3 was in trouble before it hit the ground: The booster suffered a mini-explosion during descent and was already a flaming wreck when it reintroduced itself to terra firma.

LandSpace apparently learned some important lessons that day because Zhuque-3's second mission, which occurred on Aug. 18, was a complete success. The 216-foot-tall (66 meters) rocket delivered a satellite to orbit, and its first stage stuck the landing.

It was the first-ever touchdown by a private Chinese orbital rocket, and just the second by a Chinese orbital launcher of any description. The first was pulled off on July 10 by the first stage of a Long March 10B rocket, which nestled softly into a net-like apparatus installed on a ship at sea.

LandSpace's first attempt to land a rocket was quite a spectacle, as newly released video footage reminds us.

The Beijing-based company's Zhuque-3 launcher reached orbit successfully during its debut mission on Dec. 3, 2025 — quite a feat for any rocket.

But Zhuque-3 couldn't pull off the twofer. Its first stage experienced problems during the latter stages of its return to Earth, ultimately exploding in a violent fireball near its designated landing pad.

We recently got some up-close looks at that failed return to Earth, thanks to CCTV. On Aug. 20, the state-run Chinese broadcaster released dramatic footage of the landing attempt, which includes video captured from a camera on the booster itself.

Those selfie shots highlight the rocket's resemblance to the paragon of reuse, SpaceX's Falcon 9. For example, we see the rapidly approaching ground through the metal mesh of two hypersonic grid fins, attitude-control devices the Falcon 9 pioneered and popularized.

The CCTV video also shows that Zhuque-3 was in trouble before it hit the ground: The booster suffered a mini-explosion during descent and was already a flaming wreck when it reintroduced itself to terra firma.

LandSpace apparently learned some important lessons that day because Zhuque-3's second mission, which occurred on Aug. 18, was a complete success. The 216-foot-tall (66 meters) rocket delivered a satellite to orbit, and its first stage stuck the landing.

It was the first-ever touchdown by a private Chinese orbital rocket, and just the second by a Chinese orbital launcher of any description. The first was pulled off on July 10 by the first stage of a Long March 10B rocket, which nestled softly into a net-like apparatus installed on a ship at sea.

Update for Aug. 30, 9 a.m. ET: SpaceX successfully launched the Roman Space Telescope for NASA atop a Falcon Heavy rocket at 7:26 a.m. EDT (1126 GMT). Read our full launch wrap story with video and photos.

NASA's next great space observatory is about to lift off, and you can watch it live.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday (Aug. 30) at 7:26 a.m. EDT (1126 GMT).

You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, beginning at 6:20 a.m. EDT (1020 GMT). You don't have to wait that long for a Roman fix, actually; there's stuff to watch on Saturday (Aug. 29) as well. Here's a rundown of this weekend's Roman action.

Saturday: Prelaunch briefings

Things kick off at on Saturday at 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT) with NASA's Roman Space Telescope mission science briefing. This should be quite eventful, for Roman's science goals are ambitious; it will likely discover thousands of exoplanets, for example, and reveal intriguing new information about mysterious dark matter and dark energy.

Participants are:

• Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director, Astrophysics Division, NASA Headquarters
• Julie McEnery, Roman telescope senior project scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Vanessa Bailey, Roman Coronagraph Instrument scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Kristen McQuinn, Roman Science Operations Center lead, Space Telescope Science Institute
• Lee Armus, Roman Science Support Center lead, Caltech/IPAC

Next up is the prelaunch press conference, which will discuss the mission's launch readiness. It will start at 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT) and feature the following folks:

• Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
• Lucas Paganini, Roman telescope program executive, NASA Headquarters
• Jackie Townsend, Roman telescope project manager, NASA Goddard
• Denton Gibson, launch director, NASA’s Launch Services Program, NASA Kennedy
• Julianna Scheiman, director, NASA Science and Dragon Programs, SpaceX
• Justin McReynolds, launch weather officer, 45th Weather Squadron, U.S. Space Force

Then, at 11:45 a.m. EDT (1545 GMT), NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, an accomplished pilot and private astronaut, will put on a mini air show of sorts.

Isaacman "is expected to fly past the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and Falcon Heavy rocket on the launch pad in his jet," NASA wrote in an Aug. 24 media advisory. "The flyby will be shown live on the same stream as the prelaunch news conference, with a view of the launch pad during the transition. The flyby is subject to weather and operational considerations."

Sunday: Launch day

And there's more to watch on Sunday than the launch itself. At 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT), NASA will hold a post-launch briefing featuring Isaacman, Fox, Townsend, McEnery and Gibson.

They'll likely discuss the next steps for Roman, which include a 30-day journey to its deep-space home, the sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2. This spot lies about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth in the direction of Mars. It's gravitationally stable, meaning Roman will be able to stay put without expending much fuel.

Mission team members will spend the next few months checking out the observatory's systems and science gear. It should be ready to begin its five-year science mission in early 2027.

More than a month after its epic spaceflight, Starship is finally headed home.

SpaceX announced today (Aug. 27) that it has loaded Starship's 171-foot-tall (52 meters) upper stage — known as Starship, or simply Ship — onto a huge "semi-submersible" ship in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Christmas Island.

Ship had been in the water since July 24, when it splashed down to bring an end to the Starship program's 13th test flight. The vehicle will now head back to SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas, a journey expected to take several months, according to the company.

Starship Flight 13 lifted off from Starbase, sending Ship on an hour-long suborbital jaunt that went quite well. The vehicle deployed its payloads — 20 of SpaceX's big, next-gen Starlink "Version 3" satellites — into space as planned and also managed to relight one of its six Raptor engines in the final frontier as well.

Ship then splashed down softly in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia — so softly, in fact, that it survived the ordeal intact. This was unprecedented; on every previous Starship flight, the upper stage had either broken apart during reentry to Earth's atmosphere or exploded shortly after splashdown, when it toppled sideways into the waves. (Starship's first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, attempted a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico during Flight 13 but suffered engine problems and hit the water hard.)

SpaceX determined to take advantage of this unexpected development. Getting an up-close look at Ship, the company said, would shed light on how its heat shield held up during the flight — key information that could advance the development of Starship, which is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable.

So the company began towing the Flight 13 Ship to shore — an endeavor that initially seemed doomed to failure.

"Unfortunately, ship recovery is not looking good right now," SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said in an Aug. 7 post on X, the social media platform he bought in 2022. He was responding to a SpaceX post that same day, which cited "challenging conditions and increasingly rough seas."

SpaceX persevered, however, and managed to tow Ship to Christmas Island, an Australian territory that lies about 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) northwest of the city of Broome. Once there, company engineers inspected the vehicle for several days as it bobbed in the waves, gathering valuable data, according to SpaceX.

"They collected heatshield samples and gained vital insight into how the vehicle handled reentry with improvements now planned on future vehicles," SpaceX said today in an X post that shared several photos of the operation.

Further analysis doubtless awaits, after the semi-submersible hauler vessel — so called because its deck goes underwater beneath heavy floating payloads, then rises up with them on board — arrives in Texas.

"Congratulations to the entire SpaceX Recovery team for battling through challenging conditions to give our engineers access to a wealth of data to continue rapidly developing Starship," SpaceX wrote in another X post today.