Haygen Warren

The week of May 11 brings nine launches across the United States and China, spanning government and commercial operators on both sides of the Pacific. SpaceX's Falcon 9 accounts for four missions: a Cargo Dragon resupply flight to the International Space Station, a classified National Reconnaissance Office payload from Vandenberg, a Starlink mission, and a commercial communications deployment for Globalstar. What's more, SpaceX's Starship could launch on its 12th flight as soon as Friday.

Rocket Lab opened 2026 by breaking every record it set in 2025. The company signed more launch contracts in three months than it flew missions in all of last year, completed the acquisition of laser communications firm Mynaric AG, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire space robotics company Motiv Space Systems, introduced a new electric satellite thruster, and was selected alongside Raytheon to demonstrate capabilities for the U.S. Space Force's Space Based Interceptor program.

SpaceX and Chinese launches dominate this week’s launch manifest, which features six missions from five launch sites worldwide. Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch three Starlink missions from SpaceX’s California and Florida launch facilities. In China, a Chang Zheng 12B flew on its debut mission on Monday, with a Chang Zheng 8 and Chang Zheng 6A set to fly unknown payloads later in the week.

Following a six-month battle to regain communication with its Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft around Mars, NASA announced the conclusion of the MAVEN mission on June 3rd. The mission, which launched to the red planet in 2013, studied the Martian atmosphere and its evolution for 11 years — over a decade longer than initially expected.

SpaceX is set to launch a demonstration mission for its Starfall reentry vehicle early on Tuesday morning. Falcon 9 is scheduled to liftoff at 6:43 AM EDT (10:43 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Weather is 95% “go” for launch, with the only concerns being the cumulus cloud rule.

NASA's next space telescope, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, arrived at Kennedy Space Center in late June ahead of its scheduled launch on Aug. 30 atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Launch Complex 39A. Since its arrival at the Cape, the telescope has achieved several launch-processing milestones, including being moved to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility and flipped vertical.

Following two flybys of Jupiter's innermost Galilean moon Io, teams using data from NASA's Juno spacecraft have revealed the first measurements of the temperature below Io's surface. The flybys revealed substantial subsurface heating on the moon, as well as a surface that is extremely smooth and composed of low-density materials.

With a scheduled launch date of Aug. 30, NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is quickly approaching launch. In preparation for the launch from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, teams have achieved several notable pre-launch milestones since its arrival at the Cape in June. These milestones include cleaning and inspecting the telescope's solar panels, fueling the telescope's tanks, and integrating operations with SpaceX launch equipment.

NASA and SpaceX have launched NASA's next great space observatory — the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Launched atop a Falcon Heavy from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Roman will travel to the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2, where it will use two instruments — the Wide Field Instrument and the Coronagraph Instrument — to search for exoplanets, dark energy, and other astrophysical phenomena.