Q&A with Alain Charmeau, CEO of Airbus Safran Launchers

Astra’s next small satellite launcher has shipped to Kodiak Island in Alaska for final preparations ahead of a test flight planned in early August, five months after the company’s first orbital rocket faltered before getting off the ground.

The next 60 Starlink internet satellites are awaiting a ride from Cape Canaveral into space aboard a Falcon 9 rocket Tuesday night as SpaceX seeks regulatory authority to expand the network’s services from homes and offices to airplanes, ships, and trucks.

The U.S. Space Force says it will launch two GPS navigation satellites on reused Falcon 9 boosters next year through a restructured contract with SpaceX that saved taxpayers $52 million, the first time the military has agreed to fly operational national security payloads on previously-flown rockets.