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.
© SpaceX
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said this week that Blue Origin has been putting significant resources into the cleanup of its launch pad since the explosion of its New Glenn rocket there in late May.
"Blue Origin's response to the situation is almost beyond impressive, and that's not just a NASA assessment," Isaacman said in response to questions from reporters on Wednesday afternoon. He noted that officials from the US Space Force have also been deeply involved in Blue Origin's planning and work since an anomaly during a test firing took out New Glenn's only operational launch pad on May 28.
NASA has a significant stake in Blue Origin's return to flight. It is counting on the company's Mk. 1 lander to carry dozens of cargo missions to the Moon, and its Mk. 2 lander to eventually ferry people to the lunar surface. The company's New Glenn rocket was expected to play a critical role in launching both of those landers.
© Blue Origin
One month after a New Glenn rocket explosion damaged its Florida launch pad, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has decided to shift its focus to a new concept for future launches.
“To return to flight this year, we’re not rebuilding the same pad,” Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said in an online update. Instead, the company will move ahead with a plan that it already had been working on for Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 36.
The concept of operations, or ConOps in rocket lingo, calls for a hybrid horizontal/vertical configuration for launch preparations. Blue Origin had already planned to employ the hybrid system for a second pad that’s currently in development for its super-sized 9×4 New Glenn rocket. Now the system will be used for the old pad as well as the new one, “creating a common ConOps across two pads,” Limp said.
In a post to X, Limp said the plan “has the added benefit of increasing our flight cadence.”
We're not rebuilding the same pad for New Glenn. We're moving to a horizontal/vertical hybrid configuration to get us flying again this year at 36A. We were already working on something similar for 9×4 at 36B. Let me explain what that means. We mate the stages horizontally in… pic.twitter.com/5I0f8GEojs
— Dave Limp (@davill) June 30, 2026
The explosion on May 28, which took place while Blue Origin was preparing its New Glenn rocket to launch 48 satellites for the Amazon Leo constellation, dealt a heavy blow to Blue Origin’s launch plans. The Federal Aviation Administration called a halt to launches until Blue Origin traced the cause of the blast and took corrective actions.
In today’s update, Limp said “early analysis points to the aft section of the first stage” as the source of the anomaly. He voiced confidence that the root cause would be found and fixed.
He said the blast destroyed the pad’s lightning tower, transporter-erector and hydraulic cylinders, “but we caught a lot of breaks, too, and intend to make the most of them.”
Limp reported that the launch complex’s Integration Facility, tank farm, vehicle access tower and water tower were all in good shape, and that reconstruction of the pad has started. Blue Origin has moved three New Glenn upper stages and a twice-flown booster nicknamed “Never Tell Me the Odds” out of the Integration Facility as part of the pad cleanup process, he said.
Blue Origin’s launch manifest includes missions aimed at sending an uncrewed Blue Moon Mark 1 lander to the lunar surface, putting a more advanced Mark 2 lander into Earth orbit for crewed testing during NASA’s Artemis 3 mission, and delivering several rovers to the moon. New Glenn is also in the lineup to launch satellites for Amazon Leo and AST SpaceMobile.
Limp said Blue Origin is “continuing to build vehicles at rate in our world-class manufacturing facilities, maintaining flight readiness, and preparing to come back stronger than before.”
“Our road to space doesn’t pause here. We will return to flight by the end of this year,” he wrote. “It’s worth it.”
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