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Topic

Commercial Spaceflight

The private space industry encompassing reusable rockets, satellite launches, and orbital services from companies like SpaceX and China's LandSpace.

Current stories

scienceOne report1 publisher

LandSpace's recovered Zhuque-3 booster puts China one reflight away from rocket reuse

LandSpace has brought a Zhuque-3 booster back to Earth, a first for China, but no Chinese booster has flown twice, and SpaceX has done it hundreds of times. Launch savings come from reflying hardware, and China's 2030 'space power' plan depends on exactly that.

Publishers:newscientist.com

Reality

Evidence50
Adoption10
Hype gap+20
Incentives45
Confidence50
scienceOne report1 publisher

Fram2's crew took usable diagnostic X-rays in orbit after four hours of training

MinXray's portable unit flew on the private Fram2 mission in March 2025, and radiologists on the ground called the crew's images clear enough to diagnose from. The report appeared in Radiology in July 2026.

Reality

Evidence60
Adoption22
Hype gap+25
Incentives55
Confidence58
productOne report1 publisher

ESA holds €450mn of its €760mn Nyx contract as options it can still decline

About €20bn and 51 deals were announced at the Paris space summit, on top of an ESA budget member states had already approved. The dates suppliers will be judged against came from Macron's address, not from a contract.

Publishers:thenextweb.com

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption45
Hype gap+34
Incentives68
Confidence56
scienceOne report1 publisher

Sandia physicists weigh New Glenn's pad explosion from infrasound recorded 1,000 miles away

A Sandia-led team pulled the energy of New Glenn's May 29 hotfire explosion out of infrasound recorded as far away as northeast Texas, putting the blast at an estimated 0.131 kilotons of TNT equivalent using infrasound data alone.

Publishers:livescience.com

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption25
Hype gap+18
Incentives42
Confidence58
investOne report1 publisher

Trump's 1,000-launch target is a permitting subsidy, and SpaceX owns the queue

The memo orders agencies to clear paperwork, spectrum and airspace for more than 1,000 launches a year by 2030. It appropriates nothing, so the value flows to whoever already has capital in the ground.

Reality

Evidence28
Adoption24
Hype gap+42
Incentives55
Confidence32