Landing an orbital-class rocket was once considered almost impossible.... SpaceX has now done it 650 times First landing: December 21, 2015 650th landing: August 15, 2026show more

First Orbital-Class Rocket Booster Landing on deployable landing gear:... • US (SpaceX): December 2015 • China: August 2026 ~11 year difference.show more

First Orbital-Class Rocket Booster Landing: • US (SpaceX): December... 2015 • China: July 2026show more

Falcon 9 touchdown on the Just Read the Instructions... droneship, completing the 500th launch and landing of an orbital class rocketshow more

🚀 CHINA JUST TOOK A MAJOR STEP TOWARD REUSABLE... ROCKETS China successfully launched the Zhuque-3 reusable rocket on August 19, and, for the first time, successfully landed an orbital-class first-stage booster on land using landing legs. The rocket was developed by Chinese private space company LandSpace, whose previous Zhuque-3 recovery attempt in December 2025 failed during landing.show more

🚨🇺🇸 ANOTHER CLEAN RETURN FOR SPACEX AS FALCON HAS... A FLAWLESS TOUCHDOWN SpaceX nailed it again. Falcon 9 booster successfully touched down at Landing Zone 4 moments ago after launching [payload/mission details if known, otherwise: its latest mission from Cape Canaveral. The booster, fresh off the pad, executed a textbook return to LZ 4 on Florida's Space Coast, legs deployed, engines relit, and a perfect vertical touchdown. This marks yet another precise landing for the reusable rocket program that's redefined spaceflight. With boosters now routinely flying multiple missions, SpaceX continues to drive down launch costs and push rapid reusability closer to reality. Falcon 9 landing at LZ-4 is the kind of routine that used to be impossible. Now it's just a Friday. Yet it still gets me every time. Source: SpaceX, NSF - NASASpaceflight.comshow more

Honestly, that was impressive first flight for ZQ3 A... flawless ascent, the second stage made it to orbit, a successful re-entry burn, stable descent, and all that went wrong was an engine failure on the landing burn No other reusable booster has got this close to a landing on its first flight I wouldn't be surprised if LandSpace can sort out whatever destroyed that engine by the next flight, and then a successful landing would seem pretty likelyshow more

China has become the second country in the world... with an orbital-class launcher system with first-stage booster recovery through controlled reentry and propelled landing. After delivering its payload to low Earth orbit, The Long March 10B had its booster landing on a recovery ship in the South China Sea with a net-and-hook system. SpaceX has more than a decades lead on the Chinese, with Starship being at a completely different position in this space race but the Chinese are clearly going to be putting a lot of effort into trying to catch up. It’s remarkable that the Europeans have been so slow to start experimenting with these technologies. ESA and ArianeGroup have been slow off their feet and both the Themis and Callisto programs are still very far from pulling off what the Chinese did today and miles and miles away from being able to do what SpaceX does.show more

🚨#BREAKING: A private operated drone has collided with a... search and rescue helicopter causing it to make an emergency landing 📌#Kerrville | #Texas Emergency crews in Kerrville, Texas are urgently asking the public to ground all drones immediately until ongoing flood search and rescue operations are complete. This follows a serious incident this afternoon where a privately operated drone illegally entered restricted airspace and collided with a helicopter involved in rescue efforts. The helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing, and a critical piece of response equipment is now out of service until further notice Officials say this was entirely preventable. Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) are not suggestions they are federal rules designed to protect lives during emergencies.show more

🤯 THE STOCK MARKET JUST BECAME THE EXIT LIQUIDITY... AND ALMOST NOBODY SEES IT. Three of the largest IPOs in history are landing in one five month window. SpaceX. OpenAI. Anthropic. More than $135 billion in new stock about to be sold. Every dollar that buys it has to come from somewhere. It comes from what funds already hold. And the thing every fund is overweight is the S&P 500. That is what gets sold first. Record highs. Record euphoria. Record new supply. All at the same time. That is not strength. That is the setup.show more

Here's the full surveillance video showing moments before the... Lufthansa Boeing 787-9 (D-ABPQ) nose gear collapsed at Frankfurt. If you watch closely, the nose landing gear doors open first, indicating what appears to be the start of a normal landing gear retraction sequence. According to reports, the Dreamliner had logged a maintenance request the previous day involving a landing gear door error message. On the Boeing 787, maintenance personnel can place the aircraft into a special maintenance mode (on the overhead panel, turn switch to "enable"). Boeing manuals emphasize that if maintenance mode is enabled, hydraulics are powered, and the gear lever is selected UP, the landing gear can retract regardless of weight-on-wheels protection. To prevent this, there's an override button where the gear handle lockout can be bypassed to move the gear handle even if it is locked out. The only way this can happen is by intentionally bypassing the normal safety lockouts used during maintenance procedures. Outside of maintenance or certain emergency procedures, the aircraft's weight-on-wheels system prevents gear retraction on the ground. Lufthansa says the aircraft has since been recovered. Fuel was removed, the jet was lifted, the nose gear was re-extended, and the aircraft was successfully towed under its own weight to a maintenance hangar. Germany's Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation has completed evidence collection from the aircraft and is now gathering witness statements. An interim report is expected within approximately 8 weeks. 📹: airlinersde via YouTube, link on first comment here.show more

What an exciting day at Wallops Island. The Antonov... AN-124 came in from the south this morning, touching down at NASA Wallops Flight Facility at around 10:10 AM. No photo does that aircraft justice — it has to be seen in person to truly appreciate the scale. It taxied to the end of the runway and was unloaded incredibly fast. By the time we packed up and went to grab lunch down the road, it was already back in the air. Total ground time: roughly two and a half hours. Rocket Lab moved fast today. Right after lunch we swung by the AIC — Rocket Lab's Assembly and Integration Complex — and sure enough, they were already loading the PAF (Payload Attach Fitting / Payload Adapter) into the gray building at the Neutron complex. The other containers offloaded from the AN-124 remain a mystery — we never did see where those went. Watching to see if Rocket Lab issues any media briefings soon. Also put together a short video from about 250 still photos taken during the landing this morning — excuse a little jitter, but it captures just how quickly things moved today. Landing 4K Video here: Rollout 4K Video here: NSF - NASASpaceflight.comshow more

SpaceX just completed back-to-back Falcon 9 launches from both... coasts in under 12 hours. Florida, then California. That was launches 20 and 21 for 2026. We're barely eight weeks into the year. Here's what the last ten days looked like. The 600th Falcon 9 flight in history. The 20th crewed Dragon mission delivering astronauts to the ISS. A booster flying its 31st mission. The second ever rocket landing in the Bahamas, resuming after a year-long environmental review. Over 50 Starlink satellites deployed across back-to-back launches. And another launch tonight. The constellation now has over 11,200 satellites launched, 9,700 in orbit, and 10 million subscribers. The FCC approved expansion to 15,000 satellites. Starlink is on pace to become one of the highest-revenue connectivity businesses on the planet. No other entity on Earth is doing anything close to this. Not governments. Not other companies. SpaceX is operating at a cadence that would have seemed impossible five years ago. This is the machine that makes everything else possible.show more

NEWS: SpaceX has released a statement after today's successful... 11th Starship test flight. "Every major objective of the flight test was achieved, providing valuable data as we prepare the next generation of Starship and Super Heavy. The flight test began with Super Heavy igniting all 33 Raptor engines and ascending over the Gulf. The successful first-stage ascent was followed by a hot-staging maneuver, with Starship’s upper stage igniting its six Raptor engines to continue its flight to space. Following stage separation, the Super Heavy booster completed its boostback burn to put it on a course to a pre-planned splashdown zone off the coast of Texas using 12 of the 13 planned engines. Under the same angle of attack tested on the previous flight, the booster descended until successfully igniting all 13 planned engines (including one that did not relight during the boostback burn) for the high-thrust portion of the landing burn. The booster successfully executed a unique landing burn planned for use on the next generation booster. Super Heavy hovered above the water before shutting down its engines and splashing down. After completing a full-duration ascent burn, Starship achieved its planned velocity and trajectory. During flight, Starship successfully deployed eight Starlink simulators and executed the third in-space relight of a Raptor engine, demonstrating a critical capability for future deorbit burns. Starship re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and was able to gather extensive data on the performance of its heatshield as it was intentionally stressed to test the limits of the vehicle’s capabilities. In the final minutes of flight, Starship performed a dynamic banking maneuver to mimic the trajectory that future missions returning to Starbase will fly. Starship then guided itself using its four flaps to the pre-planned splashdown zone in the Indian Ocean, successfully executing a landing flip, landing burn, and soft splashdown. Focus now turns to the next generation of Starship and Super Heavy, with multiple vehicles currently in active build and preparing for tests. This next iteration will be used for the first Starship orbital flights, operational payload missions, propellant transfer, and more as we iterate to a fully and rapidly reusable vehicle with service to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond."show more

🚨 BIG: 🇮🇳 India to soon join the global... race for SpaceX-like reusable rockets Chennai-based space startup Agnikul Cosmos has announced Mission-02, a bold plan to attempt India's first recovery of an orbital-class rocket booster by a private company. The mission aims to safely recover the booster for refurbishment and reuse, while repurposing the upper stage into a functional in-orbit platform instead of letting it become debris. This is a major step toward reusable launch vehicles that can significantly reduce costs and make satellite launches more affordable and sustainable. Agnikul is already a leader in 3D-printed rocket engines that can be produced rapidly. It is now advancing reusability technologies, backed by multiple patents from 🇮🇳 India, the 🇺🇸 US, and 🇪🇺 Europe. With support from ISRO and IN-SPACe, this progress highlights the rapid growth of India's private space sector. Alongside recent private orbital launches like Skyroot’s Vikram-1, the country is building strong self-reliance in space technology. A proud leap forward for Made in India innovation. 🇮🇳show more