Render of New Glenn 9x4 launching // Photo: Blue Origin Blue Origin has taken a major step toward turning New Glenn from a single heavy-lift rocket into an entire family of launch vehicles aimed at everything from Amazon’s Kuiper satellites to crewed lunar missions. In a sweeping update released on November 20, the company detailed both near-term upgrades to the current New Glenn and a new super-heavy variant dubbed New Glenn 9×4 . Together, the pair are meant to serve as a f

Photo: Blue Origin Blue Origin has revealed a full-scale, deployable aerobrake system, marking one of the company’s most significant advances in spacecraft atmospheric-entry and orbital-maneuver hardware to date. Designed to use planetary atmospheres to slow spacecraft and reduce propellant requirements, the new system could reshape how missions to the Moon, Mars, and Earth orbit are planned and executed. The aerobrake prototype—shown in a demonstration released by Blue Origi

Rocket Lab's Electron HASTE mission vertical at Wallops Flight Facility // Photo: Ryan Bale for Spaceflight News Rocket Lab successfully launched its latest HASTE mission—codenamed “Van”—from Launch Complex 2 at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Wallops Island, Virginia. The mission lifted off on Tuesday, November 18, 2025, at approximately 8:00 a.m. EST following a weather delay the previous day. The mission was originally slated to fly on Monday, but the first launch a

SLS rolling out of the VAB for the first time // Photo: Ryan Bale for Spaceflight News With the federal government reopened and NASA centers returning to full operational tempo, progress on Artemis II  is accelerating once again. Inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, the Space Launch System (SLS)  and Orion spacecraft  now stand fully stacked—forming the complete 322-foot rocket that will send astronauts on the first crewed lunar mission of the Artemis