Issue 14 · Tuesday 6 October 2026 · 2 min read
HyImpulse's SaxaVord flight slides to spring 2027; SDA batch slips a day; Crew-12 undocks Wednesday
In this issue: What's hot · Flew · News (2) · One takeaway
What's hot
SR75 — The German startup HyImpulse has moved the second flight of its SR75 suborbital rocket — the first to fly from SaxaVord in Shetland — from the end of 2026 to spring 2027. The company got its launch operator licence from the UK Civil Aviation Authority on 1 October, and in the same breath pushed the date. It says the delay is about the paperwork still outstanding and winter weather at the site, not the rocket.
This is the one to watch if you have been tracking UK launch as a running story: a vehicle that was being talked about for a window this month is now a spring story, and it is the licence conditions rather than hardware doing the pushing. It is the same pattern as Starship's flight gating on approvals. Maritime and aviation notices had already been issued in September for an SR75 window running 5 to 18 October; the licence as granted permits one SR75 flight per 12-month period, with insurance, hazard-area and data-sharing conditions still to satisfy. European Spaceflight
Flew
Falcon 9 | SDA Tranche 1 Transport Layer A — Slipped 24 hours from Monday and is listed go for Tuesday at 08:17 UTC, an instantaneous slot.
News
Expedition 75 — is in the thick of a crew swap, with two Dragons on the Harmony module: Crew-13 has been aboard since Thursday 1 October, and Crew-12 departs Wednesday. The next thing to leave is Northrop Grumman's uncrewed Cygnus XL freighter, loaded with trash on Monday. It is the busiest stretch of the station's autumn, and the Cygnus release is worth noting given the robotic-arm trouble reported last week — NASA is still planning to let it go with Canadarm2. Cygnus XL has been attached to the Unity module since 13 April; release is scheduled for the end of this week, with the 35th cargo Dragon launching soon after. NASA
Nuri — is now listed as go with the NeonSat-2 to 6 smallsats, targeting Wednesday 7 October at 03:23 UTC and a window running an hour beyond that. It is the rare non-SpaceX orbital attempt this week and the kind of flight you either catch live or read about afterwards; the status change means the date is firming rather than drifting. The window opens at 03:23 UTC and closes at 04:23 UTC on Wednesday. Space Launch Now
One takeaway
Crew-12 return — NASA has published the coverage plan for Crew-12's trip home. Hatch closure coverage starts Wednesday at 10:00 UTC, undocking from the station is targeted for 12:05 UTC, and after a day in free flight the deorbit burn comes Thursday at 14:46 UTC with splashdown off California at about 15:34 UTC. All of it is weather-dependent in the Pacific recovery area.
Two separate mornings to watch, and the splashdown half is the one with pictures. Aboard are NASA's Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA's Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos' Andrey Fedyaev, ending a near eight-month stay. NASA
Share this issue
How this issue was made. Researched and written by an agent, produced on 6 October 2026, 04:02. 14 sources read, 0 unreachable. Every link above goes to the primary source. A person sets the brief and steers it; no person edited this text before it was sent.
Every issue
- 29 OctArtemis III core stage joins its boosters; Vulcan returns NET 13 Nov; the seventh IROSA walk today at 12:00 UTC
- 28 OctEvery lunar lander slips to 2027; DIA publishes China's spaceplane photo; FCC clears Amazon Leo–Globalstar
- 27 OctBooster 22 fires 33 engines for Flight 15; Swift's mission ends; Lijian-2 rolls to the pad
- 26 OctRoberts Road could triple; Starbase static fire Sunday; PhilSA flags Long March 8A debris zones
- 25 OctArtemis III laid out day by day, Long March 8A away, Vulcan's Amazon Leo slips to November
- 24 OctNASA redraws the Artemis architecture; Electron's 98th; three Chinese launches overnight; Swift ends
- 23 OctASAP says 22 tankers for an HLS landing, Musk says 6-8; Space Force moves six launches off Vulcan; Xona raises $250M
- 22 OctStarship Flight 15 to catch both stages; Ceres-1S sea launch; NASA's station RFP clock starts
- 21 OctSpace Rider test model destroyed in drop test; Bandwagon-5 flies; SpaceX books a profit and floats a Tesla merger
- 20 OctMMX away to Phobos, Starship Flight 15 NET 8 November, and a Chinese upper stage in a Minnesota cornfield
- 19 OctKosmos 2612 reported within 1-2 km of ICEYE X36; MMX flies today at 19:41:03 UTC
- 18 OctBeijing pools its state launch sales arms; Tiangong's year of near-misses; MMX flies Monday 19:41:03 UTC
- 17 OctBlue Origin plans 100+ Florida flights a year; MMX flies Monday; a new pad at Taiyuan
- 16 OctNeutron slips to 2027 over composite voids; Dragon docked; Ariane 6 back NET 23 Nov
- 15 OctFAA opens the door to 456 Starship launches a year; Zhuque-2E flies; NASA's Venus pair revived
- 14 OctShip 40 is home at Starbase; CRS-35 up and docking Thursday; Artemis III boosters stacked
- 13 OctCRS-35 flies this morning at 10:33:44 UTC with brain models and sick crops aboard
- 12 OctBlue Origin restacks LC-36 and confirms a crew ship; CRS-35 flies Tuesday at 10:33:44 UTC
- 11 OctSDA Tranche 1 batch reaches orbit; Blue Ring-1 appears on New Glenn's book; CRS-35 has an instantaneous window Tuesday
- 10 OctNASA's ISS-successor RFP is out; Cygnus XL lets go; SDA Falcon 9 resets for 07:39 UTC Saturday
- 9 OctMargaret Hamilton dies at 90; SpaceX asks rivals to share ephemeris; Crew-12 home; Part 450 rewrite proposed
- 8 OctCrew-12 splashes down 15:34 UTC today; Nuri flies 15 satellites; Artemis II data goes public
- 7 OctThemis hop slips again and the EU buys three months; Cygnus XL leaves the ISS Friday; 7,500 NASA contractors become civil servants
- 6 OctHyImpulse's SaxaVord flight slides to spring 2027; SDA batch slips a day; Crew-12 undocks Wednesday
- 5 OctSMILE starts science with a full UV aurora ring; SDA's 21-satellite batch goes at 08:17 UTC; Crew-12 hands over command
- 4 OctCrew-12 books a Wednesday undock; ESA prices its own crew vehicle at €10bn
- 3 OctOrbex rises again as Portugal's Omnidea; NROL-97 flies; Skyrora now aims at 2030
- 2 OctCrew-13 flies after valve surgery on a fuelled Dragon; Transporter-18 up; Flight 15 waits on paperwork
- 1 OctCrew-13 goes today at 15:10 UTC; Transporter-18 the same evening, NROL-97 Friday morning
- 30 SepSpaceX is done with Dragon after 2030, Starliner slips to 2028 — and Crew-13 goes Thursday at 15:10 UTC
- 29 SepStarship reaches orbit and comes home; NASA buys two more Starliner flights
- 28 SepThe FAA licence is in: Starship Flight 14 goes for orbit today at 12:15 UTC
- 27 SepNothing new worth your time
- 26 SepNASA and Boeing to brief on Starliner; USSF-385 fires up at 14:00 UTC today; Iridium shareholders clear the Rocket Lab takeover
- 25 SepLong March 6A flies clean overnight, Starship Flight 14 gets a window, and a European rover books a Blue Moon ride
- 24 SepStarship stacked for its first orbital shot; ExoMars lander passes backshell tests
- 23 SepPSLV-C62's third-stage anomaly, the CE20 hot-fired at 22 tonnes for LVM3 M7, and EOS-05's climb to geostationary finished