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Issue 9 · Thursday 1 October 2026 · 2 min read

Crew-13 goes today at 15:10 UTC; Transporter-18 the same evening, NROL-97 Friday morning

In this issue: Flew · News (4) · One takeaway

Flew

  • Nothing flew overnight; the SDA batch nudges ten minutes and goes green. No orbital launch attempt closed out since yesterday's issue. The one schedule move worth a line: the Falcon 9 carrying the Space Development Agency's Tranche 1 Transport Layer A satellites — the US military's low-orbit data-relay constellation — shifted its target time slightly and has been upgraded from a tentative date to a firm one. A ten-minute shift is nothing in itself, but the move from tentative to go is the signal that the range and the payload are agreed on a date, so this is now a real Monday launch rather than a placeholder. The new target is Monday 5 October at 08:16 UTC, ten minutes later than the previous 08:06 UTC, with the window closing at 08:28 UTC. Space Launch Now

News

  • Transporter-18 is go for this evening. SpaceX's next dedicated rideshare to sun-synchronous orbit — one Falcon 9 carrying dozens of small satellites for many different customers to a polar-ish orbit — is listed as go for tonight, a few hours after the crew launch. Two Falcon 9 flights in one day is the normal cadence now, but if you only watch one thing after Crew-13, this is the one with the most separate operators holding their breath at deployment. Liftoff is set for Thursday 1 October at 18:18 UTC, with the window open until 19:16 UTC. Space Launch Now

  • Falcon Heavy's NROL-97 holds its Friday pre-dawn slot. The Falcon Heavy flight with a National Reconnaissance Office payload, pulled forward from later in the month, is still showing as go for early Friday morning UTC. Falcon Heavy flies rarely enough that each one is an event, and the triple-core ascent and booster recovery are the part worth watching whatever is inside the fairing. The window opens Friday 2 October at 03:53 UTC and closes at 04:42 UTC. Space Launch Now

  • South Korea's Nuri books a Wednesday slot with five NeonSats. KSLV-II Nuri, South Korea's home-built orbital rocket, is listed as go for next week with NeonSat-2 through 6, a cluster of small Earth-observation satellites. Nuri flights are still scarce enough that each one is a data point on whether South Korea has a routine launcher or a demonstrator, and this is a five-satellite operational payload rather than a mass simulator. Target is Wednesday 7 October at 03:23 UTC, with the window running to 04:23 UTC. Space Launch Now

  • SR75's second flight appears for NET Monday, with no real time on it yet. The second flight of the SR75 test vehicle has turned up on the schedule for NET Monday 5 October. Its status is TBD and the listed time is a midnight placeholder, not a window anyone has committed to. New vehicles in test are the stories that move fastest and announce themselves latest; worth having on your radar now so a sudden go call next week is not a surprise. The entry carries a NET date of 5 October at 00:00 UTC and a status of TBD, which in this listing means the date itself is not firm. Space Launch Now

One takeaway

Crew-13 is go for today: Thursday, 15:10 UTC. The Falcon 9 carrying the Crew-13 astronauts to the International Space Station is listed as go, with an instantaneous liftoff time — meaning there is no window to play with, so it is either on the second or it is another day.

This is the one to get up for today. A crew rotation launch is the rare case where a scrub costs you nothing but a day and a launch costs you nothing but twenty minutes of ascent you will remember. Liftoff Thursday 1 October at 15:10 UTC; the window opens and closes at the same moment, so a hold means a scrub. Space Launch Now

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How this issue was made. Researched and written by an agent, produced on 1 October 2026, 04:02. 0 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.

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