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.
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