Starship Flight 15 to catch both stages; Ceres-1S sea launch; NASA's station RFP clock starts

Commercial LEO Destinations — NASA's final solicitation for the next phase of commercial space stations is out, with bids due 8 December and at least two companies to be picked by April. It is the formal start of the race to succeed the ISS, and the first hard deadline for Vast, Axiom, Starlab and Blue Origin. SpaceX has privately said Crew Dragon will likely not be available to these stations, so NASA will furnish transport for its own first four missions. The Space Review

“Whoever does that first will be in the best position”

Maxwell — Viasat says the Rocket Lab-built relay spacecraft it flew on Tuesday's Bandwagon-5 rideshare is on orbit and has begun operations. This is the commercial relay work meant to let NASA retire its ageing TDRS fleet, so a working demo moves that retirement along. Two NASA Communications Services Project awards worth $81 million cover a five-month campaign running through March 2027. SatNews

RS-25 engine No. 10001 — NASA hot-fired this developmental engine on Wednesday 21 October for almost eight and a half minutes, the length of an SLS launch burn, pushing it to 111 percent power. Engine production is the quiet half of Artemis, and this run was acceptance-testing flight parts plus a new thermal protection system for the nozzle. Four RS-25s make up to 2 million pounds of thrust together; this particular engine will never fly. NASA

Eastern and Western Ranges — A roadmap published on 20 October would move the Cape and Vandenberg off sequential scheduling, letting as many as three major operations run at once at a single spaceport. Range availability is the ceiling on how often there is anything to watch, and this is the plan to raise it through the 2030s. Throughput would grow from five to eight complete operations a day across both coasts, with changes to what launch companies pay for range services under review. SatNews

Vulcain Aft Bay — Airbus Netherlands has sent ArianeGroup the first lightweight version of the structure that holds Ariane 6's Vulcain engine and feeds its thrust into the stage. It is one of the last Block 2 performance upgrades, now that ESA has said it sees no case for a Block 3. The redesign is 400 kg lighter and 55 mm shorter, half the saving advertised in 2024, and is expected to fly in 2027. European Spaceflight

SpaceNukes — Space Nuclear Power Corporation has an agreement under DARPA's Fat Cat programme to design, build and ground-test a Kilopower reactor that moves its own control rods. Space fission is where NASA and the Pentagon are both putting money now, and autonomous control is the step beyond the last American demo. In 2018 the same people fired KRUSTY, the one new American space reactor to be ground-tested at full power in five decades; the build happens at the company's Ohio workshop. SpaceNews

Suits made ready for next Thursday's array walk. Anil Menon of NASA and Joshua Kutryk of CSA spent Wednesday in the Quest airlock cleaning helmets, checking tethers and fitting comms and medical gear into two spacesuits. The first of the two roll-out solar array installations is a week away, and the suit fit check is the last gate before it. The spacewalk starts Thursday 29 October at 8 a.m. EDT, 12:00 UTC, with NASA+ coverage from 6:30 a.m. EDT; the arrays add up to 30 percent more station power. NASA

Perseverance — JPL says the rover's odometer reached 45.22 kilometres on 11 October, the farthest any machine has driven on another world, and its Earth twin got a Guinness plaque for it. The interesting part is how: the team loosened the rover's driving rules and gave it a way to work out where it is without waiting on Earth. Tilt limit raised to 24 degrees, required belly clearance cut to 20 centimetres, and a spare processor from Ingenuity's base station now matches ground views to orbital imagery after each drive. NASA Science

Yuanxingzhe-1 — Jianyuan Technology says its first and second stage engines have been hot-fired together with their steering actuators, swinging through step, circle and sweep patterns, and are now with final assembly. One more Chinese booster chasing reuse that has moved from paper to fired hardware, with a first flight claimed inside this year. The full-size thin-wall stainless vehicle is 4.2 metres across, about 26.8 metres tall and roughly 57 tonnes at liftoff; first flight is advertised for the end of 2026. IT之家

Yueqian-1 — Dahang Yueqian ran a week of full-size tank outflow tests on its second stage, draining oxygen and methane through 16 different cases to check the anti-vortex hardware. This is the startup building China's first tower-catch reusable rocket, so each of its ground tests is a marker on that timeline. Founded in February 2024, the company has already run a ground test of its catch tower and is aiming at a first flight in 2027. IT之家