October 2026 in Space: Vulcan Grounded, NASA Redraws Artemis

October’s biggest space story was a shortage of launches. United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan, the only certified alternative to SpaceX’s Falcon rockets for the most demanding U.S. national security missions, has not flown since its February 12 launch, nearly nine months ago. A Space Force official said six missions planned for Vulcan have moved to SpaceX rockets, four of which the service has named, and on October 28 ULA set November 13 as its return-to-flight target, on a commercial mission [1] [2] [3] [4]. NASA reorganized Artemis around an Earth-orbit docking test in 2027 and new lunar meeting orbits, while its safety panel questioned the risk in the first landing [5] [6] [7]. Japan sent MMX toward Mars, India launched a navigation satellite, and NASA ended Swift’s science mission [8] [9] [10].

The common thread is capacity: rockets, crew vehicles and launch pads. Many of October’s biggest announcements were plans and targets, not flights.

Vulcan's grounding pushed national security missions onto SpaceX

Vulcan last flew on February 12, launching USSF-87 from Cape Canaveral at 4:22 a.m. EST [11]. Early in the flight, one of its four Northrop Grumman GEM 63XL solid rocket boosters suffered a nozzle failure. The BE-4 main engines and the Centaur upper stage compensated for the reduced and asymmetric thrust, and the payloads reached their intended geosynchronous orbit [4] [12]. It was the second such nozzle failure in four Vulcan flights. The first came on the rocket’s second certification flight in October 2024 [4]. Two weeks after the launch, the Space Force said it would fly no more national security missions on Vulcan until the investigation was complete [13].

What the Space Force said in October. On October 21, Brig. Gen. Eric Zarybnisky, the acting portfolio acquisition executive for space access, said six missions planned for Vulcan have been moved to SpaceX rockets. The moves swapped task orders already awarded to the two companies, beginning with a GPS III launch in April [2]. SpaceNews’s October 24 account divides the six into three GPS launches, one Space Development Agency (SDA) mission and two higher-energy missions that move to Falcon Heavy [3].

Space Systems Command (SSC) gave Air & Space Forces Magazine a list of four [1]:

• GPS III-8, carrying the last GPS III satellite. SSC announced the switch from Vulcan to Falcon 9 on March 20, and the mission launched from Space Launch Complex 40 on April 21 [14] [1].
• An SDA Tranche 1 tracking-layer mission, expected to launch on a Falcon 9 before the end of 2026 [1].
• A payload stack that includes the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Oracle-M cislunar pathfinder. It moved from USSF-112, a Vulcan mission, to USSF-63, a Falcon Heavy mission scheduled for this year [1].
• A Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) missile-warning satellite. It moved from the Vulcan mission USSF-50 to SpaceX’s USSF-174, which will fly on Falcon Heavy. No date was given [1].

The Space Force has not publicly identified the other two GPS launches. Not all six were moved in October: one flew in April, and October is when officials gave the total. As of the October 28 report, only GPS III-8 of the four named missions had launched [1].

How the trades work. These are exchanges, not cancellations. When SSC moved GPS III-8 to SpaceX, it gave ULA USSF-70, a mission originally assigned to SpaceX that is now planned for no earlier than summer 2028 [14]. SSC describes ULA’s missions as delayed, not permanently reassigned [15]. Each payload swap or full mission swap sends a later SpaceX mission back to ULA [1].

Moving a satellite to another rocket means redoing loads, dynamics and integration analysis. “If that work has been done ahead of time, [then] we can pretty rapidly execute the swaps,” Zarybnisky said. Some payloads, he added, “just can’t be swapped for specific reasons” [1]. The Space Force reviews the government launch manifest with the National Reconnaissance Office and NASA every two to three months [1].

Cost and schedule. No official cost figure for the October trades has been published. In July, Inside Defense reported that a Defense Department reprogramming request credited one switch from Vulcan to Falcon 9 with $40 million in savings, and asked Congress to move that money to other accounts [16]. Air & Space Forces Magazine reports that the grounding contributed to delays in several Space Force missions, including the first Next-Gen OPIR launch [1]. Both higher-energy payloads, on USSF-63 and USSF-174, now depend on Falcon Heavy [1].

Investigation status. A team of ULA, Northrop Grumman and the Space Force is running the investigation [4]. In mid-April, Northrop Grumman static-fired a GEM 63XL to demonstrate nozzle design changes [12]. On October 28, ULA said the team had “identified several potential contributors which have been mitigated through design and process improvements to the nozzle.” It did not name a root cause, and said “additional testing and analysis will continue in parallel with the mission” [1] [4].

That mission is Vulcan Leo 1. A Vulcan VC6L with six solid boosters is to carry 40 Amazon Leo satellites from Space Launch Complex 41 on November 13; ULA’s mission page lists 12:54 p.m. EST [4] [17]. ULA said the date is pending range approval [18]. The date is a target. Clearance for military payloads is a separate decision. Zarybnisky said the service will use flight data from Vulcan’s first few commercial missions to plan its next national security launches [1].

Why it matters. ULA and SpaceX are the only companies whose rockets are certified for the most demanding national security missions [1]. With Vulcan grounded, only one of the two certified providers is flying these missions. Ars Technica has reported that SpaceX is declining to sign new Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch contracts [19]. Ars Technica, citing Politico, reported that SpaceX declined to offer launches for three future Space Force missions, two of them for the SDA, and that no other rocket company offered to take them [19] [20]. Zarybnisky acknowledged growing pains as demand for rockets increases: “Temporarily, there are some things we’ll need to work through, again, as we get new providers flying,” he said. Ars reported that he remained optimistic that Blue Origin and ULA would work through their technical problems [19]. SpaceX’s third-quarter results, released October 20, list 18 National Security Space Launch missions, three NASA ISS crew missions and a Starship lunar-surface payload contract among the contracts it signed [21].

The wider U.S. launch squeeze

Ars Technica reported on October 30 that a new Quilty Space analysis estimates that, outside China, launch supply will fall about 150 launches short of demand from satellite operators and civil agencies through 2030. That estimate does not count the surge in U.S. military demand [22]. Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant, commander of SSC, said the Space Force needs a third national security launch site by 2030, adding, “but I’m also a pragmatist.” Ars reports that no site has been chosen and no decision timeline has been set [23].

Spaceflight Now counted 11 SpaceX orbital launches in October and reported that the company’s decreasing launch rate reflects its winding down of Falcon as it turns its focus to Starship [24]. The Starlink 15-18 launch on the evening of October 30, Pacific time, was the 700th launch of a Falcon 9 alone. The 700th launch of the Falcon family, counting Falcon Heavy, came on September 13 [24] [25]. By the same outlet’s count, the October 27 Starlink launch was the first time since July 2025 that SpaceX’s 365-day total fell below 150 [24]. SpaceX’s third-quarter filing reports 35 launches in the quarter, down from 44 a year earlier [21].

On October 29, Ars Technica’s Eric Berger reported that SpaceX has told NASA it will stop flying Crew Dragon by or before 2030. Ars also reported that SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in September that NASA should rely on Boeing for astronaut transportation: “They should fly their capsule. The government paid a lot of money for that” [26]. Earlier in October, Ars reported that SpaceX had stopped selling commercial Falcon 9 launches for missions after 2028 [26]. Citing three sources, Berger also reported that SpaceX told companies building small NASA lunar landers that it will not launch them [26]. On October 22, Kent Rominger of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) noted that the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, which SpaceX is building to bring the International Space Station down, is meant to launch on Falcon. If the station’s life is extended and Falcon is retired, Rominger said, a different rocket would be needed [7].

The would-be replacements announced plans rather than flights. On October 16, Blue Origin announced two more New Glenn launch pads on Florida’s Space Coast, in addition to the two at Launch Complex 36, plus two more booster landing ships and a $330 million factory expansion. The company says that expansion will be able to build up to 150 upper stages a year once complete, which it targets for summer 2027 [27] [28]. New Glenn itself has been grounded since an explosion during a pad test in May [28]. On October 14, Rocket Lab moved Neutron’s first launch to 2027. Ars Technica reports that engineers found voids between carbon-fiber layers in the first-stage propellant tank domes [29]. In Europe, Arianespace set November 23 as the earliest date for the 10th Ariane 6 flight. That mission, VA271, is to carry 36 Amazon Leo satellites [30].

NASA redrew Artemis around Earth-orbit tests and new lunar orbits

On October 23, NASA set out the plans behind its target of a 2028 landing [5] [6] [31]. Artemis III, which NASA says will launch in 2027, is now a planned 14-day crewed mission in low Earth orbit [5]. Ars Technica reports that officials said “summer” 2027 [31]. The sequence:

• Blue Origin launches a Blue Moon Mark 2 test article to a circular orbit about 273 miles up, where it can wait up to 30 days.
• Days later, Orion launches on the Space Launch System (SLS), docks beside the lander’s crew cabin, and the crew spends about two days inside it.
• Orion then docks to the nose of a Starship Version 3 test article launched from Florida [5].

Neither lander test article has launched, and none of these operations has been flown.

The bigger change is where Orion meets its lander on later missions. NASA dropped the near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon, the orbit planned for Gateway, and each lander provider now gets its own meeting orbit [6]:

• Starship. Tanker Starships fill a depot in low Earth orbit that fuels the lander. The lander then docks with Orion in Earth orbit and pushes the combined stack into low lunar orbit. NASA says it is modifying Orion so Starship can do this [6]. Ars Technica describes the docking as taking place in high Earth orbit [31].
• Blue Origin. No propellant transfer at first. Three transfer stages derived from Blue Moon hardware send the Mark 2 lander to an elliptical polar lunar orbit [6]. NASA’s chart puts that orbit about 8,500 km above the surface. NASA is studying a low-lunar-orbit option, which Artemis program manager Jeremy Parsons said would save substantial lander propellant [31].
• Orion. NASA is working with ULA on an “extended” Centaur V upper stage that would let SLS and Orion reach low lunar orbit. That addresses Orion’s long-standing shortfall in maneuvering capability (delta-v), which drove the choice of the halo orbit [31].

NASA will decide which company lands first based on lander readiness. Both providers must fly an uncrewed demonstration first [6].

The open question is refueling. The day before the update, ASAP member Charlie Precourt said the panel had been told that about 22 launches would be needed to supply propellant for a Starship lander to reach lunar orbit. Elon Musk replied on X that the number would be six to eight [7]. NASA declined to give a figure. Administrator Jared Isaacman called six to eight a possible “ultimate potential end state” [31].

The panel also noted that NASA requires one uncrewed test landing followed by an engine restart, but no demonstration of liftoff from the Moon and return to lunar orbit. ASAP said it will recommend that NASA re-examine Artemis IV’s objectives and possibly its architecture [7]. According to SpacePolicyOnline, Kelvin Manning, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for human exploration, said SpaceX plans to demonstrate cryogenic propellant transfer in early 2027 and an uncrewed landing in late 2027 [7]. Both are company targets.

On October 31, Wang Xiang, chief designer of China’s crewed lunar program, said two rockets will separately send the Mengzhou crew ship and the Lanyue lander into Earth-Moon transfer orbit, and the two will dock in lunar orbit. Completed tests include Mengzhou’s pad-abort and maximum-dynamic-pressure abort tests, a Lanyue landing and takeoff test, and a low-altitude demonstration of Long March 10 [32]. On October 22, the China Manned Space Agency asked for payloads of up to 50 kg in total for an uncrewed Lanyue flight planned before the crewed landing. Proposals are due March 1, 2027 [33].

A Russian satellite's close approach drew a U.S. response

On October 15, the Russian military satellite Kosmos 2612 made a rapid approach to ICEYE-X36, a U.S.-registered radar-imaging satellite owned by the U.S. subsidiary of the Finnish company ICEYE [34]. According to the tracking company LeoLabs, Kosmos 2612 closed from about 350 km to less than 5 km by early October 16, then made small adjustments over the weekend to hold a close relative position [35]. LeoLabs said it approached within roughly 500 meters at one point and that “exact separation estimates carry uncertainty because of the repeated maneuvers and challenging tracking geometry” [35]. By October 19, Kosmos 2612 had begun moving away [35]. On October 21, State Department official Brian Hardesty told the UN General Assembly’s First Committee, according to Ars Technica, that Kosmos 2612’s behaviors “appear consistent with an on-orbit weapons operation” and that the decision to conduct them was “deliberately reckless.” Russian diplomat Konstantin Vorontsov called the concerns “unfounded” and said the activity was “purely peaceful in character” [34]. In May, five of the six satellites Russia launched in April raised their inclinations to match the ICEYE satellite’s orbital plane, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) [36].

STC’s longer analysis of the encounter is already published: A Russian Satellite’s Uninvited Approach to a Commercial Radar Satellite Exposes a Gap in Space Rules.

Military space: data relays, a commercial reserve and a cargo test

On October 10, after an automated abort on October 5, a Falcon 9 launched 21 Northrop Grumman-built Tranche 1 Transport Layer satellites from Vandenberg for the SDA. That brought the number of Tranche 1 satellites in orbit to 84 [37]. The SDA release reports launch and deployment of these data-relay satellites, not operational service. On October 1, a Falcon Heavy flew its first mission for the National Reconnaissance Office, NROL-97, and expended its center core [38].

On October 22, the Space Force named the first six companies with operational contracts under its Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve (CASR) for space domain awareness: Anduril, InTrack, Slingshot, LeoLabs, EOS of Australia and NorthStar of Canada. Officials said the initial dollar values are low and the roster will grow [39]. The idea loosely resembles the Civil Reserve Air Fleet: the Space Force arranges in advance to draw on commercial capacity in a crisis [39].

SpaceX’s second Starfall reentry capsule, launched October 20 on the Bandwagon-5 rideshare with 31 other payloads [40], carried instrumented cargo pods for the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Rocket Cargo project. The pods measured temperature, shock and vibration [41]. AFRL said on October 26 that the pods were recovered after splashdown in the Pacific [42]. The flight tested the cargo environment; it was not an operational delivery service. Six of Xona Space Systems’ Pulsar navigation satellites also rode on Bandwagon-5. Xona says four of them will support a beta navigation service in several countries beginning in early 2027, and on October 22 it announced a $250 million Series D funding round [43]. Beta service is a target.

Station operations and NASA's next step in low Earth orbit

Crew-13 docked at the ISS at 7:05 p.m. EDT on October 1, 7 hours and 55 minutes after launch. NASA calls that the fastest launch-to-docking of a U.S. spacecraft in station history [44]. Crew-12 splashed down off Los Angeles on October 8 after 237 days in orbit [45]. CRS-35 launched October 13 with the last pair of roll-out solar arrays [46]. On October 29, Anil Menon and Joshua Kutryk installed the seventh of eight arrays during a 7-hour, 11-minute spacewalk. It was the 100th U.S. spacewalk [47]. On November 5, Menon and Kutryk installed and deployed the eighth and final array during a six-hour, 59-minute spacewalk that ended at 3:35 p.m. EST [48]. NASA says the full set increases the station’s power capacity from 160 kilowatts to about 215 kilowatts [48].

On October 9, NASA released the final request for proposals for commercial stations to follow the ISS. Responses are due December 8, and NASA expects to award contracts to “two or more” companies in spring 2027 [49] [50]. Each Phase 1 winner is guaranteed at least $100 million [50]. ASAP cautioned that commercial stations are developing more slowly than expected, and that Crew Dragon is the only U.S. vehicle now able to carry crews to and from the ISS [7].

Science: Swift ends, Hubble options, and two Webb results

NASA ended the science mission of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory after its final observation on October 20. The spacecraft had dropped below 275 km, where atmospheric drag prevents steady pointing, and on November 2 NASA relayed a Space Force prediction of reentry on November 4 [51]. Swift reentered Earth’s atmosphere on November 4 at 7:39 a.m. EST (6:39 a.m. CST) over the North Sumatra region of Indonesia, at about 3.4 degrees north latitude and 98.6 degrees east longitude, the Space Force confirmed, according to NASA. NASA expected most of the spacecraft to burn up, but said some components may have survived reentry [52]. Swift was built for a two-year mission and operated for nearly 22 years, observing more than 2,000 gamma-ray bursts and contributing to about 7,000 papers [8]. Its end follows Katalyst’s robotic servicing mission, which ended in August without an attempt to boost Swift [53], as STC covered in September’s roundup. NASA says it is studying how to rapidly follow up transient events without Swift, using existing telescopes and commercial capabilities [8].

On October 29, NASA issued a request for information on commercial options to boost Hubble to a higher orbit, service it, or dispose of it safely. Responses are due November 30 [54]. A request for information does not commit NASA to a mission.

NASA also changed how it selects science missions. A letter from Science Mission Directorate head Nicola Fox, posted October 21, describes “Competition Model 2.0.” Proposals compete on science first, and detailed engineering and cost plans are deferred [55]. For Discovery, New Frontiers and astrophysics probe missions, NASA projects that the time from announcement of opportunity to the second-step selection will fall from about 35 months to about 19.5 months [55]. That is a projection; no mission has yet been selected this way.

Webb pinpointed the host galaxy of the most distant fast radio burst seen to date. FRB 20240304B comes from an actively star-forming dwarf galaxy at redshift 2.148, seen about 3 billion years after the Big Bang [56]. Neutron-star mergers take billions of years to unfold and should favor older galaxies. Lead author Manisha Caleb said, “Our work suggests that it’s very unlikely that this FRB was produced by a merger” [56]. A separate Webb study sorted “extreme debris disks” around young stars into silica-rich and silica-poor groups. The team interprets the silica-rich third as debris from high-energy impacts between Mars-sized bodies [57].

Japan, India and South Korea

JAXA launched the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission on H3 Flight 10 at 04:41:03 JST on October 20 (19:41 UTC October 19). The spacecraft separated about 71 minutes later [9]. On October 21, JAXA reported that the solar arrays were deployed, three-axis attitude control was established, the medium-gain antenna was released, and the spacecraft was healthy. It then moved to initial functional checks before the cruise to Mars [58]. Arrival at Mars, sampling at Phobos and the return of samples are still targets.

ISRO’s GSLV-F18 launched the NVS-03 navigation satellite at 23:51 IST on October 30, into a 170 × 38,080 km transfer orbit [10] [59]. The first orbit-raising burn on October 31 lifted it to about 5,478 × 37,833 km [59]. On November 4, ISRO said four orbit maneuvers had been completed and the satellite had reached geosynchronous orbit (35,765 × 36,196 km) at a 29.98° inclination, with normal health [60]. ISRO has not announced a date for entering NavIC service [59] [60].

South Korea’s Nuri flew for the fifth time on October 7. The Korea AeroSpace Administration says it deployed five NEONSAT microsatellites and nine CubeSats into their target orbits, adding to South Korea’s first microsatellite constellation [61].

Europe and the policy calendar

The 350th ESA Council meeting (October 21–22) prepared for an Intermediate Ministerial Meeting in Rome on December 15. It discussed the Director General’s proposal for “Europe’s Future in Space Exploration,” covering low Earth orbit, the Moon and Mars, and it reviewed relations with the EU [62]. ESA describes the Rome meeting as a step toward programme and funding decisions at its 2028 ministerial [62]. On October 4, at the International Astronautical Congress’s meeting of ministers and parliamentarians in Antalya, 32 ministers, parliamentarians and space agency heads from 21 countries endorsed the Antalya Declaration for Space for Peace [63].

In Washington, the Federal Communications Commission on October 6 authorized SpaceX to deploy 15,000 direct-to-device satellites in nine very low orbital shells between 326 and 335 km. It deferred some of SpaceX’s spectrum requests [64]. An authorization is permission to deploy, not a deployed system.

Looking ahead: November 2026

Targets as of November 10, 2026 (post-month verification). Targets are schedules, not results, unless marked completed or underway:

• November 4 (completed): Swift reentered over the North Sumatra region of Indonesia at 6:39 a.m. CST, the Space Force confirmed, according to NASA [52].
• November 4 (completed): NVS-03 orbit raising; ISRO says the satellite has reached geosynchronous orbit after four maneuvers and is in normal health. Entry into NavIC service has not been announced [60].
• November 5 (completed): Menon and Kutryk installed the final ISS roll-out solar array during a six-hour, 59-minute spacewalk that ended at 3:35 p.m. EST [48].
• November 13: Vulcan Leo 1, Vulcan’s return-to-flight target; ULA lists 12:54 p.m. EST and said the date is pending range approval [4] [17] [18]. A date for resuming national security launches on Vulcan has not been set [1].
• November 13 (target): Starship Flight 15 is preparing to launch as soon as Friday, November 13, pending regulatory approval, SpaceX says. The 75-minute launch window will open at 4:45 p.m. CT [65]. Elon Musk has said SpaceX will try to catch the ship [24].
• November 23, no earlier than: the 10th Ariane 6 flight, VA271, with 36 Amazon Leo satellites [30].
• November 30: responses due to NASA’s Hubble request for information [54].
• Continuing: MMX checkout [58].
• December: commercial station proposals due December 8 [50], and ESA’s Intermediate Ministerial Meeting in Rome on December 15 [62].

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