This Week in Space Tech: Oct. 13 to 19, 2025
A crowded week delivered big rocket milestones, fresh broadband satellites, a key national security launch, and new rules that shape where and how companies can fly.
Launches and flight tests
SpaceX flew Starship Flight 11 from Starbase, completed a hypersonic reentry, and splashed down as part of its iterative test program.
Amazon’s Project Kuiper added 24 spacecraft on the KF-03 mission aboard a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, bringing the constellation past 150 satellites.
Rocket Lab’s Electron lofted Synspective’s seventh StriX radar imaging satellite from New Zealand, continuing the startup’s SAR buildout under a multi-launch deal.
Two more Starlink batches flew: a predawn Florida mission on Oct 15 and a Vandenberg launch on Oct 18 that marked SpaceX’s 50th Vandenberg flight this year.
China reached a symbolic marker as Long March flights hit the 600-mission milestone while adding new low-Earth-orbit internet satellites.
Government and national security
The Space Development Agency’s Tranche 1 Transport Layer C flew on a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg, deploying 21 communications spacecraft to the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.
NASA rolled the Orion spacecraft into the Vehicle Assembly Building for Artemis II stacking, keeping preparations for the first crewed lunar flyby on track.
JAXA postponed its H3 mission with the new HTV-X1 cargo vehicle because of expected bad weather, resetting Japan’s near-term launch cadence.
Policy and infrastructure
The FCC advanced a suite of space items this month, including proposals to streamline satellite licensing and modernize rules for Earth stations in motion and direct-to-device services, a package watched closely by constellations and startups.
Oman issued a national framework to approve commercial orbital launches in as little as 45 days, clearing the path for Etlaq Spaceport to court international launch providers.
Startup funding and deals
Tokyo-based Space Quarters raised 5 million dollars in seed funding to push robotic in-space construction tools toward orbital and lunar demos later this decade.