Covering All Things Florida
Artemis II made the trip from Launch Complex 39B to NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building today. The approximately 4-mile trek aboard Crawler-Transporter 2 began at around 9 AM ET and lasted until around 8 PM, when it arrived inside Bay 3 for repairs and battery updates.
2026 promises to be the most transformative year in American spaceflight since the Apollo era. From Artemis II astronauts circling the Moon to the first commercial space stations, here’s what’s coming.
Today, in 1968 aboard Apollo 8, NASA astronaut Bill Anders captured “Earthrise” — one of the most iconic photographs of the Apollo era. For the first time, humans were able to the Earth from the perspective of the moon. Later, Anders recalled seeing “…a very fragile looking Earth, a very delicate looking Earth, I was immediately almost overcome by the thought that here we came all this way to the Moon, and yet the most significant thing we’re seeing is our own home planet, the Earth.” Using a highly modified Hasselblad 500 EL camera outfitted with a 250mm telephoto lens, Anders, with a click of the button had captured a moment epiphany and perhaps one of the great works of art of our time.
Flight 11 was the final launch of the Block 2 variant of Starship. That mission was promising, and both the Booster and Starship survived and splashed down successfully to their respective targets.
Following this mission, SpaceX won’t be launching Starship for a hot minute, taking some time to make some significant changes to both their facilities at Starbase and the launch vehicles.
On June 26, 2025, Northrop Grumman conducted the first full-scale static test of the Booster Obsolescence and Life Extension (BOLE) solid rocket booster, a next-generation component intended for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) Block 2 configuration. The test, performed at the company’s Promontory, Utah, facility, aimed to validate the BOLE’s advanced design but was marred by an anomaly in the booster’s nozzle, raising questions about its development timeline and the SLS program’s future.
Hard times for the Space Coast’s local economy might be ahead.
The Administration’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget includes a 24.3% reduction in NASA’s funding, decreasing the agency’s budget from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion. This so-called “skinny” budget blueprint is a high level one short of full details, which will be forthcoming. After that, Congress will take up and begin debate on a budget bill.
This proposed significant cut threatens to eliminate key programs and could result in substantial job losses at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), a cornerstone of the Space Coast’s economy, and that will have ripple effects that everyone who lives in the region will feel.
Washington, D.C. – On February 26, 2025, the House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, chaired by Representative Mike Haridopolos (R-Fla.), will hold a pivotal hearing to assess NASA’s Artemis program.
Despite recent assurances from NASA that Artemis II will be safe to fly, at least one former astronaut still has his doubts.
Jared Isaacman, the billionaire entrepreneur, philanthropist, and private astronaut, has been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as the next Administrator of NASA. Isaacman, best known to the general public as the commander of both the groundbreaking Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn space missions and the first private citizen to conduct a spacewalk, is also the CEO of the payment processing giant Shift4, a rapidly growing company that Isaacman started when he was sixteen years old.
Some weeks, they say, are better than others. In terms of Spaceflight in the US, this week was one of those better ones, as there has been major activities and milestones set this week:
NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), a centerpiece of the Artemis program, may face cancellation as rising costs and delays spark calls for reevaluation. SpaceX’s Starship, a fully reusable spacecraft under development, is emerging as a strong candidate to replace SLS for the program’s lunar missions, potentially marking a significant shift in NASA’s approach to deep space exploration.
