6–7 minutes

WASHINGTON — United Launch Alliance’s corporate parents have guaranteed a loan to the company as it addresses “financial challenges” caused by the grounding of its Vulcan Centaur rocket.

In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing about its second-quarter financial results July 23, Lockheed Martin revealed that it provided a bank guarantee for a loan taken by ULA during the quarter. Lockheed owns 50% of ULA, while Boeing owns the other half.

“During the first quarter of 2026, ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket experienced performance challenges that are negatively affecting ULA’s financial condition and results of operations,” Lockheed stated in the filing. “In the second quarter of 2026, we agreed to guarantee certain ULA borrowings under which maximum potential future payments amount to $500 million.”

“The fair value of the guarantee obligation we recognized in the second quarter of 2026 amounts to $64 million and our investment in ULA has increased by a corresponding amount,” it added.

The “performance challenges” that Lockheed mentioned involved an anomaly with one of the solid rocket boosters on a Vulcan launch in February. The vehicle was still able to successfully complete its mission, delivering a payload for the U.S. Space Force on a mission designated USSF-87, but Vulcan has not launched since then as ULA and Northrop Grumman, the manufacturer of the solid rocket motors, investigate the incident. A similar anomaly took place on the second Vulcan launch in October 2024.

In a statement to SpaceNews, ULA confirmed it took out a loan with the backing of Lockheed Martin but did not disclose details of the financing.

“In Lockheed Martin’s second quarter earnings release, they shared that they have committed to a bank guarantee to assist with ULA’s near-term financial challenges,” ULA stated. “ULA’s financial position has been impacted due to the performance challenges associated with the anomaly with the solid rocket booster nozzle experienced on two of the Vulcan launches.”

Neither Lockheed nor ULA said whether Boeing, the other owner of ULA, also participated in the loan guarantee. Industry sources said they expect Boeing to have contributed based on its ownership stake. Boeing, which will release its second-quarter financial results July 28, did not immediately respond to questions on the topic.

“We and Boeing expect to provide additional financial support to ULA to support its liquidity or ongoing operations and could incur impairment and operating losses if the Vulcan Centaur rocket does not perform consistent with ULA’s assumptions,” Lockheed stated in its SEC filing.

ULA entered this year with expectations to sharply increase the launch rate of Vulcan, which had flown only three times. At a briefing in February, two days before the USSF-87 launch, the company said it expected to perform 18 to 22 launches in 2026, including four Atlas 5 launches and up to 18 Vulcan launches.

Vulcan has not flown since the USSF-87 mission. Atlas 5 has flown three times this year, all carrying Amazon LEO satellites, most recently July 2. The remaining Atlas 5 rockets are reserved for launches of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew spacecraft, which has suffered its own technical challenges that have made its schedule of future launches uncertain.

ULA has not announced when it expects to resume Vulcan Centaur launches. Northrop, in its July 21 earnings call, said it had redesigned components on the motor that have been confirmed in a static-fire test but added that the company may not begin deliveries of the redesigned motors until the end of the year.

Space Force officials said in April the service was considering changes to its manifest of launches using Vulcan to move forward missions that do not require any solid rocket boosters. However, it has not announced any specific plans to do so since then.

Despite ULA’s current challenges, both the company and Lockheed remain optimistic about Vulcan in the long term.

“While this is a challenging time bringing our Vulcan rocket up to its optimal launch rate, ULA is well positioned for the future and continues to be laser focused on our customers’ needs and achieving a reliable and sustainable manifest,” ULA stated, citing a backlog of more than 80 launches.

Mark Kvasnak, vice president of investor relations at Lockheed Martin, said in the company’s July 23 earnings call that the company had reduced the profit forecast for its space division, which had been between $1.385 billion and $1.415 billion, to between $1.34 billion and $1.38 billion “due to reduced ULA equity earnings because of the ongoing technical investigation of the Vulcan launch anomaly experienced earlier this year.”

But, he added, “the second half of 2026 will be stronger than the first half.”

6–7 minutes

HELSINKI — A classified satellite launched by China in June is operating in a creative orbit, giving it a unique vantage point over the geostationary belt.

Shijian-31 launched on a Long March 3B June 16 from Xichang spaceport, with navigation warnings and the launch vehicle type suggesting an insertion into geostationary transfer orbit. The satellite was later tracked in a specialized Molniya orbit, joining China’s two Shiyan-10 satellites and TJS-13 and TJS-21. However, the concept of a traditional Molniya orbit has been applied by China in a manner never seen before, according to outside analyses.

Analysis by Integrity ISR and a recent followup by space situational awareness (SSA) company ComSpOC show a utilization of the Molniya orbit concept to potentially provide a unique view of activities in geostationary orbit (GEO).

Molniya orbits use an inclination of 63.4 degrees to prevent a drifting of a satellite’s argument of perigee, caused by Earth’s asymmetric mass distribution. Traditionally, this inclined and highly elliptical orbit has been used to maintain an apogee, or farthest point from Earth, over the northern hemisphere, affording a satellite a long viewing time over an area of interest without the costly need to burn fuel to correct its orbit to maintain its vantage point. This means a pair or more of satellites can provide constant visibility over the northern hemisphere, making the orbit useful for high latitude communications and missile early warning. China’s aforementioned Shiyan and TJS satellites could, for example, detect telltale heat signatures over the Arctic.

Shijian-31, however, is using a Molniya type orbit to reach apogee over the equator, allowing it to perform sweeps of GEO. Integrity ISR first flagged Shijian-31 in a Molniya orbit in a June 26 post, using orbital data from SpaceTrack. ISR explained that the satellite is in a unique orbit, allowing Shijian-31 to loiter over the equator and monitor satellites orbiting in GEO, which is situated at around 35,786 km above the equator.

While satellites in Molniya orbits usually orbit every 12 hours, Shijian-31 orbits once every 12.5 hours, meaning it does not pass the same point of longitude every orbit. Instead, each swing sees Shijian-31 shift approximately 15.7 degrees in longitude. This means Shijian-31 can sweep the entire GEO belt around Earth roughly once every 23 days, though its apogee (approximately 39,900 km) takes it a few thousand kilometers beyond the GEO belt

ComSpOC also noted the activities of Shijian-31 in a July 21 post on X, describing it as a “satellite with an orbit we have never seen before.” The post includes a video illustrating Shijian-31’s orbit, also showing how it sweeps around GEO over time, gaining a unique view down on the entire GEO belt.

Shijian-31: a satellite with an orbit we have never seen before

China launched Shijian-31 on June 16 from Xichang, officially described as a "space environment detection" mission. The orbital elements suggest more going on.

The inclination 63.46° sits at the value where perigee… pic.twitter.com/rxRPrkOEEm

— COMSPOC_OPS (@COMSPOC_OPS) July 21, 2026

Shijian-31 is nominally part of a broad series of often classified experimental satellites. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) provided no images of the satellite, describing it tersely as “mainly used for space environment exploration,” in keeping with many satellites in the series. Shijian satellites have also been used for pioneering refueling tests and space situational awareness in GEO.

Integrity ISR states that it may be extremely challenging to get a good glimpse of Shijian-31 and ascertain its payloads and capabilities. Its perigee of just under 2,000 km is well above most low Earth orbit remote sensing satellites, and it passes thousands of kilometers away from spacecraft such as the U.S. GSSAP series in GEO. At the same time, if China wanted to intersect the GEO belt, this could be done with a relatively small fuel cost. A relatively small retrograde burn at perigee, bringing a velocity change of 50 meters per second, would “lower apogee to roughly 36,671 km, resulting in SJ-31 passing directly through the GEO neighborhood as it completes its orbit.”

“With SJ-31, Chinese space operators have displayed orbital mechanics mastery and more than a little creativity,” the Integrity ISR post stated.

Victoria Samson of the Secure World Foundation told SpaceNews that the mission is “pretty unusual” and hard to characterize with limited information. “SJ-31 has only been up in orbit for about a month so perhaps as time goes on, more details will be revealed via its behavior or activities,” Samson said.

The mission could be part of a “larger trend toward inspector satellites and an increased interest in having strong situational awareness of activities and hardware in GEO,” Samson added.

The U.S. has the GSSAP series of inspector satellites, while Russia has the Luch 2 satellite operating in GEO, following the demise of the original Luch (Olymp) satellite in January. China has Shijian satellites thought to be SSA spacecraft in GEO, and has earlier studied creative orbits to boost its GEO awareness, such as looping a satellite around the moon to be able to insert it into a retrograde geosynchronous orbit.

5–7 minutes

WASHINGTON — Relativity Space struck a deal with Space Florida to build manufacturing and test facilities for its Terran R rocket on Florida’s Space Coast.

Space Florida, the state’s space development and financing authority, announced July 21 that it signed an agreement to help finance construction of a new production facility for the company’s Terran R rocket near Cape Canaveral.

The agreement also includes a commitment by Relativity Space to expand test and launch infrastructure at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The Florida Department of Transportation will provide up to $134 million in financing for those projects through its Spaceport Improvement Program.

“Expanding our capacity in Florida enables our ability to scale the Terran R program to support commercial, scientific and national security missions,” Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Relativity, said in a statement.

The new production facility, whose exact location was not announced by the company or Space Florida, would be in addition to Relativity’s existing factory in Long Beach, California. The company did not disclose a schedule for the factory, although Space Florida said the investments would create “thousands of high-paying new jobs” in the state by the end of 2034.

Relativity is developing Terran R, a medium-lift launch vehicle with a reusable first stage. The company will conduct launches from Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 16.

Relativity has issued a regular series of updates on development of Terran R and upgrades to the launch site, but has not recently stated when it expects the rocket to be ready for its first launch. The company, though, was recently added to the Space Force’s National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1 contract, making it eligible to compete for future launches by the service that do not require the highest levels of mission assurance reserved for Lane 2 missions.

A Florida production facility for Terran R, besides providing additional capacity, could improve the company’s logistics. In recent updates, Relativity noted it transported a Terran R second stage from its California factory to NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi for testing by ship through the Panama Canal, suggesting it will have to take the same approach to transport stages to its Florida launch site. Launch capacity concerns

Florida officials hailed the deal. “Relativity is exactly the partner that helps advance our mission to solidify Florida as the world’s hub for aerospace commerce,” Rob Long, president and chief executive of Space Florida, said in a statement.

“This project is a win for Florida’s commercial space economy and is the direct result of how our infrastructure, strategy and talent ecosystem makes Florida the inevitable choice. We look forward to actively helping them grow in our state,” he added.

What has attracted many space companies to Florida is access to launch sites at Cape Canaveral. However, those sites have become increasingly congested as launch activity increases. A report in June by NASA’s Office of Inspector General warned that KSC could reach capacity by 2029 as growth in launch activity outstrips infrastructure there.

“The Cape was developed for a different space industry and program, and the infrastructure is challenged,” acknowledged Brian Hughes, director of KSC, during a July 21 panel discussion at Florida House here. “But the beauty of strategic planning is a lot of important legwork has been done at Kennedy to continue to stay ahead of the curve.”

He cited legislation recently introduced by Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., and Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla., that would address some of those issues. The Space Ready 2.0 Act would establish a pilot program to allow NASA to accept voluntary contributions from industry to fund infrastructure upgrades at centers like Kennedy Space Center.

“Those needs, if they relied on the federal taxpayer alone, the pace could get off here in the near future,” Hughes said. “But the beauty is, we don’t have to have as much concern about that because of what’s emerging.”

“We want to go and talk about all those great things in space, but you got to get off the ground, right?” said Mike Miller, vice president of external affairs at Space Florida, on the panel. “So you have to have the roads, the bridges, the wastewater, the LNG, all those things, and those are challenges.”

He said Space Florida had a good relationship with both NASA and the Space Force to enable that increase in launch activity. “We are trying to support what is the greatest American endeavor of all.”

5–6 minutes

WASHINGTON — The pilot of the Artemis 2 mission says NASA’s return to the moon should start with human landings in less challenging equatorial regions rather than go directly to the south pole.

Speaking at the NASA Exploration Science Forum at Ames Research Center on July 21, Victor Glover made a plea to NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman to reconsider plans to have the first Artemis crewed landings go to the lunar south pole because of the difficulties of accessing that region.

Asked in an extended discussion with conference attendees about his preferred landing site for the first crewed landing of the Artemis campaign, Glover emphasized the importance of “familiar” locations like those closer to the lunar equator used by the Apollo missions more than half a century ago.

“If you want to go fast, go familiar,” he said. “We want to get to the surface. If we want to land soon, familiar, daylight, equator.”

One reason he preferred equatorial regions is the ease of getting there and back. NASA’s plans for landings at the lunar south pole had involved the use of a near-rectilinear halo orbit, a highly elliptical orbit that would also have been used by the Gateway. However, that orbit would have required astronauts to spend up to a week on the lunar surface before Orion or the Gateway would be in position for them to depart.

Glover cited a hypothetical case of an astronaut who suffers a burst appendix during an Artemis landing mission. “If it ruptures on landing day, you’re stuck for a week. That’s a big deal to me, and I don’t like that plan,” he said. “The equator gives me opportunity to save that person.”

Polar landing sites pose other challenges. The sun is low on the horizon there, casting long shadows that can hamper landings and also make it difficult to walk or drive in the direction of the sun.

“You think driving home into the sunset is challenging? Imagine being on another celestial body and going from this room to low sun angle in a suit,” he said.

He advocated for a more stepwise approach that would start with landings closer to the equator to build up experience toward polar landings, comparing it to test flight programs that incrementally expand the envelope in speed and altitude. “You have a process for accepting risk more and more, but also retiring it right,” he said.

“I think we need to be realistic and work our way to the south pole, and maybe not try to go there first,” he said.

While the lunar south pole has been the target of Artemis crewed missions for several years, in large part because of the potential for ice deposits in permanently shadowed craters, Glover’s comments are not the first time an agency official has suggested that alternative sites closer to the equator could be considered.

“We have opened up the performance specification for the early landing missions in as many ways as we can,” Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator, said during a session of the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in March.

That included different orbits around the moon from which the landing would be staged, as well as other, unspecified constraints, “to make it as agile as possible” and give the landing providers freedom to propose alternative approaches.

“We’re not yet giving up on the south pole, and I don’t think we will,” he added. “We need to challenge ourselves and we need to go to some place we’ve never been.”

NASA has since announced it will no longer pursue the lunar Gateway and will consider other orbits for lunar landings on at least the initial Artemis missions. At the Artemis 3 crew announcement event in June, for example, SpaceX said its revised approach involves its Starship lunar lander docking with Orion in low Earth orbit and then going to the moon, entering a low lunar orbit rather than a near-rectilinear halo orbit.

During a panel discussion at the NASA Exploration Science Forum shortly before Glover spoke, Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist in NASA’s Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate, said the Artemis 4 and 5 missions are still planned for the south polar region of the moon, but added that specific landing locations will depend on the capabilities of the landers.

“We don’t know exactly what the lander capabilities will be as they’re developing, so we’re keeping that trade space open until we have that information in hand and can really narrow down exactly where we’re going,” he said.

Glover said his desire to land first in equatorial regions was just his opinion, and one that had not found an audience within the agency. “That’s just me, and nobody’s asking me those questions,” he said.

“I think the way we’re attacking it is going to have some challenges,” he said later. “So, if Jared listens to this recording, I mean, I had this conversation with your predecessor, and we should talk.”

4–5 minutes

WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman is taking another charge related to the solid rocket boosters it provides for the Vulcan Centaur rocket and suggested updated motors might not be ready until the end of the year.

The company said in the release of its second-quarter earnings July 21 that it took a $91 million unfavorable adjustment to its earnings at completion on its GEM 63XL motor program. Northrop announced a $71 million charge in the first quarter for the same program.

That motor is used in the solid rocket boosters on United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket. On the most recent Vulcan launch in February, a booster suffered a “significant performance anomaly,” although the rocket was still able to place its payload into its planned orbit.

Neither Northrop nor ULA has disclosed details about the cause of the anomaly. In an earnings call, Kathy Warden, president and chief executive of Northrop Grumman, said the company had taken unspecified “corrective actions” that included new components for the motor.

“We progressed on the root cause investigation on the GEM 63XL program, and we are implementing corrective actions to address the anomaly we experienced on a launch in the first quarter,” she said. “These include a component redesign, which has now been proven in a successful static-fire test.”

However, she indicated that the redesigned motors may not be delivered for several months. “We expect to begin delivering the redesigned motors by the end of the year,” she said.

Vulcan has not launched since the anomaly on the February launch, and ULA has not disclosed when the vehicle will return to flight. U.S. Space Force officials said in April the service was considering resuming Vulcan launches in a configuration that did not use solid rocket boosters but have not announced specific plans to do so.

Despite the problems with the GEM 63XL, Northrop executives were optimistic that the program’s financial performance would improve. John Greene, the company’s chief financial officer, said the company expected sales to increase in its space division in the second half of the year. “This growth is primarily driven by higher volumes on national security space programs, new awards and improved performance on GEM 63XL,” he said. HALO update

The company also reported lower performance in the second quarter on the Habitation and Logistics Outpost, or HALO, program. That is a module Northrop had been developing for the lunar Gateway.

Earlier this year, NASA announced it would not pursue the Gateway, focusing instead on a lunar base. That has put the future of HALO into question, even as Northrop deals with a corrosion issue with the module.

“HALO can still be repurposed for any mission, and it’s the most mature technology to support a deep space or lunar habitat,” Northrop said in April, but neither the company nor NASA has elaborated on those potential alternative uses.

“We are working with NASA to take the technology that we were developing under the HALO program and still have that contribute to their future Gateway plans,” Warden said during the earnings call.

“We are in the process of restructuring the contract to do that,” she continued. “It will reduce revenue this year as we outlined in our filings, but it will extend it over a longer period of time as we work deliverables into the new NASA plan.”

4–5 minutes

WASHINGTON — Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 rocket successfully lifted off on its inaugural flight July 18, becoming the first commercial Indian rocket to reach orbit.

Vikram-1 lifted off at 2:35 a.m. Eastern from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, India’s main spaceport. The liftoff was delayed by 35 minutes because of a technical issue found at the T-minus 5-minute point in the countdown.

The rocket closely followed its flight path after liftoff, with the three solid-fuel stages performing as expected. The rocket deployed a liquid-propellant kick stage, the orbit adjustment module, which fired for about six minutes. The company declared that the upper stage reached its planned 450-kilometer low Earth orbit 15 minutes after liftoff.

This inaugural launch of Vikram-1, called Mission Aagaman (Sanskrit for “arrival”) by the company, carried two cubesats, one built by Skyroot and the other by another Indian startup, Grahaa Space. It also carried hosted payloads from Dcubed and Cosmoserve Space as well as miscellaneous other items, including postcards signed by people such as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The company went into the launch cautiously optimistic while acknowledging the track record of failures on first flights of new rockets.

“We have done everything that could be done to test Vikram-1 on the ground. On July 18, we are eager to see how Vikram-1 performs in the real flight environment for the first time,” said Pawan Kumar Chandana, co-founder and chief executive of Skyroot, in a prelaunch statement. “This is our first test flight, and we will be getting valuable data from it.”

In comments onstage at the launch site after the rocket reached orbit, after he and co-founder Naga Bharath Daka took a call from Modi, Chandana was elated. “Absolutely no words,” he said.

“I think this is a historic moment not just for Skyroot but also for India and the entire global space sector,” he said. “In the first attempt reaching orbit, I never thought it was possible, but the Skyroot team made it possible.”

Vikram-1 is designed to place up to 350 kilograms into low Earth orbit. An upgraded version called Vikram-1U, with strap-on boosters, will increase that payload performance to 550 kilograms.

During the launch webcast, the company said it planned a series of test flights before beginning commercial launches but did not discuss details. Ashwin Mahavadi, senior vice president for business and strategy at Skyroot, said at the Spacetide conference earlier this month that the company planned up to two more Vikram-1 launches this year.

Skyroot raised $60 million in May to scale up production of the Vikram-1 rocket and develop a larger vehicle, Vikram-2.

The successful launch is a milestone for India’s efforts to develop a commercial space industry. That includes a series of government reforms, including access to the launch site used by Vikram-1.

Chandana praised the Indian space agency ISRO and IN-SPACe, the Indian agency charged with promoting and authorizing commercial space activities, for their support of the Vikram-1 launch.

“India is proud to be the fastest-growing space tech ecosystem in the world, and now we achieved one of the biggest milestones ever in India’s space sector: the first private orbital rocket reaching orbit on the very first attempt,” he said. “It still feels like a dream.”