There’s clearly a pragmatic incentive to allow reused rockets. The Space Force expects to save $52.7 million for the GPS III missions alone. It might also be difficult to insist on brand new rockets. SpaceX is shifting its focus to Starship, and might not be eager to make more Falcon 9 rockets than necessary.

This also reflects added trust in SpaceX. Although the company has clearly played a crucial role in US government launches through projects like Crew Dragon, the contract represents another level of confidence.

You might want to dial back your expectations for the first high-altitude SpaceX Starship flight. Elon Musk now says the flight with the SN8 prototype will top out at 15km, or close to 50,000ft, instead of the 18km and 60,000ft he’d mentioned earlier. It’s not clear what prompted the lowered expectations, but Musk added that the rocket would get its nosecone and front flaps “next week.”

He also showed current progress on the prototype, noting that the rear body flaps were already in place. An SN9 prototype is due in October.

SpaceX is nearly done with short-hop Starship test flights. Elon Musk has shared (via TechCrunch) that the company’s SN8 Starship prototype should be finished in “about a week,” and will conduct Starship’s first high-altitude flight. After static fire tests and checkouts, SpaceX will attempt a 60,000-foot return trip with the rocket.

The machine will also have flaps and a nosecone, Musk said. Recent “tin can” prototypes like SN5 and SN6 have had a simulated weight on top instead of a real nosecone, and haven’t had flaps to steer flight.

Astra stressed that it didn’t expect to reach orbit with its first rocket. It anticipated three flights before reaching that milestone. The mission still ended sooner than expected, though, and the company positioned the premature end as a chance to collect “valuable experience” and flight data. It remained confident that could can reach orbit as planned.

The follow-up Rocket 3.2 vehicle is already complete, and you should see a launch sometime after Astra spends “several weeks” poring over flight data.

The Alameda-based firm is effectively a competitor to Rocket Lab, with a similar goal of launching payloads into orbit at less cost than usual. To some extent, it’s already successful — Rocket 3.1 took off with a launch system deployed by just six people in under a week. While that won’t necessarily be true of future launches, it shows that you don’t always need extensive ground crews.

pic.twitter.com/PGYv26ZqrF

— Jennifer Culton (@CultonJennifer) September 12, 2020

If all goes well, the two tests will be the last before Virgin’s space tourism starts in earnest. It hopes to fly company founder Sir Richard Branson into space sometime in the first quarter of 2021, effectively kicking off the company’s tourist business. Not that you’ll want to rush to the front of the line. With tickets costing $250,000 each (and possibly more), Virgin Galactic’s initial service will cater solely to wealthy people eager to say they’ve been to space.

This will be the first spaceflight from Spaceport America, and will be the first since a February 2019 test. A lot is riding on these last tests besides Virgin’s pride. The company is still bleeding money, with a net loss of $63 million in the second quarter of 2020. It can’t really recoup its losses until it’s serving paying customers, and that means finishing its pre-service tests in a timely fashion.

Xinhua said only that the craft represented an “important breakthrough” in China’s development of reusable spacecraft that could provide a cheaper, more convenient solution for the “peaceful use of space.” In other words, it might lower the costs of delivering payloads into space and allow for quicker turnaround times.

There are details for the rocket that launched the space plane, at least. China said it deployed the reusable vehicle using the Long March 2F, a veteran rocket system with a first launch in November 1999. The new machine clearly isn’t ready to take off by itself — it needed the help of a well-established mode of transportation to reach orbit.

Most rocket launch aborts are largely uneventful, but United Launch Alliance’s latest was… dramatic. The spaceflight outfit had to abort its NROL-44 mission (via Parabolic Arc) just three seconds before it was due to start, with the Delta IV rocket’s initiators already covering the vehicle in flames — the crew even declared “liftoff” without realizing that the mission had been cut short. The engines never ignited, ULA said.

It’s not initially clear what the problem was, but it will take at least a full week to try launching again. This shouldn’t affectt SpaceX’s plan to launch an Earth observation satellite on August 30th (today, if you’re reading in time) at 7:18PM Eastern from a nearby launchpad at Cape Canaveral. SpaceX also hoped to launch a Starlink mission earlier in the day, but that was pushed back due to bad weather.

If all goes according to plan, Rocket Lab will resume flights less than two months after an “anomaly” led to an Electron rocket failing shortly after launch, destroying its payload in the process. The company eventually pinpointed an electrical connection as the cause.

A fast turnaround might have been necessary. While Rocket Lab had a good track record for missions up until July, a significant delay might have cast doubt on the firm’s ability to identify and recover from setbacks. It’s not as experienced as companies like SpaceX. A quick (but not too quick) return to flight suggests it has the issue under control, and that customers won’t have to wait several months or more to get their cargo into orbit.

Like the launch itself, the Crew Dragon landing was highly automated compared to many previous human-piloted missions. Behnken and Hurley still accomplished a lot, though, including performing and contributing to numerous experiments while they were aboard the International Space Station.

It’s an important occasion beyond the firsts involved. This is the last Crew Dragon test flight. Once SpaceX receives NASA certification, future flights will be regular missions carrying astronauts to the ISS. For NASA, meanwhile, it’s a major step forward for a Commercial Crew Program that could allow for more flights and lower costs.

This also represents a coup for SpaceX. While Boeing is still planning to bring its Starliner capsule into service, SpaceX is clearly ahead at the moment. That could lead to more opportunities with NASA, not to mention civilian flights as space commerce grows.

It also bodes well for the company’s greater ambitions. SpaceX is eyeing flights using Starship for journeys to places as distant as Mars, and Crew Dragon’s success suggests that the firm is on the right track.

Good splashdown of Dragon confirmed! Welcome back to Earth, @AstroBehnken and @Astro_Doug! pic.twitter.com/0vAS3CcK9P

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 2, 2020

Whenever there’s a return, it’ll mark the successful completion of the first round trip of a private crewed space capsule. While this kind of mission won’t be routine for a long time, it represents an important moment in the shift away from strictly government-run spaceflight. The next major step may involve flights with civilians.

Behnken and Hurley also weren’t just on the station for show. They both conducted and assisted with numerous experiments, such as Earth observation studies and research into water droplets in microgravity. On that front, Crew Dragon’s mission may have been as helpful to science as it was to SpaceX’s long-term future.

“Now as Doug mentioned, we’re about to embark on the final portion of the journey… The hardest part was getting us launched, but the most important part is bringing us home.” – @AstroBehnken on the #LaunchAmerica crew’s return to Earth aboard the @SpaceX Dragon Endeavour pic.twitter.com/tEeL05gXWe

— NASA (@NASA) August 1, 2020