SpaceX — Flight 13 (24 Jul 2026), the second V3 flight, cleared what the debut left undone: it deployed a full batch of 20 Starlink V3 satellites (Flight 12 carried mostly mock-ups), relit a Raptor engine in space, and brought both the Super Heavy booster (Gulf) and the ship (Indian Ocean) to controlled splashdowns — the booster recovery Flight 12 missed. Tower catches, reuse and full orbital flight are still ahead.
CASC — The Long March 10B first stage was recovered at sea ~6 minutes after stage separation — four hooks caught a tensioned cable net on the recovery vessel, a legless design CASC says saves mass and widens the capture window. China's first controlled recovery of an orbital launch vehicle, the first net-based one anywhere, and the first orbital-class booster recovery by anyone other than SpaceX and Blue Origin. Reflight is still to come.
SpaceX — SpaceX raised $75B in its IPO (555.6M shares at $135; ~$1.75T valuation), trading on Nasdaq as SPCX from 12 Jun 2026 — the largest IPO in history, dwarfing Saudi Aramco's $29.4B (2019); the book ran >2× oversubscribed (~$150B in orders).
165 launches and a 32-flight booster put SpaceX years ahead, but Blue Origin's New Glenn reuse and Rocket Lab's Neutron are finally real. Our read on how durable the lead is. (Our opinion, not investment advice.)
Our read — labelled opinion, not investment advice.
Blue Origin — A New Glenn first stage exploded during a static-fire test at LC-36, Cape Canaveral (28 May 2026) — destroying the booster and damaging Blue Origin's only New Glenn pad. Reported as the most powerful rocket explosion since the Soviet N1 (1969); no injuries. Blue Origin targets return to flight before end-2026, accelerating a vertical-integration redesign.
SpaceX — SpaceX flew Starship V3 for the first time (Flight 12, 22 May 2026) — its most powerful version, built for high-rate Starlink launches and future Moon missions. The suborbital test deployed 20 mock + 2 real Starlinks and was called a success despite engine glitches and a missed booster splashdown; full orbital flight is still to come.
Dollars per kilogram to orbit is the single figure that decides what becomes possible in space — and it has fallen ~20× since the Shuttle. We explain the number and why headline prices need caveats.
Landing a booster is the photo; flying the same booster again — and again — is the economics. We explain why reflights, not landings, are the metric that lowers the cost of space.
SpaceX 
Blue Origin