For space enthusiasts, SpaceX is usually experienced through spectacular launches, synchronized booster landings, and ambitious talk of Mars. Yet beneath the visuals lies a financial structure that is just as transformative as the technology itself. The story of SpaceX’s money is inseparable from the story of Elon Musk’s fortune, because the company’s strategy, risk appetite, and long-term goals are tightly bound to how Musk has chosen to build and deploy his wealth.

NASA engineers are continuing efforts to reestablish communications with the agency’s MAVEN spacecraft, a long-running Mars orbiter that has played a key role in understanding how the Red Planet lost much of its atmosphere. Contact with MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) was lost on Dec. 6, and recovery attempts to date have not been successful.

Cape Canaveral, Florida — December 16, 2025 — In the early hours of Tuesday morning, a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 551 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, carrying 27 new satellites for Amazon Leo, the e-commerce giant’s burgeoning low Earth orbit (LEO) broadband satellite network. 

Rocket Lab’s bid to close out 2025 with a rapid-fire trio of Electron launches hit a brief pause early Monday, after the company aborted one of its missions moments before liftoff when onboard systems detected an anomaly.

A new peer-reviewed study published in Nature has issued one of the strongest warnings yet about the growing impact of satellite megaconstellations on the low Earth orbit (LEO) environment and the future of astronomical research. With companies such as SpaceX, Amazon, and OneWeb—and national governments including those of the United States and China—pushing ahead with plans for fleets of hundreds to tens of thousands of satellites, scientists say the consequences for space-based and ground-based observations could be profound.

Rocket Lab is preparing to expand its role in the global launch market, announcing the successful completion of final qualification tests for the innovative fairing that will top its upcoming Neutron rocket. The partially reusable launch vehicle, built to challenge SpaceX’s Falcon 9 in medium-lift missions, is slated to make its debut flight early next year.

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim and two Russian cosmonauts returned to Earth early Tuesday, landing on the frozen steppe of Kazakhstan after an eight-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Their Soyuz MS-27/73S spacecraft touched down at 12:03 a.m. EST (0503 UTC; 10:03 a.m. local time), ending a mission that spanned nearly 4,000 orbits and more than 104 million miles traveled.

SpaceX closed out its 2025 national security launch campaign on Tuesday with a classified mission for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), marking both its final intelligence payload of the year and what is expected to be the last Falcon 9 booster landing at Landing Zone 2 (LZ-2) at Cape Canaveral. The mission, designated NROL-77, successfully deployed its payload, the NRO confirmed late Tuesday.

SpaceX has secured a major green light for expanding Starship operations to Florida, marking a significant shift for the world’s most powerful launch system after completing all of its test flights to date from Starbase in South Texas.

LandSpace, one of China’s leading private aerospace companies, has successfully flown its Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3) rocket for the first time, marking a significant milestone in the nation’s push toward reusable launch systems—despite a dramatic booster failure during recovery.

South Korea’s newest Earth-observation spacecraft, KOMPSAT-7, safely reached a Sun-synchronous orbit on Monday afternoon following a smooth launch aboard Arianespace’s Vega-C rocket. The mission lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, marking another milestone in Seoul’s expanding ambitions in space-based imaging and reconnaissance.

 A German astronaut will become the first European to travel to the Moon under NASA’s Artemis program, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced on Thursday during its high-level Ministerial Council meeting in Bremen. The decision marks a historic milestone for Europe’s human spaceflight ambitions, made possible by major European contributions to lunar exploration hardware.