Taiwan’s effort to develop a satellite launcher suffered a setback Wednesday when a prototype from the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) veered off course and self-destructed. Meanwhile, China’s Long March rocket family rebounded quickly from an August 10 failure of a Long March 7A; a Long March 12 flew successfully six days later, and a Long March 5 is poised to launch the Chang’e 7 lunar lander. South Korean startup Innospace suffered its second consecutive failure Thursday when its Sebit suborbital rocket lost control at Brazil’s Alcântara Space Center.

Commercial satellite operators are growing anxious as SpaceX signals it may retire the workhorse Falcon 9 as early as 2028 to focus on the larger, unproven Starship and its own Starlink payloads. Gwynne Shotwell has suggested Falcon 9 operations could end by 2030, but customers report difficulty booking launches beyond 2028.

Ukraine struck Russia’s Progress Rocket Space Center in Samara with cruise missiles, targeting the factory that builds Soyuz-2 and Soyuz-5 rockets. In China, Land Space successfully landed the first-stage booster of its Zhuque-3 rocket on its second flight, marking the country’s second orbital-class reusable booster recovery. New research quantifies how SpaceX’s high-cadence reuse has upended the global launch market.