SpaceX starts to offer Starship Services to Mars. On Thursday, Gwynne Shotwell, the President and Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX, announced that the company started selling rides to Mars. “Go on board! We are going to Mars! SpaceX now offers Starship Services on the Red Planet,” said Shotwell on X. As part of the announcement, Shotwell said that SpaceX has signed a “first of its kind” agreement with the Italian space agency.
Racing on the Giro d'Ars … the president of the Italian space agency, Teodoro Valente, confirmed the news and said that the first spaceship flights to Mars (which are of course not described) will transport Italian experiments. “The payloads collect scientific data during the missions. Italy continues to lead in space exploration!” Valente wrote on X. Left is of course unspoken when such flights will take place. It is difficult to see that Starship is now ready for a window at the end of 2026, but at the beginning of 2029 seems plausible.
ULA will ultimately test reusing technology. On Thursday, prior to the first Vulcan launch of a National Security Spayload next week, United Alliance Chief Executive Tory Bruno spoke with reporters on various topics, NASA SpaceFlight reports. A highlight was the progress of ULA on Smart Reuse, a system that was aimed at restoring and reusing booster components to lower costs. Bruno announced that the critical design assessment for important components is complete, so that the road is cleared for building escape hardware for certification.
Testing stays away … As the development progresses, ULA is planning to move more components to the rear part of the booster for recovery. “By the time that path has been completed, almost the only thing that is thrown away from the booster will be the fuel tanks,” he said. Experimental flights that clever reuse can start already in 2026, or at least by 2027, but only when they are tailored to the needs of the customer. You wonder when the actual motor recovery and reuse can start.
Next three launches
August 8: Falcon 9 | Project Kuiper KF-02 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 13:40 UTC
August 8: Jielong 3 | Not -s -declared load | Offshore site, Chinese coastal waters | 16:30 UTC
August 10: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-4 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 03:43 UTC
