Author: FlyMarshall Newsroom

A partial view of a SpaceX Starshield satellite in low Earth orbit. Image: SpaceX Update June 7, 12:50 a.m. EDT (0450 UTC): SpaceX landed the booster on the drone ship. SpaceX launched a combination of 21 Starlink and two Starshield satellites on Saturday night from Vandenberg Space Force Base.  Starshield is an alternate version of the Starlink satellite architecture the government. SpaceX hasn’t announced which U.S. government agency ordered these two satellites or if they are for a foreign government. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket on the Starlink 17-43 mission from Space Launch Complex 4 East happened at 9:24:45…

NASA has selected multiple small businesses for the Western Regional Multiple Award Construction Contract, which supports a broad range of facility enhancement, modernization, and sustainment work at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and other federal agencies in the region. The contract provides general construction, modification, maintenance and repair, and demolition services, as well as new construction of buildings and facilities that incorporate Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design practices and building information modeling to support efficient and sustainable project execution. The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, firm-fixed-price contract is a follow-on to the…

The TWZ Newsletter Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy. A French-made Mirage 2000-5F, streaking low over Ukraine in a newly emerged video, provides a relatively rare glimpse of the fighter in Ukrainian Air Force service. Compared with the more numerous F-16 fleet, Ukrainian Mirage operations are much less widely seen. Until now, accounts and imagery have shown the delta-wing fighters being used for air-to-air missions, primarily in the fight against Russian long-range attack drones and cruise missiles. The latest footage may suggest that they now have started to embark on air-to-ground…

BERLIN — The leaders of France and Germany have agreed to scrap a landmark project to develop and build a new-generation fighter jet, two German officials said on Monday, ending one of Europe’s most ambitious defense programs.German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron discussed the troubled project on the sidelines of the EU-Western Balkans summit in Montenegro last week and concluded there was no prospect of breaking months of deadlock, the officials said.Failure to reach an agreement on the €100-billion ($116 billion) project underscores the struggles Europe has faced in rebuilding its military capacity after decades of underinvestment.The…

Log-in here if you’re already a subscriber When Tennessee-based Whisper Aero unveiled its electric ducted fan technology in 2023, the emphasis was on its extremely low noise — the reason for the company’s name. Whisper’s unique high-blade-count fan design pushes the blade passage frequency into the ultrasonic range, where the resulting tonal noise is inaudible to humans. The potential applications for the tech range from leaf blowers to regional aircraft; essentially anywhere there is value in moving air quietly. At the time of the unveil, Whisper also revealed the design for a notional Whisper Jet, an example of how its…

The 2026 World Cup, spread across 16 cities in three countries, could generate between 7.8 and 9 million metric tons of CO₂, according to two independent analyses — making it the most carbon-intensive tournament in the event’s history. The higher estimate, from researchers at Scientists for Global Responsibility and the Environmental Defense Fund, was reached by modelling stadium capacity, match numbers and flight patterns. Carbon accounting firm Greenly put the figure at 7.8 million tons and agreed on the cause: the vast distances fans and team source

Could Blue Moon Mark 1 launch on other rockets? SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan vehicles both likely have the lift capacity to push the vehicle to the Moon. But Vulcan is also sidelined at present and has a long line of Space Force payloads in the queue. So what of Falcon Heavy? The Mark 1 lander is powered by the BE-7 engine, which runs on liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. There may be compatibility issues related to the Falcon rocket’s kerosene-powered upper stage, although this has not been confirmed. Also, it is unlikely that Blue Origin would…

A computer rendering of the configuration of the International Space Station as of May 17, 2026. Six spaceships are parked at the space station including the SpaceX CRS-34 Dragon, the SpaceX Crew-12 Dragon, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL, the Soyuz MS-28 crew ship, and the Progress 94 and 95 resupply ships. Graphic: NASA Previously unannounced repair work to stop new leaks onboard the International Space Station temporarily caused NASA to send all four members of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission as well as NASA astronaut Chris Williams into the Dragon capsule, Freedom, on Friday. Cracks and leaks have popped up within…

Submit your abstract for “Advancing Weather and Environmental Science Through NASA and NOAA Commercial Satellite Data Programs,” a joint session hosted by NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) program, in partnership with the NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) Commercial Data Program (CDP). The session is part of the 23rd Symposium on Operational Environmental Satellite Systems, which will take place at the 2027 American Meteorological Society (AMS) Annual Meeting January 10-14 in Denver, Colorado. It will examine the growing capabilities of commercial Earth observation providers that are creating new opportunities to advance weather research, operational forecasting, and environmental…

The TWZ Newsletter Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy. The U.S. Air Force is already moving to lay groundwork for fielding the replacement of its GBU-57/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker buster bomb. In the process, it has also revealed that the follow-on Next Generation Penetrator (NGP) has now been designated as the GBU-76/B. The service also has plans to continue upgrading the MOP, which became a household name after the first-ever combat use of the bombs against deeply buried Iranian nuclear facilities during Operation Midnight Hammer last year. “The Air…