This Week in Space Tech: Sept. 22 to 28, 2025
Space weather missions ride a Falcon 9, NASA names a new astronaut class, Starlink and China add to LEO, a startup wins a NASA servicing job, and Axiom’s station hardware lands a supplier.
Welcome to This Week In Space Tech for Sep 22 to Sep 28, 2025. Here are the key launches, programs, and startup moves that shaped the week.
Launches and on-orbit activity
Falcon 9 lifted off from Kennedy at 7:30 a.m. EDT on Sep 24 carrying NASA’s IMAP, the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, and NOAA’s SWFO-L1. All payloads deployed as planned.
Vandenberg capped the week on Sep 28 with another Starlink mission. SpaceX confirmed deployment of 28 satellites to orbit.
China launched a new batch of low Earth orbit internet satellites from Taiyuan on Sep 28 using a modified Long March-6. State media noted the flight as the 597th Long March mission.
Programs and policy
NASA introduced its 2025 Astronaut Candidate Class on Sep 22. The ten selectees include six women and four men and will begin two years of training.
The European Commission hosted the EU Access to Space Conference on Sep 24 to launch a new phase of EU engagement on access to space under the next budget cycle.
Startup and industry moves
NASA awarded Arizona startup Katalyst Space Technologies a 30 million dollar contract to boost the aging Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory into a higher orbit, with mission launch targeted for 2026.
Redwire won a contract on Sep 25 to provide roll-out solar arrays for Axiom Space’s first commercial station module.
Stoke Space disclosed it had closed a 510 million dollar Series D dated Sep 23 to scale its fully reusable Nova launch system.
Science and exploration
JWST released new imagery on Sep 24 of Sagittarius B2, the Milky Way’s largest star-forming cloud, highlighting massive stars and complex dust structures.