Space News for Saturday, August 01, 2026

In this episode, we aggregate and summarize today's top space news stories. Enjoy!(00:10) Podcast Introduction(00:23) Sending repurposed Mars rover to the moon could cost more than $1 billion(01:14) Inside the effort to show Congress what war in space looks like(01:47) Space Force picks 15 companies for $981 million training range contract(02:25) NASA still assessing Starliner-1 flight opportunities(02:54) SpaceX launches 24 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg SFB(03:32) Hisdesat Contracts Airbus and Thales Alenia Space to Build SpainSat NG III Communications Satellite(04:08) NASA and ISISPACE Deploy GRITSS CubeSat to Advance Orbital Reference Frame Precision(04:33) NASA to Host Florida Event Celebrating American Air, Space Leadership(05:20) TB 26-04 Webbings for Use in Elevated Oxygen Environments(06:01) Starbase Pad 1 Retrofits Progress as Block 3 Flights Start(06:27) Blue Origin continues rebuilding LC-36, prepares testing alternatives for New Glenn second stage(07:09) K2 Space Raises $500M Series D at $6.8B Valuation(07:56) Report: Our Launch Cadence Forecast For Next-Gen Rockets(08:19) How do supermassive black holes grow? AI finds 7 spacetime-warping 'quasars' that could help solve the mystery(09:03) NASA is sending 2 probes to the moon to test complex 'three-body orbits'(09:49) Watch SpaceX's Starship land at sea in these stunning new videos(10:33) Artemis moonsuits take a dive | Space photo of the day for July 31, 2026(11:00) Researchers devise a full-color night vision goggle(11:42) Space Force-backed mission does its best impression of Top Gun in orbit(12:03) Quantum computers outperform classical ones, with results you can trust