Space, science, and the human mind. Since 1995.
The Daily Orbit
A Space Daily column

The Daily Orbit

News desk

The Daily Orbit is Space Daily's news desk. Launches, mission milestones, agency decisions, and the commercial race to orbit, reported as they happen. Most stories start from primary sources: NASA and ESA releases, operator updates, and launch broadcasts.

Tech Space

In 2025, SpaceX’s Starlink-led connectivity business generated $11.4 billion—apparently the first satellite-broadband operation ever to cross $10 billion in annual revenue—and supplied 61 percent of the company’s total sales. More strikingly, it earned $4.4 billion in operating profit while SpaceX’s rocket division lost $657 million, making internet connectivity the financial engine helping bankroll Starship.

SpaceX's 2025 accounts show Starlink-led Connectivity supplied 61% of combined revenue and $4.423 billion of operating income, helping fund Starship's expensive development cycle.

Moon Daily

China’s Tianwen‑2 travelled roughly one billion kilometres over 400 days before returning the first close-up image of Kamoʻoalewa in July 2026—a tiny, fast-spinning asteroid perhaps only 20 metres wide whose unusual spectrum once made it look like a fragment of the Moon, although new observations have reopened that debate.

Tianwen-2 has reached a fast-spinning asteroid that Webb estimates at only 18 plus or minus 2 metres wide, just as new spectra and models reopen its proposed lunar origin.

Launch Pad

Louisiana built stages of the Saturn V rockets that carried astronauts to the Moon, but has never hosted an orbital launch. SpaceX now plans a $100 billion Gulf Coast spaceport targeting its first Starship flight in 2029 — with an eventual capacity of thousands a year.

SpaceX and Louisiana have announced a 125,000-acre Starship campus targeting a first flight in 2029, but its $100 billion full-buildout plan and thousands-per-year capacity still depend on vehicle reuse, infrastructure, licensing and coastal review.