The repercussions of last night’s explosion of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket during a pre-launch test will take some time to assess. Among the key questions are not only what happened, but how badly the launch pad was damaged, which will determine how quickly launches can resume, and whether other hardware at the nearby Horizontal Integration Facility was damaged. All of the company’s customers will be impacted, but especially NASA’s Moon program.

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China’s three-man Shenzhou-21 (SZ-21) crew returned to Earth today after 210 days aboard the Tiangong space station. They landed not in the SZ-21 spacecraft, however, but SZ-22. SZ-22 was launched with no one aboard because the SZ-20 spacecraft was damaged by space debris and unsafe to bring the SZ-20 crew home. They had to use SZ-21’s spacecraft.  China keeps a rocket and spacecraft ready at the launch site for emergencies like this, enabling them to quickly launch SZ-22 to serve as SZ-21’s safe haven and ride home. The SZ-23 crew is now aboard Tiangong continuing the crew handovers that began at the end of 2022.

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Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded during a pre-launch test this evening. The company said all personnel are safe and accounted for following the “anomaly.”

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Pressing forward with plans to build a Moon Base as part of the Artemis program, today NASA announced awards of several service contracts to build and/or deliver landers and rovers to the Moon by 2028 as well as a “MoonFall” set of drones. The awards continue NASA’s recent practice of awarding firm fixed-price contracts where the companies design, build and launch spacecraft and NASA buys services from them.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of May 24-30, 2026 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess this week except for pro forma sessions.

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After a scrub yesterday, SpaceX successfully launched the new version of Starship today. It was the 12th launch in the series, but the first of Version 3, or V3, with completely redesigned Raptor engines and other significant upgrades. Not everything went as planned, but overall it appears to have been a success. [UPDATE, May 27: The FAA is requiring a mishap investigation.]

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NASA announced a major reorganization today that Administrator Jared Isaacman said is designed to “accelerate mission delivery.” He also emphasized it is not about a reduction-in-force, program cancellations or closures, but an effort to achieve cost savings and “deliver on the mission.”

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SpaceX’s first attempt to launch the new version of Starship, Version 3, almost got off the launch pad today, but several hiccups with less than a minute to go meant a scrub in the end. During the webcast, however, SpaceX had other news — an interview with the man who plans to make the first interplanetary human spaceflight, flying Starship around Mars.

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NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman asserted today that next year Chinese taikonauts “likely” will fly around the Moon and the United States no longer will hold the distinction as the only country to accomplish that feat.

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This evening the Senate confirmed Matthew “Matt” Anderson to be NASA Deputy Administrator. His nomination was one of 49 considered together under Senate rules that were revised last year to allow bundled “en bloc” confirmations.

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