Spaceflight Daily Report, Tuesday 30th June 2026

Image credit: NASA

US Spacewalk 95

American astronauts Jessica Meir and Chris Williams performed a spacewalk today from the International Space Station, supported from inside the station by fellow astronauts Jack Hathaway and Sophie Adenot, and supported from the ground by Aki Hoshide and Jenni Sidey-Gibbons. The spacewalk began at 1220 UTC and concluded at 1940 UTC, lasting 7 hours 20 minutes. The spacewalkers replaced a malfunctioning wrist joint on Canadarm2. Mission control in Houston have verified that the new joint is receiving power. This was Jessica Meir's fifth spacewalk, bringing her up to 36 hours 6 minutes of EVA time. It was Chris Williams' second spacewalk, bringing him up to 14 hours 22 minutes of EVA time. It was the third spacewalk of Expedition 74 and overall the 280th spacewalk from the International Space Station. [Source: NASA]

NASA Announce Four More CLPS Contracts

NASA have announced four new robotic lunar missions in support of their ambitious Moon Base plans, under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program (CLPS). They have selected three companies to develop the missions commercially. Astrobotic will make two deliveries to the surface for a total of $297.9 million USD, while Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines will make one delivery each for $144.2 and $148.3 million USD respectively. All of the missions are aiming to launch in late 2028, and will deliver surveying and communications equipment to the Moon. NASA have also announced they will be soliciting proposals for more landers in the future, and are considering plans to send a rover called PROMISE to perform prospecting for ice and other minerals, which belongs to the same class of vehicles as the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers. And they need more infrastructure in general, including communications satellites, surface power generation, and in-situ resource utilisation. [Source: NASA]

OIG Starliner Report

NASA's Office of Inspector General have today released a report into NASA's handling of the commercial crew program, and criticised the way NASA has managed the certification of the Boeing Starliner. With the retirement of the ISS inching ever closer, it's becoming unclear if NASA's investment into Starliner is ever going to pay off, and if the spacecraft is ever going to fly with crew again. [Source: NASA Office of Inspector General]

New Glenn's New CONOPS

Blue Origin have provided an update on the rebuild for their New Glenn pad, following the violent explosion last month. Instead of rebuilding the same pad, Blue Origin are moving to a new system that will involve integrating the first and second stages horizontally, then using a crane to lift the rocket vertical, then integrating the payload vertically. Something similar to this was apparently already in the works, with the accident accelerating those plans. The new configuration should help increase launch cadence for New Glenn. [Source: Dave Limp]

Three Scrubs

All three of today's planned launches have been postponed. The South Korean military scrubbed the debut launch of the full version of their Mir small lift launch vehicle over safety concerns. NASA’s Swift Boost mission has also been postponed due to bad weather, and is now aiming to launch on Thursday. And Rocket Lab's latest Electron mission, named "The Grain Goddess Provides", was aborted at the last second, after engine startup had already begun, for reasons unknown at time of publication. [Source: Seoul Economic Daily, NASA, Rocket Lab]