Spaceflight Daily Report, Tuesday 6th October 2026

French President Emmanuel Macron observes the M51 launch.

Test Fire of M51.3 Missile

The French Navy launched an M51.3 missile from the submarine Le Vigilant off the coast of Finistère in France this morning. This was a test fire of the newly upgraded missile, built by ArianeGroup, and it was not carrying a payload. It entered a suborbital trajectory and likely achieved a maximum altitude of around 2000km before re-entering and splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. [Source: DefenseNews]

Further Delay to Tranche 1 Transport Layer A

SpaceX have announced that the Tranche 1 Transport Layer A mission for the United States Space Force, originally scheduled to launch yesterday and rescheduled to today following a pad abort, has now been delayed further to Thursday. [Source: SpaceX]

International Space Station Activities

Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina spent today setting up hardware to test the controller for Teledroid, a new robot that will operate outside the station. Anil Menon carried out exercise research. The crew of the SpaceX Crew-12 mission (Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, Sophie Adenot, and Andrey Fedyaev) finalised preparations for their departure from the station tomorrow, and are scheduled to re-enter and splashdown in the Pacific early on Thursday. Meanwhile the recently arrived Crew-13 have begun their research duties. Jessica Watkins performed research into blood clots, Luke Delaney performed research into sleep and stress, Joshua Kutryk underwent an ultrasound scan administered by Adenot, and Sergey Teteryatnikov performed research into the respiratory system. [Source: NASA]

(Missed) Launch of MAPHEUS-17

A suborbital spaceflight occurred on 1st October 2026 but was missed in that day's report. The German Aerospace Centre (DLR) launched an RK-IM sounding rocket from Esrange in Sweden at 0651 UTC, or 0851 local time (CEST). This carried the MAPHEUS-17 mission, a collection of small scientific payloads, to an altitude of 291km. The RK-IM consists of a Red Kite first stage and an Improved Malemute second stage. [Source: SSC Space]