A podcast-style video on the "Louisiana Business and Industry Show" channel. Discussion from the perspective of people interested in Louisiana's economic development. Released on 5 Oct 2026.

One interesting point is that Louisiana's competitors for the big new Starship location were Alaska and Australia. Mentioned at 15:31 and 23:27.

He just did a remote interview at an event called "X Takeover" at Tesla's Texas "giga factory". Timestamp 26m 13s.

SpaceX itself also acknowledged the possibility in a June securities filing, warning that it “may prioritize our own launch payloads over additional U.S. government contracts or third-party customers.” That shift now appears to be taking effect ...

Supporting anecdotal evidence:

A few years ago I tried booking a rideshare on the SpaceX website and got as far as the point where I'd have to pay the deposit. I seem to remember they had flights scheduled well into the 2030s, and even beyond.

https://www.spacex.com/rideshare ... https://rideshare.spacex.com/

Now, as far as I can tell, there are just 2 flights scheduled. Both are SSO missions in 2027, and neither of them has any availability. And the rideshare webpages aren't linked (or reachable?) from the SpaceX front page.

Until today I had assumed that a Starship variant with something like the Space Shuttle payload bay would be quite a high priority for SpaceX. Now I don't know what to think! Are they going to serve out their existing Falcon contracts, and HLS on Starship, and then become a purely Starlink + Starmind launch company? With a bit of Mars stuff in their spare time?

... announced today at the 41st Space Symposium the Large Docking Adapter, including [details of] its current development, its availability for purchase, and Vast’s plans to open-source its interface.

And there's an official video.

Summary

It's widely thought that the completion of the TLI burn is the absolute point of no return for Artemis 2. But three different NASA people have confirmed on the record that a "Direct Abort" (basically a U-turn back to Earth) remains an option for about 1-2 days post-TLI.

Most recent was Judd Frieling on 2026-04-02 (from 57:57 - 58:20).

Seems that TLI would have been at 2026-04-02T23:49Z (so 37 hours ago ATTOW)

Background

• TLI (Trans-Lunar Injection): The critical engine burn that pushes the spacecraft out of Earth orbit and sends it toward the Moon.
• Free-Return Trajectory: A passive, highly predictable flight path where the Moon's gravity slings the spacecraft back to Earth without requiring the spacecraft to execute major engine burns.
• ESM (European Service Module): The primary power and propulsion module for the Orion spacecraft.

Corroborations

Frieling's answer corroborated comments from Artemis 2 Lead Flight Director Jeff Radigan on 2025-09-23 (39:19 - 39:50), and Orion Program Manager Howard Hu on 2026-03-29 (31:30 - 32:50) (saying that in an emergency within the first 36 hours, NASA can execute a "turn and burn" to bring the crew straight home without completing the lunar transit).

After this window closes, the spacecraft must rely on a passive free-return trajectory around the Moon to get safely home.

Possible Further Reading

Stuff I came across but didn't really check.

• SLS Reference Guide for Artemis 2
  • Doesn't seem to have anything relevant
• AAS 24-133
• AAS 23-062
• AAS 23-129

As SpaceX's C212 (Crew Dragon Freedom) was phasing its way towards an ISS rendezvous earlier today (their 20th human space mission, and NASA's first ever Friday-the-13th human launch), they also passed a very different milestone. A video by "Mr Beast" in which he visited Starbase (among other things) exceeded 100,000,000 views on You Tube.

URL: https://youtu.be/pAnGwRiQ4-4
Relevant section: 18:07 to 22:28

He's the Canadian crew member for Artemis 2, which could be just 25 days away.

I can't personally remember any occasion when an active astronaut was this blunt, except a few months ago where he said the same kind of thing to a room full of children! (At some point during this IIRC.)

I'm guessing these kinds of risks are foremost on his mind. (Here's a critic's summary of much of the criticism of Orion. Haven't read it myself, just heard the writer discuss some of it on a podcast.)

For the first time in International Space Station history, all eight docking ports aboard the orbital outpost are occupied following the reinstallation of Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft to the Earth-facing port of the station’s Unity module.

This milestone follows the reattachment of the Cygnus XL spacecraft ... which was removed last week by the robotics officer at the agency’s Mission Control Center in Houston using the space station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm ... to provide appropriate clearance for the arriving crewed Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft on Nov. 27.

I heard NASA talking about this Cygnus XL operation at some online press conference a month or two ago. Pretty sure they said that the Cygnus XL wasn't actually in the way of the Soyuz, but they were moving it out of the way just to give more margin of clearance.

NG-23 is the first flight of a Cygnus XL vehicle. It was originally berthed on 2025-09-18 after a slight delay in orbit.

NASA's 24th astronaut class has been announced, with a presentation at the JSC. Anna Menon was one of the ten astronaut candidates.

"At the time of her selection, Menon was a senior engineer at SpaceX." Just over a year ago, while (presumably) employed at SpaceX, she went to orbit as part of the Polaris Dawn mission.

She married Anil Menon in 2016, while they were both working for NASA, with responsibilities related to the health of astronauts on the ISS.

In April 2018, Anil joined SpaceX. About 3 months later, Anna also joined SpaceX. In 2021, Anil rejoined NASA, as an astronaut candidate. And now, Anna has also rejoined NASA, also as an astronaut candidate. Anil has not yet been to space, unlike Anna.

Welcome to SENKRECHTSTARTER! Today, I'm talking to Michi Benthaus (ESA, Mars Atmosphere/GNC) and Hans Königsmann (former SpaceX, “father of Falcon 9 & Dragon”) about their planned Blue Origin flight with New Shepard. Michi would be the first paraplegic person to cross the Kármán line (~100 km)

I'm not sure which mission they're allocated to. (Haven't actually watched the interview yet.) Obviously not NS-35 as that was a couple of hours ago (and unmanned). This list on Wikipedia doesn't currently have entries for NS-36 or any subsequent missions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_PeCyRjfGI%3Ft%3D44m56s

45:03 "Don't worry about that. Trust me, everything will be fine!"

Sarah Walker, SpaceX’s director of Dragon Mission Management, said because the Draco thrusters on the capsule aren’t oriented optimally to perform a booster maneuver, SpaceX needed to design a new boost kit that would live in the unpressurized trunk.

She said SpaceX added some new attach points to the inside of the trunk in order to mount the propulsion system, which will be on all future trunks. Walker said the propellant tanks were used during the launch abort tests performed with Dragon in 2020 and the Draco engines were flown on the Crew-8 mission.

“Those are all mounted to this cargo rack assembly that we would normally mount unpressurized payloads to. We specifically added six propellant tanks, one pressurant tank, two Draco engines and a new heater and and insulation system to address the thermal considerations when these engines are firing for prolonged periods of time,” Walker said.