MAVEN Contact Loss and Mars Relay Impact

A holiday special! Enjoy this week’s episode of Headlines free. It’s an absolute monster episode—way longer than usual Headlines episodes, I promise—but it’s a great example of what you get when you support the show over at mainenginecutoff.com/support.

• NASA finally—and we really do mean it this time—has a full-time leader - Ars Technica
• Agencywide Town Hall with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025 - YouTube
• Trump commits to Moon landing by 2028, followed by a lunar outpost two years later - Ars Technica
• NASA Teams Work MAVEN Spacecraft Signal Loss - NASA Science
• NASA Continues MAVEN Spacecraft Recontact Efforts - NASA Science
• SpaceX Sets $800 Billion Valuation, Confirms 2026 IPO Plans - Bloomberg
• SpaceX $1.5 Trillion Value Target Hinges on Starlink — And Elon - Bloomberg
• SpaceX Said to Notify Employees of Quiet Period Ahead of IPO - Bloomberg
• In a surprise announcement, Tory Bruno is out as CEO of United Launch Alliance - Ars Technica
• Space Development Agency awards $3.5 billion in contracts for missile-tracking satellites - SpaceNews
• Chinese astronauts inspect debris-damaged Shenzhou-20 spacecraft during spacewalk - SpaceNews
• Space Station – Off The Earth, For The Earth
• NASA Astronaut Jonny Kim, Crewmates Return from Space Station - NASA
• After key Russian launch site is damaged, NASA accelerates Dragon supply missions - Ars Technica
• R-7 ICBM/Soyuz rocket launch facilities in Baikonur
• Launch Roundup: China, Russia, Rocket Lab, ULA join SpaceX in flying this week - NASASpaceFlight.com
• Launch Previews: Ariane 6, Falcon 9, Atlas V, and Electron launches highlight busy week - NASASpaceFlight.com
• Launch Roundup: International launches fill manifest during last full week of 2025 - NASASpaceFlight.com
• China launches 4 times in 4 days, boosting megaconstellation and surveillance assets - SpaceNews
• China launches new TJS satellite, commercial Kinetica-1 lofts 9 spacecraft - SpaceNews
• Michael Nicolls on X: “When satellite operators do not share ephemeris for their satellites, dangerously close approaches can occur in space.   A few days ago, 9 satellites were deployed from a launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwestern China. As far as we know, no coordination or…”
• China launches experimental cargo spacecraft, opaque tech demo mission and remote sensing satellite - SpaceNews
• Andrew Jones on X: “Turns out there were two male mice launched on the DEAR-5 cargo spacecraft for neuroscience research. Spacecraft is planned to operate in orbit for one year and is not rated for reentry, so it's game over at some point for the rodents. Video is prelaunch.”
• Rocket Lab launches JAXA tech demo satellite - SpaceNews
• Ariane 6 launches Galileo navigation satellites - SpaceNews
• These are the flying discs the government wants you to know about - Ars Technica
• Blue Origin flies first wheelchair user to space - SpaceNews
• Rocket Lab wraps up record launch year - SpaceNews
• Japan’s H3 suffers second-stage anomaly, QZS-5 satellite lost - SpaceNews
• Andrew Jones on X
• China launches new Guowang satellites, Long March 12A launch and landing attempt date set - SpaceNews

Keep an eye on upcoming launches with rocketlaunch.live.