OUTERSPACE TODAYNEWS
← All editionsFriday, October 16, 2026 / Issue 100
[ OST Daily ]

Blue Origin Plans Two More New Glenn Pads and a Factory for Up to 150 Upper Stages, Raytheon Will Modernize Space Force Warning Radars, and the UK Picks ClearSpace

Outerspace Today5 min read / 2026-10-16
OST Daily October 16, 2026 — Blue Origin will add two New Glenn launch pads in Florida, buy two more landing ships and build a plant for up to 150 upper stages; the Space Force picked Raytheon to modernize its ground-based early warning radars; and the UK Space Agency picked ClearSpace for a £61 million ($81 million) mission to remove two defunct UK-registered satellites.
The daily pictureOST editorial illustration · 2026-10-16
[ 01 ]

The briefing

Blue Origin said it will add two New Glenn launch pads in Florida, on top of two already under construction at Cape Canaveral, buy two more landing ships and build a plant that will produce up to 150 upper stages for a larger version of the rocket. The company says the buildout is designed to support multiple flights per week by the end of the decade. It has invested about $3 billion in Florida so far and has launched to orbit twice.

Raytheon will modernize the Space Force's ground-based early warning radars under the Ground-Based Radar Digitization program, starting with prototypes before rapid fielding at the remaining sites. The UK Space Agency picked ClearSpace for a £61 million ($81 million) mission, launching no earlier than 2029, to remove two defunct UK-registered satellites from low Earth orbit.

Rocket Lab's Peter Beck tied the Neutron delay to the first-stage propellant domes, where engineers found air pockets between carbon-fiber layers. NASA said Orion's heat shield had nine spots of char loss after Artemis II, compared with 103 after Artemis I, confirming the reentry change it made between the flights. A Ukrainian deputy minister told CNBC that U.S. limits on Starlink have emboldened Russian strikes on bridges, railways and energy sites.

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The headlines

01

Blue Origin plans two more New Glenn pads, two more landing ships and a factory for up to 150 upper stages in Florida

Blue Origin announced on October 16 that it will add two New Glenn launch pads in Florida, on top of two already under construction at Cape Canaveral, and buy two more ships to catch and return the rocket's first stage, joining its one ship, Jacklyn. It is also investing in a manufacturing plant that will produce up to 150 upper stages for a larger version of New Glenn, and a customer integration facility, built with the U.S. Space Force, with four payload bays to process several missions at once.

02

Raytheon will modernize the Space Force's ground-based early warning radars

RTX

Raytheon, an RTX business, said on October 15 that it has been selected to modernize Space Force radar sites that form the outermost layer of the nation's missile-defense architecture and give early warning of launches, characterization of objects and tracking of activity in space. Under the Ground-Based Radar Digitization program, Raytheon will work with the Space Force to modernize the long-serving systems, and the program will deliver prototype solutions before moving to rapid fielding at the remaining sites. Raytheon will also help create a common open architecture meant to avoid vendor lock and simplify future upgrades.

03

UK Space Agency picks ClearSpace for a £61 million mission to remove two defunct UK satellites

The UK Space Agency selected ClearSpace, an in-orbit servicing startup with offices in the UK, as prime contractor for the country's first active debris removal mission, under a contract worth about £61 million ($81 million). The mission, set to launch no earlier than 2029, will try to remove two defunct UK-registered satellites from low Earth orbit with robotic claws. ClearSpace will have to show in-orbit inspection, proximity operations and the capture and relocation of unprepared objects.

04

Rocket Lab's Peter Beck ties Neutron's slip to 2027 to air pockets in its carbon-fiber propellant domes

RKLB

Rocket Lab founder and chief executive Peter Beck said in a video that the company recently found an issue with the manufacturing process for the propellant domes on Neutron's first stage, which led it to delay production and investigate. Engineers found voids, or air pockets, between the layers of carbon fiber that make up the domes. Beck called the first stage the largest pressurized structure ever made out of carbon composite, and said its size forced Rocket Lab to develop new out-of-autoclave processes, including custom cure cycles for the forward and aft domes of the propellant tanks.

05

NASA says Orion's heat shield performed as expected on Artemis II, with nine spots of char loss against 103 on Artemis I

NASA said on October 15 that further engineering analysis of Orion's heat shield after Artemis II confirmed initial data showing it performed as expected. After Artemis I, NASA shortened the maximum downrange distance Orion could fly between entering the atmosphere and splashdown, to limit the time the heat shield spent in the temperature range where the Artemis I heat shield problem occurred. That change cut cracking and char loss by a factor of ten. Engineers found nine spots of char loss on the Artemis II heat shield, compared with 103 on Artemis I.

06

A Ukrainian deputy minister says U.S. limits on Starlink have emboldened Russian strikes on infrastructure

SpaceX

Serhiy Derkach, Ukraine's first deputy minister for recovery, infrastructure and transport, told CNBC on October 16 that with the U.S. limiting battlefield use of Starlink, Russia has stepped up strikes on civilian and energy targets. He said Russian forces are hitting bridges in Kyiv, threatening to isolate nearly 2 million residents on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, as well as railway networks and border crossings, and that Ukrainians already have blackouts of 4 to 12 hours a day.

[ 03 / +33 / -13 ]

Market pulse

Archived snapshot from this edition. Prices and moves are not live.

Gainers+33
Decliners-13
Big mover ETL+15.4%

U.S.-listed shares in this table show October 15 closing prices against the October 14 close, and Paris-listed shares show trading through midday on October 16, from a snapshot taken before this edition's news window closed.

AssetSnapshotMoveTrend
ETLEutelsat€1.74+15.4%
KRMNKarman Space$33.90+12.5%
ASTSAST SpaceMobile$44.46+5.5%
FJETStarfighters Space$1.26-9.4%
RKLBRocket Lab$55.25-6.6%
GHMGraham$71.15-3.0%
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Launch watch

Schedule and countdowns as recorded in the 2026-10-16 edition.

Ceres-1S

Galactic Energy · Ceres-1S · Rizhao offshore launch location · Haiyang Oriental Spaceport

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Filings

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