Another week with lots of news on the rocketry side of SpaceX, this time lead by NASA changing their list of priorities for Moon landings.
NASA rewrote Starship‘s role in the Moon landings, so Starship will now take Orion to lunar orbit.
Booster 22 also fired on the pad for Flight 15, the FCC cleared SpaceX’s Tristar spectrum deal, and both SpaceX and Tesla filed their third-quarter 10-Qs.
NASA Puts Orion on Top of Starship
Under a revised concept of operations released Oct. 23, Starship HLS meets Orion and its crew in Earth orbit, docks, then fires the burn that sends the combined stack to low lunar orbit. NASA says it is “working to modify Orion to enable Starship to push it to the Moon.”
The near-rectilinear halo orbit is dropped for both landers, which NASA says will “significantly lower the amount of propellant Starship needs to aggregate in space.” According to NSF, the lander tops up from a depot in low Earth orbit, then climbs to a high Earth orbit where Orion docks.
NASA and @SpaceX have just shared new images of “Cabin 1” inside Starship for future astronaut missions. It’s built in Starfactory at Starbase, Texas.
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) October 23, 2026No lander is assigned or finalized yet. NASA says “neither lander provider has been assigned to a specific Artemis lunar landing mission,” and lander readiness will decide whether SpaceX or Blue Origin lands astronauts first in 2028. Two astronauts would ride Starship to the surface while two stay aboard Orion.
At the same briefing, NASA showed the first photos of Cabin 1, a full-scale crew compartment being built in Starfactory at Starbase. SpaceX is adding two Cabin 1 demonstrations as contract milestones.
The actual count of tanker refills required for the mission are still in dispute. On an Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel call Oct. 22, panel member Charlie Precourt said a landing could take around 22 refuelling launches; Musk countered with it expecting to be just 6 to 8.
Booster 22 Fires for Flight 15
Booster 22 lit its engines on Pad 2 at Starbase on Sunday morning, Oct. 25, according to NASASpaceflight’s live feed. On SpaceX’s Q3 call, Gwynne Shotwell said she expects the FAA licence to cover catches of both booster and ship; no licence has been issued.
Flight 15 is targeted no earlier than Nov. 8. Our Flight 15 and 16 checklist has the background details if you want to read more about it.
Starship Flight 15: Booster 22 Static Fire!
— NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) October 25, 2026NASASpaceflight also says Flight 16 is set to be Starship’s first launch from Florida, and Ship 43 rolled to Massey’s for cryo testing on Oct. 22.
FCC Clears the Tristar Spectrum Deal
The FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau approved Starlink Spectrum Holdings’ acquisition of TLG Unpaired Holdings on Oct. 21. TLG holds three unpaired AWS-3 licences at 1695–1710 MHz, covering 62 counties and about 4% of the U.S. population.
Instead of taking unbuilt licences back for reauction, the FCC swapped terrestrial build-out rules for direct-to-device uplink milestones measured from Nov. 30, 2027. No price was disclosed. More on how direct-to-cell works.
Two Launches This Week
Falcon 9 flew Bandwagon-5 from SLC-40 on Oct. 20, carrying a second Starfall capsule. Three days later, Starlink 15-15 lifted off from Vandenberg on the evening of Oct. 23 after two slipped launches and put 27 satellites in orbit to augment the constellation.
Deployment of 27 @Starlink satellites confirmed
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 23, 2026What the Financials Show
SpaceX’s 10-Q lists a $62.96 billion backlog, about 67% expected within a year, and $151 million of Megapack purchases from Tesla in the quarter. Tesla booked $221 million of Megapack revenue from SpaceX and valued its SpaceX stake at $2.865 billion after a $142 million Q3 loss.
On the merger talk, SpaceX writes: “No determination by our special committee has been made regarding any potential combination.”
Our Q3 earnings story has a full recap, in bullet-point style, of everything you need to know from the call.
Airlines Go All In
American CEO Robert Isom said on the Oct. 22 earnings call that the airline will move “as fast as we can” to put Starlink on its whole fleet “over the next year or so,” calling connectivity “table stakes.” United is already at about half of departures.
Also This Week
- Musk said Oct. 19 that next year he will give one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America. He has not said how or when.
- SpaceX has stopped taking Transporter and Bandwagon rideshare bookings beyond late 2028, SpaceQ reported. SpaceX has not commented.
- NASA’s safety panel will formally recommend that the agency re-examine Artemis IV, SpacePolicyOnline reported.
- Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said a sale of Boca Chica State Park to SpaceX is not coming up for a vote any time soon, the Texas Tribune reported.
- Bloomberg reported price talks on SpaceX’s roughly $40 billion debt financing have hit hurdles.
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026Coming Up
- Starlink from SLC-4E: Oct. 27, 12:45–4:45 a.m. ET, and Oct. 30, 12:02–4:02 a.m. ET.
- FCC open meeting Oct. 29: a proposal to expand supplemental coverage from space.
- Starship Flight 15: no earlier than Nov. 8.
Previously: This Week in SpaceX, Oct. 18.
