SpaceX, Blue Origin and... Europe? The New Space Race Heats Up
Get ready for a week of launches as New Glenn and Starship prepare to take flight.
Welcome to Aerospace Insider 🚀
In this week’s issue, we’re diving into the latest and greatest from Europe’s booming space sector. Big things are happening!
Today’s summary:
🚀 Aerospace News: From satellite deals to rocket scrubs, here's the latest in the space industry this week.
💼 Top Space Jobs: Don’t miss the latests European space jobs.
🔍 Deep Dive: The new Space Race: SpaceX, Blue Origin… and Europe watching
Aerospace Weekly Roundup
Catch the latest European space industry highlights you can't afford to miss!
🛰️ Pale Blue to launch water-fuelled thrusters with D-Orbit
Pale Blue will partner with D-Orbit in 2025 to test its 1U+ Water Ion Thruster, designed for small satellites. The thruster helps with maneuvering and debris avoidance, contributing to space sustainability. Pale Blue has raised $16M and secured a $27M contract since completing a demonstration of their resistonjet in 2023.
🛰️ Dutch military signs $14.4M satellite intelligence deal with Maxar
Maxar Intelligence has secured a $14.4 million contract with the Netherlands Ministry of Defense to provide satellite tasking, imagery, and data analytics. The four-year deal, announced on January 9, highlights the growing European demand for commercial space intelligence as NATO allies strengthen their sovereign geospatial capabilities.
🚀 Blue Origin scrubs New Glenn launch due to technical issue
Blue Origin scrubbed the maiden launch of its New Glenn rocket on January 8, due to a vehicle subsystem issue. With 45 minutes left in the launch window, engineers worked to resolve technical problems, likely caused by ice clogging a vent line. A new launch date is yet to be determined. The company is now evaluating the data and reviewing next steps.
🚀 Starship Flight Test 7 set for January 15
SpaceX’s seventh Starship flight test is scheduled for January 15, featuring upgrades like new flaps, increased propellant, and improved avionics. The test will deploy 10 Starlink simulators, conduct reentry experiments, and include a Raptor engine relight in space. The Super Heavy booster will also attempt a tower catch if conditions allow, so be sure not to miss it.
Space Jobs Spotlight 🔍
Curated roles to accelerate your career in Europe’s thriving space sector.
🚀 Internships & Graduates
Software Simulation Intern — The Exploration Company (several locations)
AOCS Intern — AAC Clyde Space (Delft 🇳🇱)
Software Intern — AAC Clyde Space (Delft 🇳🇱)
Mechanical Engineering Intern — Exotrail (Toulouse 🇫🇷)
💼 Space Jobs (ranked by experience)
GNC Engineer — The Exploration Company (Munich 🇩🇪)
Mission Analysis and Flight Dynamics Engineer — OHB (Bremen 🇩🇪)
Technical Project Manager — AAC Clyde Space (Gothenburg 🇸🇪)
Cybersecurity Engineer — VisionSpace (Figueira da Foz 🇵🇹)
Propulsion Integration Engineer — PLD Space (Elche 🇪🇸)
Mechanical Design Engineer — D-Orbit (Didcot 🇬🇧)
Product Assurance Engineer — Vyoma (Munich 🇩🇪)
Project Manager — Lumi Space (London 🇬🇧)
Senior Systems Engineer — Exotrail (Massy 🇫🇷)
🧑🎓 PhD Opportunities
Fully-funded PhD on space exploration. Apply here.
[Still open] Multiple positions open: orbital dynamics, GNC, etc. Check them out.
[Still open] Postdoctoral research on PNT anyone? Apply here.
🔥 Special Opportunities
Apply to become a Prospero Space Fellow (deadline January 31st!)
Like these jobs or think something is missing? Hit ‘reply’ and let me know!
The new Space Race: SpaceX, Blue Origin… and Europe watching
There’s no way you’ve missed what’s hopefully happening this week if there are no more scrubs or delays.
Blue Origin is launching New Glenn for the first time. And to make things even better, SpaceX continues with their usual cadence of performing another Starship flight test. Not bad for the 3rd week of 2025. How are your New Year resolutions going? Haha.
The giants take flight
Let’s summarise each of these rockets in more detail.
New Glenn
For those unfamiliar with this rocket, New Glenn is Blue Origin’s heavy-lift rocket. What makes this rocket special is that it’s designed to be partially reusable (from the start, yes) and capable of delivering up to 45 tonnes to LEO. Recovering and reusing the first stage in a Falcon-9 like style, does give Blue Origin a competitive edge which they hope to prove this week with their first launch. here are the main stats:
Height: 98 metres
Diameter: 7 metres
Payload capacity: 45 tonnes
Starship
Starship, on the other hand, needs no introduction, mainly thanks to SpaceX’s open development programme. With a fully reusable design, it aims to be the first rocket to take humans to Mars and make life multiplanetary. That’s no small ambition. Here are the main stats:
Height: 123 metres
Diameter: 9 metres
Payload capacity: 100 to 150 tonnes
This makes Starship not only the largest and most capable rocket ever built but also the largest object ever flown. For the curious, here’s a summary of all the orbital rockets that have flown to date (I think some of the latest US rocket companies are missing) that put into perspective the size of Starship.
For this flight test (IFT-7 for the experts), SpaceX will use the V2 Starship upper stage. It comes with thousands (if not more) design changes and upgrades that are greatly summarised in this video.
In this flight test, SpaceX not only wants to recover the booster but also to validate the deployment mechanism by “deploying” 10 dummy Starlink satellites which will renter and burn in the atmosphere.
Europe’s current position
As SpaceX and Blue Origin accelerate their innovations, it brings the question: what is Europe doing to keep pace in this rapidly changing industry?
Europe's next big project, the Ariane 6, despite already performing it’s maiden flight, lags behind these two giants. While it’s supposedly designed for cost efficiency, it can’t really compete in price mainly because it is not reusable. If Blue Origin manages to recover the booster, they will too be able to dramatically lower launch costs.
It’s true that ESA and Arianespace (and Europe in general) has plans to develop a reusable rocket. But these are in a very early stage compared to Blue Origin’s progress. Remember a bunch of students were the first ones on performing a rocket hop in Europe?
The need for action
This week’s launches should act as a wake up call for Europe. As time passes, Europe risks becoming less relevant in the global space race, and Blue Origin’s progress is just a reminder of that. We might soon see another company demonstrate reusability and therefore able to dramatically reduce their launch costs and ramp up development.
Europe has sufficient resources to remain competitive, they only need to be managed properly. Investing in reusable technologies is key, but so is fostering partnerships, private investment and reducing bureaucracy to allow newspace companies to focus on what matters: getting to orbit quickly.
Let’s see how Europe reacts to New Glenn joining the crew of non-European reusable rockets…
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To your success,
Jaime