BREAKING: SpaceX’s Starship engine failure on Flight 14 could now have consequences beyond Starship itself - including NASA’s race to return astronauts to the Moon, Reuters reports. Starship reached orbit and successfully deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites Monday, but one of the spacecraft’s three Raptor engines shut down unexpectedly and the planned 10-hour mission ended after roughly three hours. The key question is whether the failure was an isolated component issue or points to a broader propulsion problem requiring changes across the fleet. That matters because NASA’s lunar Starship will rely on the same engine family for critical maneuvers transporting astronauts to and from the Moon. NASA is targeting a crewed lunar landing by 2028 and has opened the race to both SpaceX $SPCX and Blue Origin, saying it will use whichever lander is ready first.

BREAKING: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has raised $10 billion at a $140 billion valuation in its first-ever funding round with outside investors, the Wall Street Journal reports. Bezos is investing another $2 billion himself, bringing the roughly 26-year-old space company to about $30 billion of cumulative funding from its founder. Internal projections reviewed by the Journal show Blue Origin expects revenue to climb from roughly $800 million in 2025 and $1.4 billion this year to more than $30 billion by 2030. The company is betting that growth will come from New Glenn launches, a planned satellite communications business and a future fleet of AI satellites. Blue Origin now employs roughly 15,000 people as it works to expand New Glenn production and rebuild its Florida launch infrastructure following a vehicle explosion earlier this year.