Ten years ago today, ESA opened a new era of independent access to space with the inaugural flight of its small launcher Vega. Flying from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, Vega has gone on to earn a reputation for precision and versatility in anticipation of a more capable version, Vega-C.

Placing medium-sized satellites into the low Earth polar orbits that are ideal for scientific and Earth observation missions—about 1430 kg to 700 km—is Vega's trademark capability. But the vehicle has also delivered an ESA science mission to deep space—the gravitational wave detector demonstration mission, LISA Pathfinder—and followed the equatorial flight path needed for an experimental IXV "lifting body" payload that paved the way for a European launchpad-to-runway space transportation service, with ESA's uncrewed Space Rider vehicle.

SpaceX's Elon Musk said Thursday that the first orbital flight of his towering Starship—the world's most powerful rocket ever built—could come in another month or two.

While he anticipates failures, he's confident Starship will reach orbit by the end of this year.

Musk provided his first major Starship update in more than two years while standing alongside the 390-foot (119-meter) rocket at SpaceX's Texas spaceport. He urged the nighttime crowd, "Let's make this real!"

"This is really some wild stuff here," he said. "In fact, hard to believe it's real.