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It would be easy to be cynical about a German-French startup named The Exploration Company, which aims to build an increasingly sophisticated lineup of spaceships that could one day launch astronauts into orbit. After all, European space startups don't have the greatest track record, and even with billions of dollars, one of the world's leading aerospace companies, Boeing, has failed so far to deliver a fully space-worthy human vehicle.

DirecTV is pulling out of an agreement to buy its satellite rival Dish after bondholders objected to terms of the deal. DirecTV issued an announcement last night saying "it has notified EchoStar of its election to terminate, effective as of 11:59 p.m., ET on Friday, November 22nd, 2024, the Equity Purchase Agreement (EPA) pursuant to which it had agreed to acquire EchoStar's video distribution business, Dish DBS." In the deal announced on September 30, DirecTV was going to buy the Dish satellite TV and Sling TV streaming business from EchoStar for a nominal fee of $1.

Two days ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a change in the country's policy for employing nuclear weapons in conflict. Then, on Thursday, Russia attacked the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a new type of ballistic missile capable of one day delivering multiple nuclear warheads to distant targets with little warning. Putin says his ballistic missile attack on Ukraine is a warning to the West. These events are just part of what has been a week of escalation in the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Microsoft’s president has called on Donald Trump to “push harder” against cyber attacks from Russia, China, and Iran amid a wave of state-sponsored hacks targeting US government officials and election campaigns. Brad Smith, who is also the Big Tech company’s vice chair and top legal officer, told the Financial Times that cyber security “deserves to be a more prominent issue of international relations” and appealed to the US president-elect to send a “strong message.” “I hope that the Trump administration will push harder against nation-state cyber attacks, especially from Russia and China and Iran,” Smith said.

Depending on which Android-focused site you believe, either a third Pixel Tablet was apparently in the works at Google and canceled, as Android Headlines reported, or the second one, as Android Authority has it. Either way, there was reportedly a team at Google working on the next flagship Pixel-branded tablet, and now, seemingly due to profitability concerns, that work is over.

Welcome to Edition 7.20 of the Rocket Report! This is a super-long version of the newsletter because we did not publish last week, and there is just a ton of launch news of late. Also, I want to note that next week's report will appear a day early, on Wednesday, due to the Thanksgiving holiday.