U.S. Vice President JD Vance reportedly sent a letter to secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, Mohsen Rezaei, recently, to assess whether Washington and Tehran could agree on a framework for negotiations. The move was reportedly made at the direction of President Donald Trump, who later publicly denied instructing Vance to initiate peace talks, characterizing the contact as an effort to deliver medical supplies.

Rezaei said last week that Tehran would not negotiate until its core demands—immediate economic relief, lifting of oil sanctions, and unfreezing of assets—are met.

The outreach occurs as Trump reportedly threatens a “short, intense” military campaign against Iran following the November 3, 2026, U.S. midterm elections. Vance aims to determine if diplomacy can avert this escalation, though no detailed peace proposal has yet been produced.

The cost of the U.S. military engagement with Iran has topped $47 billion. Rising domestic gas prices and economic costs associated with the conflict have become major points of political debate ahead of the U.S. midterm elections.

Qatar reprtedly presented a draft agreement in Tehran on Sunday, outlining a seven-day timeline for daily confidence-building steps by Washington and Tehran. Iran is reportedly considering the proposal, with a response expected by the end of the week.

Rezaei met on Monday, with security chiefs from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey in Tehran. This was described as a rare, high-level engagement aimed at de-escalating tensions in the region.

Engaging Rezaei, a hardliner and close ally of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, risks sidelining traditional negotiators like Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

"While our Brave Armed Forces are fully prepared to defend the Homeland, Iran continues to give diplomacy a chance to succeed," Araghchi wrote Wednesday, on X. "We remain in close and ongoing contact with intermediaries to review ideas that can ensure implementation of our 7-Day Plan in even less than a week."

Regional mediators, including Qatar, are urging Iran to demonstrate “good faith” by reopening the Strait of Hormuz and stopping threats to neighboring countries, as part of a broader effort to establish a new regional security framework.

In X posts over the weekend, Elon Musk said that SpaceX restricted Ukraine’s Starlink service because Kyiv violated terms of service by using the civilian network for offensive drone strikes. He clarified that while Starshield is a US-government-controlled military system, Starlink is a civilian commercial service that has never been allowed for offensive strikes to kill people, and he claimed this "loophole was closed last week."

"Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week," Musk wrote.

The SpaceX CEO cited a post from Volodymyr Zelenskyy in which the Ukrainian president admitted to using Starlink for medium-range strikes against enemy targets in occupied territories. He emphasized that Starlink remains critical for Ukrainian defense, warning that the front line would collapse immediately if the service were turned off entirely, and expressed contempt for those he labeled "virtue-signaling evil warmongers."

Ukrainian officials, including presidential adviser Serhii Beskrestnov, disputed Musk’s allegations, claiming it was technically impossible to use commercial Starlink for such operations due to built-in speed restrictions (70-90 km/h) and the fact that the service does not work over Russian territory.

"For the fools out there, Zelensky himself posted about using Starlink for offensive drone strikes, which has always been against Starlink’s terms of service," Musk wrote/

Despite the dispute, both Starlink and Starshield services were reportdly restored to full operating speeds in Ukraine and US President Donald Trump claimed he had instructed Musk to "put it back."

"Starlink remains critical to the defense of Ukraine, as it is the only system that cannot be jammed or blown up, at least for now," Musk wrote. "Were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately. This is NOT a threat, it is simply a statement of fact."

Rocket Lab Electron launched its 98th Electron mission on Friday(Oct. 23) at 0711 UTC, from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand, deploying three HAWK satellites for HawkEye 360 into a 520-kilometer low Earth orbit. The "We're Not Hawking Around" mission marks Rocket Lab’s 19th launch of the year.

The rocket carried three HAWK satellites designed for HawkEye 360, a Virginia-based signals intelligence company. They operate in clusters of three to scan the globe for radio frequency (RF) emissions, utilizing Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) and Frequency Difference of Arrival (FDOA) processing.

The collected data supports maritime tracking, GNSS jamming detection, radar monitoring, communications mapping, and space defense for the U.S. government and its allies.

"Operating in clusters of three, HawkEye 360's satellites collect signal data from across the RF spectrum for maritime tracking, GNSS jamming detection, radar monitoring, communications mapping and space defense," Rocket Lab wrote in a mission description.

HawkEye 360 provides this data to the U.S. government and its allies "to enable faster, better decision-making," according to the company. "Our space-based collection, proprietary signal processing and AI-powered analytics transform knowledge of the RF spectrum into a strategic advantage."

This deployment is the third dedicated Electron launch for HawkEye 360 since 2023, adding to the company’s nearly 50 satellites in orbit since its first launch in 2018.

Friday's flight represents Rocket Lab’s 98th launch to date, bringing the company closer to the milestone of 100 Electron launches. The company has executed 16 Electron missions and three suborbital HASTE flights this year, demonstrating high turnaround speed and production rates.

The mission underscores Rocket Lab’s trusted role in scaling commercial constellations for defense and commercial customers, following a previous HawkEye 360 launch on SpaceX’s Bandwagon-5 mission just two days prior.