Rocket Report: Neutron’s pad opens for business; SpaceX gets Falcon 9 green light

Welcome to Edition 8.09 of the Rocket Report! The biggest news of the week happened inside the Beltway rather than on a launch pad somewhere. In Washington, DC, Congress has pushed back on the Trump administration’s plan to stop flying the Space Launch System rocket after Artemis III. Congress made it clear that it wants to keep the booster in business for a long time. The big question now is whether the Trump White House will blink.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Israel launches SAR satellite. The Israel Ministry of Defense, Israel Defense Forces, and Israel Aerospace Industries successfully launched the Ofek 19 satellite on Tuesday from the Palmachim Airbase. The launch was carried out by the country’s solid-propellant Shavit 2 rocket. Ofek 19 is a synthetic aperture radar observation satellite with enhanced capabilities, 7 Israel National News reports.

A unique launch posture … This was the seventh launch of the Shavit-2 vehicle, which made its debut in June 2007. The most recent launch prior to this week occurred in March 2023. Because of its geographic location and difficult relations with surrounding countries, Israel launches its rockets to the west, over the Mediterranean Sea. (submitted by MarkW98)

Canadian launch firm invests in launch site. Earlier this summer, Reaction Dynamics, an Ontario-based launch company, closed on a Series A funding round worth $10 million. This will support the next phase of development of the Canadian company’s hybrid propulsion system, of which an initial suborbital demonstration flight is planned for this winter. Now the company has taken some of this funding and invested in a launch site in Nova Scotia, SpaceQ reports.

Getting in on the ground floor … In a transaction worth $1.2 million, Reaction Dynamics is investing in Maritime Launch Services, which is developing the Spaceport Nova Scotia facility. Reaction Dynamics intends to launch its Aurora-8 rocket from the Canadian launch site. Bachar Elzein, the CEO of Reaction Dynamics, said the move made sense for two reasons. The first is that it secures “a spot to launch our very first orbital rocket,” with Elzein adding, “we believe in their vision,” and thus wanted to invest. That second factor had to do with all the work, the heavy lifting, MLS has done to date, to build a spaceport from the ground up. (submitted by JoeyS)

MaiaSpace completes tank tests. French rocket builder and ArianeGroup subsidiary MaiaSpace announced the completion of a monthslong test campaign that subjected several subscale prototypes of its propellant tanks to high-pressure burst tests, European Spaceflight reports. Over the course of six months, the company conducted 15 “burst” tests of subscale propellant tanks. Burst tests push tanks to failure to assess their structural limits and ensure they can safely withstand pressures well beyond normal operating conditions.

Working toward space … The data collected will be used to validate mechanical models that will inform the final design of the full-scale propellant tanks. The tests come as MaiaSpace continues to work toward the debut flight of its Maia rocket, which could take place in 2027 from French Guiana. At present, the company intends the rocket to have a lift capacity of 1.5 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.

Orienspace secures B+ round funding. Chinese commercial rocket company Orienspace has raised tens of millions of dollars in Series B+ financing as it moves towards a key test flight, Space News reports. Orienspace secured funding of between $27 million and $124 million, according to the Chinese-language Taibo Network. The capital will be used mainly for the follow-up development and mass production of the Gravity-2 medium-lift liquid launch vehicle.

Not a small rocket … The company will soon begin comprehensive ground verification tests for the Gravity-2 and is scheduled to carry out its first flight test by the end of this year. In July, Orienspace successfully conducted a hot fire test of a Gravity-2 kerosene-liquid oxygen first-stage engine, including gimbal and valve system evaluations. Gravity-2 is expected to lift on the order of 20 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.

Rocket Lab unveils Neutron launch complex. As Rocket Lab prepares to roll out its new Neutron, the firm recently unveiled the launch complex from which the vehicle will fly, DefenseNews reports. Located within the Virginia Space Authority’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Wallops Island, the facility, dubbed Launch Complex 3, will support testing, launch, and return missions for the reusable rocket. Rocket Lab sees Neutron as a contender to help ease the bottleneck in demand from both commercial and military customers for a ride to space. Today, that demand is largely being met by a single provider in the medium-lift market, SpaceX.

A launch this year? … It sounds unlikely. During the event, Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck said that although he believes the company’s plan to launch this year is within reach, the schedule is aggressive with no margin for error. Speaking with reporters at the launch site, Beck said the company has some key testing in the coming months to qualify key stages of the rocket, which will give it a better idea of whether it can meet that 2025 timeline. “Nobody’s waving the white flag here until the last hour of the last day,” he said. This one is unlikely to break Berger’s Law, however.

SpaceX obtains approval to ramp up Falcon 9 cadence. The Federal Aviation Administration issued a record of decision on Wednesday approving SpaceX’s plan to more than double the number of Falcon 9 launches from Space Launch Complex-40 (SLC-40), the busiest of the company’s four operational launch pads. The FAA concluded that the proposed launch rate “would not significantly impact the quality of the human environment,” Ars reports.

Reaching ludicrous speed … The environmental review paves the way for SpaceX to launch up to 120 Falcon 9 rockets per year from SLC-40, an increase from 50 launches covered in a previous FAA review in 2020. Since then, the FAA has issued SpaceX temporary approval to go beyond 50 launches from SLC-40. For example, SpaceX launched 62 of its overall 132 Falcon 9 flights last year from SLC-40. SpaceX’s goal for this year is 170 Falcon 9 launches, and the company is on pace to come close to this target.

NASA sets date for science mission. NASA said Thursday that a trio of spacecraft to study the Sun will launch no earlier than September 23, on a Falcon 9 rocket. The missions include NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe), NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, and NOAA’s SWFO-L1 (Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1) spacecraft. After launching from Kennedy Space Center, the spacecraft will travel together to their destination at the first Earth-Sun Lagrange point (L1), around 1 million miles from Earth toward the Sun.

Fun in the Sun … The missions will each focus on different effects of the solar wind and space weather, from their origins at the Sun to their farthest reaches billions of miles away at the edge of our Solar System. Research and observations from the missions will help us better understand the Sun’s influence on Earth’s habitability, map our home in space, and protect satellites and voyaging astronauts and airline crews from space weather impacts.

Starship’s heat shield shows promise. One of the key issues ahead of last week’s test of SpaceX’s Starship vehicle was the performance of the upper stage heat shield, Ars reports. When the vehicle landed in the Indian Ocean, it had a decidedly orange tint. So what gives? SpaceX founder Elon Musk provided some clarity after the flight, saying, “Worth noting that the heat shield tiles almost entirely stayed attached, so the latest upgrades are looking good! The red color is from some metallic test tiles that oxidized and the white is from insulation of areas where we deliberately removed tiles.”

A step toward the goal … The successful test and additional information from Musk suggest that SpaceX is making progress on developing a heat shield for Starship. This really is the key technology to make an upper stage rapidly reusable—NASA’s space shuttle orbiters were reusable but required a standing army to refurbish the vehicle between flights. To unlock Starship’s potential, SpaceX wants to be able to refly Starships within 24 hours.

Ted Cruz emerges as key SLS defender. All of the original US senators who created and sustained NASA’s Space Launch System rocket over the last 15 years—Bill Nelson, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Richard Shelby—have either retired or failed to win reelection. However, Ars reports that a new champion has emerged to continue the fight: Texas Republican Ted Cruz. As part of its fiscal year 2026 budget, the White House sought to end funding for the Space Launch System rocket after the Artemis III mission, and also cancel the Lunar Gateway, an orbital space station that provides a destination for the rocket.

Money for future missions … However, Cruz subsequently crafted a NASA provision tacked onto President Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill.” The Cruz addendum provided $6.7 billion in funding for two additional SLS missions, Artemis IV and Artemis V, and to continue Gateway construction. In several hearings this year, Cruz has made it clear that his priorities for human spaceflight are to beat China back to the Moon and maintain a presence there. However, it is now increasingly clear that he views this as only being possible through continued use of NASA’s SLS rocket.

SpaceX seeks to solve Starship prop demands. If SpaceX is going to fly Starships as often as it wants to, it’s going to take more than rockets and launch pads. Tanker trucks have traditionally delivered rocket propellant to launch pads at America’s busiest spaceports in Florida and California. SpaceX has used the same method of bringing propellant for the first several years of operations at Starbase. But a reusable Starship’s scale dwarfs that of other rockets. It stands more than 400 feet tall, with a capacity for more than a million gallons of super-cold liquid methane and liquid oxygen propellants.

That’s a lot of gas … SpaceX also uses large quantities of liquid nitrogen to chill and purge the propellant loading system for Starship. It takes more than 200 tanker trucks traveling from distant refineries to deliver all of the methane, liquid oxygen, and liquid nitrogen for a Starship launch. SpaceX officials recognize this is not an efficient means of conveying these commodities to the launch pad. It takes time, emits pollution, and clogs roadways. SpaceX’s solution to some of these problems is to build its own plants to generate cryogenic fluids. In a new report, Ars explains how the company plans to do this.

Next three launches

September 5: Falcon 9 | Starlink 10-57 | Kennedy Space Center Florida | 11: 29 UTC

September 5: Ceres 1 | Unknown payload | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China | 11: 35 UTC

September 6: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-9 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 15: 45 UTC