artemis II

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In their own words: The Artemis II crew on the frenetic first hours of their flight

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No one will be able to sleep when the launch window opens, however.

Wiseman: About seven seconds prior to liftoff, the four main engines light, and they come up to full power. And then the solids light, and that’s when you’re going. What’s crazy to me is that it’s six and a half seconds into flight before the solids clear the top of the tower. Five million pounds of machinery going straight uphill. Six and a half seconds to clear the tower. As a human, I can’t wait to feel that force.

A little more than two minutes into flight, the powerful side-mounted boosters will separate. They will have done the vast majority of lifting to that point, with the rocket already reaching a velocity of 3,100 mph (5,000 kph) and an altitude of 30 miles (48 km), well on its way to space. As payload specialists, Koch and Hansen will largely be along for the ride. Wiseman, the commander, and Glover, the pilot, will be tracking the launch, although the rocket’s flight will be fully automated unless something goes wrong.

Wiseman: Victor and I, we have a lot of work. We have a lot of systems to monitor. Hopefully, everything goes great, and if it doesn’t, we’re very well-trained on what to do next.

After 8 minutes and 3 seconds, the rocket’s core stage will shut down, and the upper stage and Orion spacecraft will separate about 10 seconds later. They will be in space, with about 40 minutes to prepare for their next major maneuver.

In orbit

Koch: The wildest thing in this mission is that literally, right after main-engine cutoff, the first thing Jeremy and I do is get up and start working. I don’t know of a single other mission, certainly not in my memory, where that has been the case in terms of physical movement in the vehicle, setting things up.

Koch, Wiseman, and Glover have all flown to space before, either on a SpaceX Dragon or Russian Soyuz vehicle, and spent several months on the International Space Station. So they know how their bodies will react to weightlessness. Nearly half of all astronauts experience “space adaptation syndrome” during their first flight to orbit, and there is really no way to predict who it will afflict beforehand. This is a real concern for Hansen, a first-time flier, who is expected to hop out of his seat and start working.

Canadian Astronaut Jeremy Hansen is a first-time flier on Artemis II.

Credit: NASA

Canadian Astronaut Jeremy Hansen is a first-time flier on Artemis II. Credit: NASA

Hansen: I’m definitely worried about that, just from a space motion sickness point of view. So I’ll just be really intentional. I won’t move my head around a lot. Obviously, I’m gonna have to get up and move. And I’ll just be very intentional in those first few hours while I’m moving around. And the other thing that I’ll do—it’s very different from Space Station—is I just have everything memorized, so I don’t have to read the procedure on those first few things. So I’m not constantly going down to the [tablet] and reading, and then up. And I’ll just try to minimize what I do.

Koch and Hansen will set up and test essential life support systems on the spacecraft because if the bathroom does not work, they’re not going to the Moon.

Hansen: We kind of split the vehicle by side. So Christina is on the side of the toilet. She’s taking care of all that stuff. I’m on the side of the water dispenser, which is something they want to know: Can we dispense water? It’s not a very complicated system. We just got to get up, get the stuff out of storage, hook it up. I’ll have some camera equipment that I’ll pull out of there. I’ve got the masks we use if we have a fire and we’re trying to purge the smoke. I’ve got to get those set up and make sure they’re good to go. So it’s just little jobs, little odds and ends.

Unlike a conventional rocket mission, Artemis II vehicle’s upper stage, known as the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage, will not fire right away. Rather, after separating from the core stage, Orion will be in an elliptical orbit that will take it out to an apogee of 1,200 nautical miles, nearly five times higher than the International Space Station. There, the crew will be further from Earth than anyone since the Apollo program.

In their own words: The Artemis II crew on the frenetic first hours of their flight Read More »

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Rocket Report: Keeping up with Kuiper; New Glenn’s second flight slips

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Amazon plans to conduct two launches of Kuiper broadband satellites just days apart.

An unarmed Trident II D5 Life Extension (D5LE) missile launches from an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine off the coast of Florida. Credit: US Navy

Welcome to Edition 8.12 of the Rocket Report! We often hear from satellite operators—from the military to venture-backed startups—about their appetite for more launch capacity. With so many rocket launches happening around the world, some might want to dismiss these statements as a corporate plea for more competition, and therefore lower prices. SpaceX is on pace to launch more than 150 times this year. China could end the year with more than 70 orbital launches. These are staggering numbers compared to global launch rates just a few years ago. But I’m convinced there’s room for more alternatives for reliable (and reusable) rockets. All of the world’s planned mega-constellations will need immense launch capacity just to get off the ground, and if successful, they’ll go into regular replacement and replenishment cycles. Throw in the still-undefined Golden Dome missile shield and many nations’ desire for a sovereign launch capability, and it’s easy to see the demand curve going up.

As always, we welcome reader submissions. 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.

Sharp words from Astra’s Chris Kemp. Chris Kemp, the chief executive officer of Astra, apparently didn’t get the memo about playing nice with his competitors in the launch business. Kemp made some spicy remarks at the Berkeley Space Symposium 2025 earlier this month, billed as the largest undergraduate aerospace event at the university (see video of the talk). During the speech, Kemp periodically deviated from building up Astra to hurling insults at several of his competitors in the launch industry, Ars reports. To be fair to Kemp, some of his criticisms are not without a kernel of truth. But they are uncharacteristically rough all the same, especially given Astra’s uneven-at-best launch record and financial solvency to date.

Wait, what?! … Kemp is generally laudatory in his comments about SpaceX, but his most crass statement took aim at the quality of life of SpaceX employees at Starbase, Texas. He said life at Astra is “more fun than SpaceX because we’re not on the border of Mexico where they’ll chop your head off if you accidentally take a left turn.” For the record, no SpaceX employees have been beheaded. “And you don’t have to live in a trailer. And we don’t make you work six and a half days a week, 12 hours a day.” Kemp also accused Firefly Aerospace of sending Astra “garbage” rocket engines as part of the companies’ partnership on propulsion for Astra’s next-generation rocket.

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A step forward for Europe’s reusable rocket program. No one could accuse the European Space Agency and its various contractors of moving swiftly when it comes to the development of reusable rockets. However, it appears that Europe is finally making some credible progress, Ars reports. Last week, the France-based ArianeGroup aerospace company announced that it completed the integration of the Themis vehicle, a prototype rocket that will test various landing technologies, on a launch pad in Sweden. Low-altitude hop tests, a precursor for developing a rocket’s first stage that can vertically land after an orbital launch, could start late this year or early next.

Hopping into the future … “This milestone marks the beginning of the ‘combined tests,’ during which the interface between Themis and the launch pad’s mechanical, electrical, and fluid systems will be thoroughly trialed, with the aim of completing a test under cryogenic conditions,” ArianeGroup said. This particular rocket will likely undergo only short hops, initially about 100 meters. A follow-up vehicle, Themis T1E, is intended to fly medium-altitude tests at a later date. Some of the learnings from these prototypes will feed into a smaller, reusable rocket intended to lift 500 kilograms to low-Earth orbit. This is under development by MaiaSpace, a subsidiary of ArianeGroup. Eventually, the European Space Agency would like to use technology developed as part of Themis to develop a new line of reusable rockets that will succeed the Ariane 6 rocket.

Navy conducts Trident missile drills. The US Navy carried out four scheduled missile tests of a nuclear-capable weapons system off the coast of Florida within the last week, Defense News reports. The service’s Strategic Systems Programs conducted flights of unarmed Trident II D5 Life Extension missiles from a submerged Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine from September 17 to September 21 as part of an ongoing scheduled event meant to test the reliability of the system. “The missile tests were not conducted in response to any ongoing world events,” a Navy release said.

Secret with high visibility … The Navy periodically performs these Trident missile tests off the coasts of Florida and California, taking advantage of support infrastructure and range support from the two busiest US spaceports. The military doesn’t announce the exact timing of the tests, but warnings issued for pilots to stay out of the area give a general idea of when they might occur. One of the launch events Sunday was visible from Puerto Rico, illuminating the night sky in photos published on social media. The missiles fell in the Atlantic Ocean as intended, the Navy said. The Trident II D5 missiles were developed in the 1980s and are expected to remain in service on the Navy’s ballistic missile submarines into the 2040s. The Trident system is one leg of the US military’s nuclear triad, alongside land-based Minuteman ballistic missiles and nuclear-capable strategic bombers. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Firefly plans for Alpha’s return to flight. Firefly Aerospace expects to resume Alpha launches in the “coming weeks,” with two flights planned before the end of the year, Space News reports. These will be the first flights of Firefly’s one-ton-class Alpha rocket since a failure in April destroyed a Lockheed Martin tech demo satellite after liftoff from California. In a quarterly earnings call, Firefly shared a photo showing its next two Alpha rockets awaiting shipment from the company’s Texas factory.

Righting the ship … These next two launches really need to go well for Firefly. The Alpha rocket has, at best, a mixed record with only two fully successful flights in six attempts. Two other missions put their payloads into off-target orbits, and two Alpha launches failed to reach orbit at all. Firefly went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange last month, raising nearly $900 million in the initial public offering to help fund the company’s future programs, namely the medium-lift Eclipse rocket developed in partnership with Northrop Grumman. There’s a lot to like about Firefly. The company achieved the first fully successful landing of a commercial spacecraft on the Moon in March. NASA has selected Firefly for three more commercial landings on the Moon, and Firefly reported this week it has an agreement with an unnamed commercial customer for an additional dedicated mission. But the Alpha program hasn’t had the same level of success. We’ll see if Firefly can get the rocket on track soon. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Avio wins contract to launch “extra-European” mission. Italian rocket builder Avio has signed a launch services agreement with US-based launch aggregator SpaceLaunch for a Vega C launch carrying an Earth observation satellite for an “extra-European institutional customer” in 2027, European Spaceflight reports. Avio announced that it had secured the launch contract on September 18. According to the company, the contract was awarded through an open international competition, with Vega C chosen for its “versatility and cost-effectiveness.” While Avio did not reveal the identity of the “extra-European” customer, it said that it would do so later this year.

Plenty of peculiarities … There are several questions to unpack here, and Andrew Parsonson of European Spaceflight goes through them all. Presumably, extra-European means the customer is based outside of Europe. Avio’s statement suggests we’ll find out the answer to that question soon. Details about the US-based launch broker SpaceLaunch are harder to find. SpaceLaunch appears to have been founded in January 2025 by two former Firefly Aerospace employees with a combined 40 years of experience in the industry. On its website, the company claims to provide end-to-end satellite launch integration, mission management, and launch procurement services with a “portfolio of launch vehicle capacity around the globe.” SpaceLaunch boasts it has supported the launch of more than 150 satellites on 12 different launch vehicles. However, according to public records, it does not appear that the company itself has supported a single launch. Instead, the claim seems to credit SpaceLaunch with launches that were actually carried out during the two founders’ previous tenures at Spaceflight, Firefly Aerospace, Northrop Grumman, and the US Air Force. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Falcon 9 launches three missions for NASA and NOAA. Scientists loaded three missions worth nearly $1.6 billion on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for launch Wednesday, toward an orbit nearly a million miles from Earth, to measure the supersonic stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun, Ars reports. One of the missions, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), will beam back real-time observations of the solar wind to provide advance warning of geomagnetic storms that could affect power grids, radio communications, GPS navigation, air travel, and satellite operations. The other two missions come from NASA, with research objectives that include studying the boundary between the Solar System and interstellar space and observing the rarely seen outermost layer of our own planet’s atmosphere.

Immense value …All three spacecraft will operate in orbit around the L1 Lagrange point, a gravitational balance point located more than 900,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth. Bundling these three missions onto the same rocket saved at least tens of millions of dollars in launch costs. Normally, they would have needed three different rockets. Rideshare missions to low-Earth orbit are becoming more common, but spacecraft departing for more distant destinations like the L1 Lagrange point are rare. Getting all three missions on the same launch required extensive planning, a stroke of luck, and fortuitous timing. “This is the ultimate cosmic carpool,” said Joe Westlake, director of NASA’s heliophysics division. “These three missions heading out to the Sun-Earth L1 point riding along together provide immense value for the American taxpayer.”

US officials concerned about China mastering reusable launch. SpaceX’s dominance in reusable rocketry is one of the most important advantages the United States has over China as competition between the two nations extends into space, US Space Force officials said Monday. But several Chinese companies are getting close to fielding their own reusable rockets, Ars reports. “It’s concerning how fast they’re going,” said Brig. Gen. Brian Sidari, the Space Force’s deputy chief of space operations for intelligence. “I’m concerned about when the Chinese figure out how to do reusable lift that allows them to put more capability on orbit at a quicker cadence than currently exists.”

By the numbers … China has used 14 different types of rockets on its 56 orbital-class missions this year, and none have flown more than 11 times. Eight US rocket types have cumulatively flown 145 times, with 122 of those using SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9. Without a reusable rocket, China must maintain more rocket companies to sustain a launch rate of just one-third to one-half that of the United States. This contrasts with the situation just four years ago, when China outpaced the United States in orbital rocket launches. The growth in US launches has been a direct result of SpaceX’s improvements to launch at a higher rate, an achievement primarily driven by the recovery and reuse of Falcon 9 boosters and payload fairings.

Atlas V launches more Kuiper satellites. Roughly an hour past sunrise Thursday, an Atlas V rocket from United Launch Alliance took flight from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Onboard the rocket, flying in its most powerful configuration, were the next 27 Project Kuiper broadband satellites from Amazon, Spaceflight Now reports. This is the third batch of production satellites launched by ULA and the fifth overall for the growing low-Earth orbit constellation. The Atlas V rocket released the 27 Kuiper satellites about 280 miles (450 kilometers) above Earth. The satellites will use onboard propulsion to boost themselves to their assigned orbit at 392 miles (630 kilometers).

Another Kuiper launch on tap … With this deployment, Amazon now has 129 satellites in orbit. This is a small fraction of the network’s planned total of 3,232 satellites, but Amazon has enjoyed a steep ramp-up in the Kuiper launch cadence as the company’s satellite assembly line in Kirkland, Washington, continues churning out spacecraft. Another 24 Kuiper satellites are slated to launch September 30 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and Amazon has delivered enough satellites to Florida for an additional launch later this fall. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

German military will fly with Ariane 6. Airbus Defense and Space has awarded Arianespace a contract to launch a pair of SATCOMBw-3 communications satellites for the German Armed Forces, European Spaceflight reports. Airbus is the prime contractor for the nearly $2.5 billion (2.1 billion euro) SATCOMBw-3 program, which will take over from the two-satellite SATCOMBw-2 constellation currently providing secure communications for the German military. Arianespace announced Wednesday that it had been awarded the contract to launch the satellites aboard two Ariane 6 rockets. “By signing this new strategic contract for the German Armed Forces, Arianespace accomplishes its core mission of guaranteeing autonomous access to space for European sovereign satellites,” said Arianespace CEO David Cavaillolès.

Running home to Europe … The chief goal of the Ariane 6 program is to provide Europe with independent access to space, something many European governments see as a strategic requirement. Several European military, national security, and scientific satellites have launched on SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets in the last few years as officials waited for the debut of the Ariane 6 rocket. With three successful Ariane 6 flights now in the books, European customers seem to now have the confidence to commit to flying their satellites on Ariane 6. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Artemis II launch targeted for February. NASA is pressing ahead with preparations for the first launch of humans beyond low-Earth orbit in more than five decades, and officials said Tuesday that the Artemis II mission could take flight early next year, Ars reports. Although work remains to be done, the space agency is now pushing toward a launch window that opens on February 5, 2026, officials said during a news conference on Tuesday at Johnson Space Center. The Artemis II mission represents a major step forward for NASA and seeks to send four astronauts—Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen—around the Moon and back. The 10-day mission will be the first time astronauts have left low-Earth orbit since the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972.

Orion named Integrity … The first astronauts set to fly to the Moon in more than 50 years will do so in Integrity, Ars reports. NASA’s Artemis II crew revealed Integrity as the name of their Orion spacecraft during a news conference on Wednesday at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. “We thought, as a crew, we need to name this spacecraft. We need to have a name for the Orion spacecraft that we’re going to ride this magical mission on,” said Wiseman, commander of the Artemis II mission.

FAA reveals new Starship trajectories. Sometime soon, perhaps next year, SpaceX will attempt to fly one of its enormous Starship rockets from low-Earth orbit back to its launch pad in South Texas. A successful return and catch at the launch tower would demonstrate a key capability underpinning Elon Musk’s hopes for a fully reusable rocket. In order for this to happen, SpaceX must overcome the tyranny of geography. A new document released by the Federal Aviation Administration shows the narrow corridors Starship will fly to space and back when SpaceX tries to recover them, Ars reports.

Flying over people … It was always evident that flying a Starship from low-Earth orbit back to Starbase would require the rocket to fly over Mexico and portions of South Texas. The rocket launches to the east over the Gulf of Mexico, so it must approach Starbase from the west when it comes in for a landing. The new maps show SpaceX will launch Starships to the southeast over the Gulf and the Caribbean Sea, and directly over Jamaica, or to the northeast over the Gulf and the Florida peninsula. On reentry, the ship will fly over Baja California and Mexico’s interior near the cities of Hermosillo and Chihuahua, each with a population of roughly a million people. The trajectory would bring Starship well north of the Monterrey metro area and its 5.3 million residents, then over the Rio Grande Valley near the Texas cities of McAllen and Brownsville.

New Glenn’s second flight at least a month away. The second launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, carrying a NASA smallsat mission to Mars, is now expected in late October or early November, Space News reports. Tim Dunn, NASA’s senior launch director at Kennedy Space Center, provided an updated schedule for the second flight of New Glenn in comments after a NASA-sponsored launch on a Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday. Previously, the official schedule from NASA showed the launch date as no earlier than September 29.

No surprise … It was already apparent that this launch wouldn’t happen September 29. Blue Origin has test-fired the second stage for the upcoming flight of the New Glenn rocket but hasn’t rolled the first stage to the launch pad for its static fire. Seeing the rocket emerge from Blue’s factory in Florida will be an indication that the launch date is finally near. Blue Origin will launch NASA’s ESCAPADE mission, a pair of small satellites to study how the solar wind interacts with the Martian upper atmosphere.

Blue Origin will launch a NASA rover to the Moon. NASA has awarded Blue Origin a task order worth up to $190 million to deliver its Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) to the Moon’s surface, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. Blue Origin, one of 13 currently active Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) providers, submitted the only bid to carry VIPER to the Moon after NASA requested offers from industry last month. NASA canceled the VIPER mission last year, citing cost overruns with the rover and delays in its planned ride to the Moon aboard a lander provided by Astrobotic. But engineers had already completed assembly of the rover, and scientists protested NASA’s decision to terminate the mission.

Some caveats … Blue Origin will deliver VIPER to a location near the Moon’s south pole in late 2027 using a robotic Blue Moon MK1 lander, a massive craft larger than the Apollo lunar landing module. The company’s first Blue Moon MK1 lander is scheduled to fly to the Moon next year. NASA’s contract for the VIPER delivery calls for Blue Origin to design accommodations for the rover on the Blue Moon lander. The agency said it will decide whether to proceed with the actual launch on a New Glenn rocket and delivery of VIPER to the Moon based partially on the outcome of the first Blue Moon test flight next year.

Next three launches

Sept. 26: Long March 4C | Unknown Payload | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China | 19: 20 UTC

Sept. 27: Long March 6A | Unknown Payload | Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, China | 12: 39 UTC

Sept. 28: Falcon 9 | Starlink 11-20 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 23: 32 UTC

Photo of Stephen Clark

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

Rocket Report: Keeping up with Kuiper; New Glenn’s second flight slips Read More »

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The crew of Artemis II will fly on Integrity during mission to the Moon

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Three men and one woman, all in orange pressure suits, stand in front of a silver-coated space capsule in an overhead view

The Artemis II crew (from the right): Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen pose in front of their Orion spacecraft, which they have named Integrity. Credit: NASA/Rad Sinyak

Whole and undivided

Ultimately, Integrity was inspired by something one of their instructors said while on a team-building trip to Iceland.

“He coined this for us, and we held on to it,” said Hansen, who, unlike his NASA crewmates, is a Canadian Space Agency astronaut. “It was this idea that you’re not a person who has integrity, you’re a person who strives to be in integrity. Sometimes you’re out of integrity, and sometimes you’re in your integrity. That was profound for all of us.”

For Glover, it boiled down to the definition.

“The Latin root means ‘whole.’ It’s a very simple concept, and it’s about being whole. This crew comes together as pieces—the four of us and our backups—but the six of us make up a whole team. The vehicle, the pieces come together and make up a whole spacecraft,” he said.

“What people anecdotally say is that integrity is what you do when no one’s watching. That, and truth, honor, and integrity matter,” said Glover. “There are so many layers to that name and what it means and what it inspires.”

Integrating Integrity

Integrity is one of the tenets of the Astronaut Code of Professional Responsibility. It is also one of the Canadian Space Agency’s core values.

“We all strive to be in integrity all of the time, but integrity isn’t an absolute that you either have or don’t have,” said Koch. “So this helps us give grace and build trust with each other.”

“I hope that people hearing [the name] over the 10 days of the mission appreciate all of the different things that it means, from a whole ship, a whole crew, to a wholeness and wellness that I think humanity just needs. We need to hear more of that togetherness and wholeness,” said Glover.

Three men and a woman, all in blue flight suits, pose for a photograph backdropped by images of the moon and Mars

NASA’s Artemis II crew (from the left) Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen at the Johnson Space Center in Houston on Wednesday, September 24, 2025. Credit: collectSPACE.com

Now that it has been announced, next up is for Integrity to be used as the crew’s possible call sign.

“We waited to make sure the whole enterprise was ready for us to announce it before we even used it,” said Glover. “I think we’ll start using it in sims: ‘Houston, Integrity. Integrity, Houston.’ That’s the plan.

“But if someone doesn’t like that, then we won’t, and we can say Orion,” he said.

The crew of Artemis II will fly on Integrity during mission to the Moon Read More »

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NASA targeting early February for Artemis II mission to the Moon

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NASA is pressing ahead with preparations for the first launch of humans beyond low-Earth orbit in more than five decades, and officials said Tuesday that the Artemis II mission could take flight early next year.

Although work remains to be done, the space agency is now pushing toward a launch window that opens on February 5, 2026, officials said during a news conference on Tuesday at Johnson Space Center.

The Artemis II mission represents a major step forward for NASA and seeks to send four astronauts—Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen—around the Moon and back. The 10-day mission will be the first time astronauts have left low-Earth orbit since the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972.

Hardware nearing readiness

The mission’s Space Launch System rocket has been stacked and declared ready for flight. The Orion spacecraft is in the final stages of preparation and will be attached to the top of the rocket later this year.

Early next year, the combined stack will roll out to the vehicle’s launch site at Kennedy Space Center, said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis launch director. At the pad, the rocket and spacecraft will be connected to ground systems, and after about two weeks, it will undergo a “wet dress rehearsal.”

During this fueling test, the first and second stages of the rocket will be fully loaded with liquid hydrogen and oxygen, and the countdown will be taken down to T-29 seconds. After this test, the rocket will be de-tanked and turned around for launch.

Due to the orbits of Earth and the Moon and various constraints on the mission, there are launch windows each month that last four to eight days. In February, that window opens on the fifth, and it would be an evening launch, Blackwell-Thompson said.

After launching, the Orion spacecraft will separate from the upper stage of the SLS rocket a little more than three hours after liftoff. It will spend about 24 hours in orbit around Earth, during which time the four astronauts on board will perform various checkouts to ensure the vehicle’s life support systems, thrusters, and other equipment are performing nominally.

NASA targeting early February for Artemis II mission to the Moon Read More »

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Rocket Report: European rocket reuse test delayed; NASA tweaks SLS for Artemis II

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All the news that’s fit to lift

“There’s a lot of interest because of the fear that there’s just not a lot of capacity.”

Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket lifts off from Andøya Spaceport, Norway, on March 30, 2025. Credit: Isar Aerospace/Brady Kenniston/NASASpaceflight.com

Welcome to Edition 8.11 of the Rocket Report! We have reached the time of year when it is possible the US government will shut down its operations at the end of this month, depending on congressional action. A shutdown would have significant implications for many NASA missions, but most notably a couple of dozen in the science directorate that the White House would like to shut down. At Ars, we will be watching this issue closely in the coming days. As for Artemis II, it seems to be far enough along that a launch next February seems possible as long as any government closure does not drag on for weeks and weeks.

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.

Rocket Lab to sell common shares. The space company said Tuesday that it intends to raise up to $750 million by selling common shares, MSN reports. This new at-the-market program replaces a prior agreement that allowed Rocket Lab to sell up to $500 million of stock. Under that earlier arrangement, the company had sold roughly $396.6 million in shares before ending the program.

Seeking to scale up … The program’s structure enables Rocket Lab to sell shares periodically through the appointed agents, who may act as either principals or intermediaries. The larger offering indicates that Rocket Lab is aiming to bolster its cash reserves to support ongoing development of its launch services, including the medium-lift Neutron rocket and spacecraft manufacturing operations. The company’s stock dropped by about 10 percent after the announcement.

Astra targets mid-2026 for Rocket 4 debut. Astra is targeting next summer for the first flight of its Rocket 4 vehicle as the company prepares to reenter the launch market, Space News reports. At the World Space Business Week conference in Paris, Chris Kemp, chief executive of Astra, said the company was on track for a first launch of Rocket 4 in summer 2026 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. He highlighted progress Astra is making, such as tests of a new engine the company developed for the vehicle’s first stage that produces 42,000 pounds of thrust. Two of those engines will power the first stage, while the upper stage will use a single Hadley engine produced by Ursa Major.

Pricing a launch competitively … The vehicle will initially be capable of placing about 750 kilograms into low-Earth orbit for a price of $5 million. “That’ll be very competitive,” Kemp said in an interview after the presentation, similar to what SpaceX charges for payloads of that size through its rideshare program. The company is targeting customers seeking alternatives to SpaceX in a constrained launch market. “There’s a lot of interest because of the fear that there’s just not a lot of capacity,” he said, particularly for satellites too large to launch on Rocket Lab’s Electron. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

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Avio seeks to raise 400 million euros. Italian rocket builder Avio’s board of directors has approved a 400 million euro ($471 million) capital increase to fund an expansion of its manufacturing capacity to meet rising demand in the global space and defense markets, European Spaceflight reports. The company expects to complete the capital increase by the end of the year; however, it is still subject to a shareholder vote, scheduled for October 23.

Small rockets, big plans … The capital raise is part of a new 10-year business plan targeting an average annual growth rate of about 10 percent in turnover and more than 15 percent in core profit. This growth is projected to be driven by a higher Vega C launch cadence, the introduction of the Vega E rocket, continued participation in the Ariane 6 program by providing solid rocket boosters, and the construction of a new defense production facility in the United States, which is expected to be completed by 2028.

Isar working toward second Spectrum launch. In a briefing this week, Isar Aerospace executives discussed the outcome of the investigation into the March 30 launch of the Spectrum rocket from the Andøya Spaceport in northern Norway, Space News reports. The vehicle activated its flight termination system about half a minute after liftoff, shutting down its engines and plummeting into the waters just offshore of the pad. The primary issue with the rocket was a loss of attitude control.

Bend it like Spectrum … Alexandre Dalloneau, vice president of mission and launch operations at Isar, said that the company had not properly characterized bending modes of the vehicle at liftoff. Despite the failure to get to orbit, Dalloneau considers the first Spectrum launch a successful test flight. The company is working toward a second flight of Spectrum, which will take place “as soon as possible,” Dalloneau said. He did not give a specific target launch date, but officials indicated they were hoping to launch near the end of this year or early next year. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Callisto rocket test delayed again. A new document from the French space agency CNES has revealed that the inaugural flight of the Callisto reusable rocket demonstrator has slipped from 2026 to 2027, European Spaceflight reports. This reusable launch testbed is a decade old. Conceived in 2015, the Cooperative Action Leading to Launcher Innovation in Stage Toss-back Operations (Callisto) project is a collaboration between CNES and the German and Japanese space agencies aimed at maturing reusable rocket technology for future European and Japanese launch systems.

Still waiting … The Callisto demonstrator will stand 14 meters tall, with a width of 1.1 meters and a takeoff mass of 3,500 kilograms. This latest revision to the program’s timeline comes less than a year after JAXA confirmed in October 2024 that the program’s flight-test campaign had been pushed to 2026. The campaign will be carried out from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana and will include an integration phase followed by eight test flights and two demonstration flights, all to be completed over a period of eight months. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Falcon 9 launches larger Cygnus spacecraft. The first flight of Northrop’s upgraded Cygnus spacecraft, called Cygnus XL, launched Sunday evening from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, en route to the International Space Station, Ars reports. Without a rocket of its own, Northrop Grumman inked a contract with SpaceX for three Falcon 9 launches to carry the resupply missions until engineers could develop a new, all-domestic version of the Antares rocket. Sunday’s launch was the last of these three Falcon 9 flights. Northrop is partnering with Firefly Aerospace on a new rocket, the Antares 330, using a new US-made booster stage and engines.

A few teething issues … This new rocket won’t be ready to fly until late 2026, at the earliest, somewhat later than Northrop officials originally hoped. The company confirmed it has purchased a fourth Falcon 9 launch from SpaceX for the next Cygnus cargo mission in the first half of next year, in a bid to bridge the gap until the debut of the Antares 330 rocket. Due to problems with the propulsion system on the larger Cygnus vehicle, its arrival at the space station was delayed. But the vehicle successfully reached the station on Thursday, carrying a record 11,000 pounds of cargo.

Launch companies still struggling with cadence. Launch companies are reiterating plans to sharply increase flight rates to meet growing government and commercial demand, even as some fall short of earlier projections, Space News reports. Executives speaking at a September 15 panel at the World Space Business Week conference highlighted efforts to scale up flights of new vehicles that have entered service in the last two years. “The key for us is cadence,” said Laura Maginnis, vice president of New Glenn mission management at Blue Origin. However, the publication notes, at this time last year, Blue Origin was projecting eight to 10 New Glenn launches this year. There has been one.

It’s difficult to go from 1 to 100 … Blue Origin is not alone in falling short of forecasts. United Launch Alliance projected 20 launches in 2025 between the Atlas 5 and Vulcan Centaur, but in August, CEO Tory Bruno said the company now expects nine. As recently as June, Arianespace projected five Ariane 6 launches this year, including the debut of the more powerful Ariane 64, with four solid-rocket boosters, but has completed only two Ariane 62 flights, including one in August.

NASA makes some modifications to SLS for Artemis II. This week, the space agency declared the SLS rocket is now “ready” to fly crew for the Artemis II mission early next year. However, NASA and its contractors did make some modest changes after the first flight of the booster in late 2022. For example, the Artemis II rocket includes an improved navigation system compared to Artemis I. Its communications capability has also been improved by repositioning antennas on the rocket to ensure continuous communications with the ground.

Not good, but bad vibrations … Additionally, SLS will jettison the spent boosters four seconds earlier during the Artemis II ascent than occurred during Artemis I. Dropping the boosters several seconds closer to the end of their burn will give engineers flight data to correlate with projections that shedding the boosters several seconds sooner will yield approximately 1,600 pounds of payload to Earth orbit for future SLS flights. During the Artemis I test flight, the SLS rocket experienced higher-than-expected vibrations near the solid rocket booster attachment points that were caused by unsteady airflow. To steady the airflow, a pair of 6-foot-long strakes flank each booster’s forward connection points on the SLS intertank.

Federal judge sides with SpaceX, FAA. The initial launch of Starship in April 2023 spread debris across a wide area, sending pulverized concrete as far as six miles away as the vehicle tore up the launch pad. After this, environmental groups and other organizations sued the FAA when the federal organization reviewed the environmental impact of this launch and cleared SpaceX to launch again several months later. A federal judge in Washington, DC, ruled this week that the FAA did not violate environmental laws as part of this review, the San Antonio Express-News reports.

Decision grounded within reason … In his opinion issued Monday, Judge Carl Nichols determined the process was not capricious, writing, “Most of the (programmatic environmental assessment’s) conclusions were well-reasoned and supported by the record, and while parts of its analysis left something to be desired, even those parts fell ‘within a broad zone of reasonableness.'” The environmental organizations said they were considering the next steps for the case and a potential appeal. (submitted by RP)

Next three launches

September 13: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-12 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 15: 44 UTC

September 21: Falcon 9 | Starlink 10-27 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 09: 20 UTC

September 21: Falcon 9 | NROL-48 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 17: 23 UTC

Photo of Eric Berger

Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston.

Rocket Report: European rocket reuse test delayed; NASA tweaks SLS for Artemis II Read More »

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Rocket Report: Ariane 6 beats Vulcan to third launch; China’s first drone ship

ariane 6, Arianespace, artemis II, china, human spaceflight, NASA, rocket report, Science, Space, space launch system, spacex, united launch alliance, vulcan / /

Why is China’s heavy-lift Long March 5B able to launch only 10 Guowang satellites at a time?

Wearing their orange launch and reentry spacesuits, Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman (bottom) and pilot Victor Glover (top) walk out of an emergency egress basket during nighttime training at Launch Complex 39B.

Welcome to Edition 8.06 of the Rocket Report! Two of the world’s most storied rocket builders not named SpaceX achieved major successes this week. Arianespace’s Ariane 6 rocket launched from French Guiana on its third flight Tuesday night with a European weather satellite. Less than 20 minutes later, United Launch Alliance’s third Vulcan rocket lifted off from Florida on a US military mission. These are two of the three big rockets developed in the Western world that have made their orbital debuts in the last two years, alongside Blue Origin’s New Glenn launcher. Ariane 6 narrowly won the “race” to reach its third orbital flight, but if you look at it another way, Ariane 6 reached its third flight milestone 13 months after its inaugural launch. It took Vulcan more than 19 months, and New Glenn has flown just once. SpaceX’s Super Heavy/Starship rocket has flown nine times but has yet to reach orbit.

As always, we welcome reader submissions. 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.

Sixth success for sea-launched Chinese rocket. Private Chinese satellite operator Geespace added 11 spacecraft to its expanding Internet of Things constellation on August 8, aiming to boost low-power connectivity in key emerging markets, Space News reports. The 11 satellites rode into orbit aboard a solid-fueled Jielong 3 (Smart Dragon 3) rocket lifting off from an ocean platform in the Yellow Sea off the coast of Rizhao, a city in eastern China’s Shandong province. This was the sixth flight of the Jielong 3, a rocket developed by a commercially oriented spinoff of the state-owned China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology.

Mistaken for a meteor … The fourth stage of the Jielong 3 rocket, left in orbit after deploying its 11 satellite payloads, reentered the atmosphere late Sunday night. The fiery and destructive reentry created a fireball that streaked across the skies over Spain, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo reports. Many Spanish residents identified the streaking object as a meteor associated with the Perseid meteor shower. But it turned out to be a piece of China’s Jielong 3 rocket. Any debris that may have survived the scorching reentry likely fell into the Mediterranean Sea.

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Portugal green-lights Azores spaceport. The Portuguese government has granted the Atlantic Spaceport Consortium a license to build and operate a rocket launch facility on the island of Santa Maria in the Azores, European Spaceflight reports. The Atlantic Spaceport Consortium (ASC) was founded in 2019 with the goal of developing a commercial spaceport on Santa Maria, 1,500 kilometers off the Portuguese mainland. In September 2024, the company showcased the island’s suitability as a launch site by launching two small solid-fuel amateur-class rockets that it developed in-house.

What’s on deck? … The spaceport license granted by Portugal’s regulatory authorities does not cover individual launches themselves. Those must be approved in a separate licensing process. It’s likely that the launch site on Santa Maria Island will initially host suborbital launches, including flights by the Polish rocket company SpaceForest. The European Space Agency has also selected Santa Maria as the landing site for the first flight of the Space Rider lifting body vehicle after it launches into orbit, perhaps in 2027. (submitted by claudiodcsilva)

Why is Jeff Bezos buying launches from Elon Musk? Early Monday morning, a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from its original launch site in Florida. Remarkably, it was SpaceX’s 100th launch of the year. Perhaps even more notable was the rocket’s payload: two-dozen Project Kuiper satellites, which were dispensed into low-Earth orbit on target, Ars reports. This was SpaceX’s second launch of satellites for Amazon, which is developing a constellation to deliver low-latency broadband Internet around the world. SpaceX, then, just launched a direct competitor to its Starlink network into orbit. And it was for the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, who owns a rocket company of his own in Blue Origin.

Several answers … So how did it come to this—Bezos and Elon Musk, competitors in so many ways, working together in space? There are several answers. Most obviously, launching payloads for customers is one of SpaceX’s two core business areas, alongside Starlink. SpaceX sells launch services to all comers and typically offers the lowest price per kilogram to orbit. There’s immediate revenue to be made if a company with deep pockets like Amazon is willing to pay SpaceX. Second, the other options to get Kuiper satellites into orbit just aren’t available at the volume Amazon needs. Amazon has reserved the lion’s share of its Kuiper launches with SpaceX’s competitors: United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, and Jeff Bezos’ own space company Blue Origin. Lastly, SpaceX could gain some leverage by providing launch services to Amazon. In return for a launch, SpaceX has asked other companies with telecom satellites, such as OneWeb and Kepler Communications, to share spectrum rights to enable Starlink to expand into new markets.

Trump orders cull of commercial launch regulations. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday directing government agencies to “eliminate or expedite” environmental reviews for commercial launch and reentry licenses, Ars reports. The FAA, part of the Department of Transportation, is responsible for granting the licenses after ensuring launch and reentries don’t endanger the public, comply with environmental laws, and comport with US national interests. The drive toward deregulation will be welcome news for companies like SpaceX, led by onetime Trump ally Elon Musk; SpaceX conducts nearly all of the commercial launches and reentries licensed by the FAA.

Deflecting scrutiny? … The executive order does several things, and not all of them will be as controversial as the potential elimination of environmental reviews. The order includes a clause directing the government to reevaluate, amend, or rescind a slate of launch-safety regulations written during the first Trump administration. The FAA published the new regulations, known as Part 450, in 2020, and they went into effect in 2021, but space companies have complained that they are too cumbersome and have slowed down the license approval process. The Biden administration established a committee last year to look at reforming the regulations in response to industry’s outcry. Another part of the order that will likely lack bipartisan support is a call for making the head of the FAA’s commercial spaceflight division a political appointee. This job has historically been held by a career civil servant.

Ariane 6 launches European weather satellite. Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket successfully launched for a third time on Tuesday night, carrying a satellite into orbit for weather forecasting and climate monitoring, Euronews reports. “The success of this second commercial launch confirms the performance, reliability, and precision of Ariane 6,” said Martin Sion, CEO of ArianeGroup, operator of the rocket. “Once again, the new European heavy-lift launcher meets Europe’s needs, ensuring sovereign access to space,” Sion added. It marks the second commercial flight of the rocket, which has been in development for almost a decade with the European Space Agency (ESA). It is significant as it gives Europe independent access to space and reduces its reliance on Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Eumetsat returns to Europe … The polar-orbiting weather satellite launched by the Ariane 6 rocket this week is owned by the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, or Eumetsat. Headquartered in Germany, Eumetsat is a multinational organization that owns and operates geostationary and polar-orbiting weather satellites, watching real-time storm development over Europe and Africa, while feeding key data into global weather and climate models. Just last month, Eumetsat’s newest geostationary weather satellite launched from Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket because of delays with the Ariane 6 program.

Rocket Lab isn’t giving up on 2025 yet. Rocket Lab continues to push for a first launch of its medium-lift Neutron rocket before the end of the year, but company executives acknowledge that schedule has no margin for error, Space News reports. It may seem unlikely, but Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO, Peter Beck, said in a conference call with investment analysts last week that the company has a “green light” schedule to debut the Neutron rocket within the next four-and-a-half months. There’s still much work to do to prepare for the first launch, and the inaugural flight seems almost certain to slip into 2026.

Launch pad nearly complete … Rocket Lab plans to host a ribbon-cutting at the Neutron rocket’s new launch pad on Wallops Island, Virginia, on August 28. This launch pad is located just south of the spaceport’s largest existing launch facility, where Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket lifts off on resupply missions to the International Space Station. Rocket Lab has a small launch pad for its light-class Electron launcher co-located with the Antares pad at Wallops.

Chinese company reveals drone ship. The Chinese launch company iSpace has released the first photos of an ocean-going recovery ship to support the landings of reusable first-stage boosters. The company hosted a dedication ceremony in Yangzhou, China, earlier this month for the vessel, which looks similar to SpaceX’s rocket landing drone ships. In a press release, iSpace said the ship, named “Interstellar Return,” is China’s first marine rocket recovery ship, and the fifth such vessel in the world. SpaceX has three drone ships in its fleet for the Falcon 9 rocket, and Blue Origin has one for the New Glenn booster.

Rocket agnostic … The recovery ship will be compatible with various medium- and large-sized reusable rockets, iSpace said. But its main use will be as the landing site for the first stage booster for iSpace’s own Hyperbola 3 rocket, a medium-lift launcher with methane-fueled engines. The company has completed multiple vertical takeoff and landing tests of prototype boosters for the Hyperbola 3. The recovery ship measures about 100 meters long and 42 meters wide, with a displacement of 17,000 metric tons, and it has the ability to perform “intelligent unmanned operations” thanks to a dynamic positioning system, according to iSpace.

Vulcan’s first national security launch. United Launch Alliance delivered multiple US military satellites into a high-altitude orbit after a prime-time launch Tuesday night, marking an important transition from development to operations for the company’s new Vulcan rocket, Ars reports. This mission, officially designated USSF-106 by the US Space Force, was the first flight of ULA’s Vulcan rocket to carry national security payloads. Two test flights of the Vulcan rocket last year gave military officials enough confidence to certify it for launching the Pentagon’s medium-to-large space missions.

Secrecy in the fairing  … The Vulcan rocket’s Centaur upper stage released its payloads into geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator roughly seven hours after liftoff. One of the satellites deployed by the Vulcan rocket is an experimental navigation testbed named NTS-3. It will demonstrate new technologies that could be used on future GPS navigation satellites. But the Space Force declined to disclose any information about the mission’s other payloads.

Artemis II crew trains for nighttime ops. The four astronauts training to fly around the Moon on NASA’s Artemis II mission next year have been at Kennedy Space Center in Florida this week. One of the reasons they were at Kennedy was to run through a rehearsal for what it will be like to work at the launch pad if the Artemis II mission ends up lifting off at night. Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen put on their spacesuits and rehearsed emergency procedures at Launch Complex 39B, replicating a daytime simulation they participated in last year.

Moving forward … The astronauts also went inside the Vehicle Assembly Building to practice using egress baskets they would use to quickly escape the launch pad in the event of a prelaunch emergency. The baskets are fastened to the mobile launch tower inside the VAB, where technicians are assembling and testing the Space Launch System rocket for the Artemis II mission. Later this year, the astronauts will return to Kennedy for a two-part countdown demonstration test. First, the crew members will board their Orion spacecraft once it’s stacked atop the SLS rocket inside the VAB. Then, in part two, the astronauts will again rehearse emergency evacuation procedures once the rocket rolls to the launch pad.

China’s Long March 5B flies again. China is ramping up construction of its national satellite-Internet megaconstellation with the successful deployment of another batch of Guowang satellites by a heavy-lift Long March 5B rocket on Wednesday, Space.com reports. Guowang, whose name translates as “national network,” will be operated by China SatNet, a state-run company established in 2021. The constellation will eventually consist of about 13,000 satellites if all goes to plan.

Make this make sense … Guowang is a long way from that goal. Wednesday’s launch was the eighth overall for the network, but it was the fourth for the project in less than three weeks. Each mission lofts just five to 10 Guowang spacecraft, apparently because each satellite is quite large. For comparison, SpaceX launches 24 to 28 satellites on each mission to assemble its Starlink broadband megaconstellation, which currently consists of nearly 8,100 operational spacecraft. The Long March 5B is China’s most powerful operational rocket, with a lift capacity somewhat higher than SpaceX’s Falcon 9 but below that of the Falcon Heavy. It begs the question of just how big the Guowang satellites really are, and do they have a purpose beyond broadband Internet service?

Next three launches

Aug. 16: Kinetica 1 | Unknown Payload | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China | 07: 35 UTC

Aug. 17: Long March 4C | Unknown Payload | Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China | 09: 05 UTC

Aug. 17: Long March 6A | Unknown Payload | Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, China | 14: 15 UTC

Photo of Stephen Clark

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

Rocket Report: Ariane 6 beats Vulcan to third launch; China’s first drone ship Read More »

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Rocket Report: Rocket Lab to demo cargo delivery; America’s new ICBM in trouble

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SpaceX’s plan to turn Starbase into Texas’ newest city won the approval of voters—err, employees.

A decommissioned Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile inside a silo at a museum in Green Valley, Arizona.

Welcome to Edition 7.43 of the Rocket Report! There’s been a lot of recent news in hypersonic testing. We cover some of that in this week’s newsletter, which is just a taste of the US military’s appetite for fielding its own hypersonic weapons, and conversely, the Pentagon’s emphasis on the detection and destruction of an enemy’s hypersonic missiles. China has already declared its first hypersonic weapons operational, and Russia claims to have them, too. Now, the Pentagon is finally close to placing hypersonic missiles with combat units. Many US rocket companies believe the hypersonics sector is a lucrative business. Some companies have enough confidence in this emerging market—or lack of faith in the traditional space launch market—to pivot entirely toward hypersonics. I’m interested in seeing if their bets pay off.

As always, we welcome reader submissions. 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.

Stratolaunch tests reusable hypersonic rocket plane. Stratolaunch has finally found a use for the world’s largest airplane. Twice in the last five months, the company launched a hypersonic vehicle over the Pacific Ocean, accelerated it to more than five times the speed of sound, and autonomously landed at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, Ars reports. Stratolaunch used the same Talon-A vehicle for both flights, demonstrating its reusability, a characteristic that sets it apart from competitors. Zachary Krevor, Stratolaunch’s president and CEO, said his team aims to ramp up to monthly flights by the end of the year.

A 21st century X-15 … This is the first time anyone in the United States has flown a reusable hypersonic rocket plane since the last flight of the X-15, the iconic rocket-powered aircraft that pushed the envelope of high-altitude, high-speed flight 60 years ago. Like the Talon-A, the X-15 released from a carrier jet and ignited a rocket engine to soar into the uppermost layers of the atmosphere. But the X-15 had a pilot in command, while the Talon-A flies on autopilot. Stratolaunch is one of several companies participating in a US military program to test parts and technologies for use on future hypersonic weapons. “Why the autonomous flight matters is because hypersonic systems are now pushing the envelope in terms of maneuvering capability, maneuvering beyond what can be done by the human body,” Krevor said.

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New details about another recent hypersonic test. A hypersonic missile test on April 25 validated the launch mechanism for the US Navy Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) weapon program, the Defense Department said on May 2. The CPS missile, the Navy’s name for what the US Army calls the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. While the Army and Navy versions use the same hypersonic glide vehicle and missile, they use different launch mechanisms. Last year, the Army tested its version of the hypersonic missile launcher. Now, the Navy has validated the cold-gas launch mechanism it will install on guided missile destroyers.

Deploying soon … “The cold-gas approach allows the Navy to eject the missile from the platform and achieve a safe distance above the ship prior to first stage ignition,” said Vice Adm Johnny R. Wolfe Jr., director of the Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs, which is the lead designer of the common hypersonic missile. The Army plans to field its Long Range Hypersonic Weapon—also called “Dark Eagle”—with a combat unit later this year, while the Navy’s version won’t be ready for testing at sea until 2027 or 2028. Both missiles are designed for conventional (non-nuclear) strikes. The Army’s Dark Eagle will be the US military’s first operational hypersonic weapon.

Sentinel needs new silos. The Air Force will have to dig entirely new nuclear missile silos for the LGM-35A Sentinel, creating another complication for a troubled program that is already facing future cost and schedule overruns, Defense News reports. The Air Force originally hoped the existing silos that have housed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles could be adapted to launch Sentinel missiles, which would be more efficient than digging entirely new silos. But a test project at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California showed that approach would be fraught with further problems and cause the program to run even further behind and over budget, the service said.

Rising costs … Sentinel, developed by Northrop Grumman, will replace the Air Force’s fleet of Minuteman III ICBMs, which entered service in 1970, as the land-based leg of the military’s nuclear triad. Sentinel was originally expected to cost $77.7 billion, but projected future costs ran so severely over budget that in January 2024, the program triggered a review process known as a critical Nunn-McCurdy breach. After that review, the Pentagon last year concluded Sentinel was too critical to national security to abandon, but ordered the Air Force to restructure it to bring its costs under control. Additional studies of the program are highlighting more potential problems.

Gilmour says it (hopefully) will wait no more. The Australian launch startup Gilmour Space Technologies has been given approval by Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority for the debut launch of its Eris orbital rocket, InnovationAus.com reports. There is still one final regulatory hurdle, a final sign-off from the Australian Space Agency. If that happens in the next few days, Gilmour’s launch window will open May 15. The company has announced tentative launch schedules before, only to be thwarted by technical issues, regulatory hangups, or bad weather. Most recently, Gilmour got within six days of its targeted launch date in March before regulatory queries and the impact of a tropical cyclone forced a delay.

Stand by for history … The launch of Gilmour’s three-stage Eris rocket will be historic. If successful, the 82-foot-tall (25-meter) rocket will be Australia’s first homegrown orbital launcher. Eris is capable of hauling cargos up to 672 pounds (305 kilograms) to orbit, according to Gilmour. The company has dispatched a small team from its Gold Coast headquarters to the launch site in Queensland, on Australia’s northeastern coast, to perform testing on the vehicle after it remained dormant for weeks. (Submitted by trainticket)

Fresh insights into one of SpaceX’s worst days. When a Falcon 9 rocket exploded on its launch pad nearly nine years ago, SpaceX officials initially struggled to explain how it could have happened. The lack of a concrete explanation for the failure led SpaceX engineers to pursue hundreds of theories. One was the possibility that an outside “sniper” had shot the rocket. This theory appealed to SpaceX founder Elon Musk. A building leased by SpaceX’s main competitor in launch, United Launch Alliance, lay just a mile away from the Falcon 9 launch pad, and a video around the time of the explosion indicated a flash on its roof. Ars has now obtained a letter sent to SpaceX by the Federal Aviation Administration more than a month after the explosion, indicating the matter was elevated to the FBI. The bureau looked into it, and what did they find? Nothing, apparently.

Investigation terminated … “The FBI has informed us that based upon a thorough and coordinated review by the appropriate Federal criminal and security investigative authorities, there were no indications to suggest that sabotage or any other criminal activity played a role in the September 1 Falcon 9 explosion,” an FAA official wrote in the letter to SpaceX. Ultimately, engineers determined the explosion was caused by the sudden failure of a high-pressure helium tank on the Falcon 9’s upper stage.

Eric Schmidt’s motivations become clearer. In the nearly two months since former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt acquired Relativity Space, the billionaire has not said much publicly about his plans for the launch company. However, his intentions for Relativity are becoming increasingly clear: He wants to have the capability to launch a significant amount of computing infrastructure into space, Ars reports. During a congressional hearing last month, Schmidt discussed the need more electricity to power data centers that will facilitate the computing needs for AI development and applications.

How big this crisis is … “People are planning 10 gigawatt data centers,” Schmidt said at the hearing. “Gives you a sense of how big this crisis is.” In an exchange with my colleague Eric Berger on X, Schmidt seemed to confirm he bought Relativity Space as a means to support the development of data centers in space. Such data centers, ideally, would be powered by solar panels and be able to radiate heat into the vacuum of space. Relativity’s Terran R rocket, still in development, is well-sized to play a role in launching the infrastructure for data centers in space. But several big questions remain: How big would these data centers be? Where would they go within an increasingly cluttered low-Earth orbit? Could space-based solar power meet their energy needs? Can all of this heat be radiated away efficiently in space? Economically, would any of this make sense?

Rocket Lab, meet Rocket Cargo. Rocket Lab’s next-generation Neutron rocket has been selected for an experimental US Air Force mission to test rapid, global, cargo-delivery capabilities, a milestone for the company as it pushes further into the national security launch market, Space News reports. The mission, slated for no earlier than 2026, will fall under the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) “Rocket Cargo” program, which explores how commercial launch vehicles might one day deliver materiel to any point on Earth within hours—a vision akin to airlift logistics via spaceflight.

A new mission for Neutron … Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO, said the Rocket Cargo contract from AFRL represents an “experimental phase” of the program. “It’ll be interesting to see if that turns into a full requirement for an operational capability,” he said Thursday. Neutron is expected to carry a payload that will reenter Earth’s atmosphere, demonstrating the rocket’s ability to safely transport and deploy cargo. SpaceX’s Starship, with roughly 10 times more payload lift capacity than Neutron, is also on contract with AFRL for demonstrations for the Rocket Cargo program. Meanwhile, Beck said Neutron remains on schedule for its inaugural launch from Wallops Island, Virginia, later this year.

Trump calls for canceling the Space Launch System. The Trump administration released its “skinny” budget proposal earlier this week. Overall, NASA is asked to take a 25 percent cut in its budget, from about $25 billion to $18.8 billion. There are also significant changes proposed in NASA’s biggest-ticket exploration programs. The budget would cancel the Lunar Gateway that NASA has started developing and end the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft after two more flights, Artemis II and Artemis III, Ars reports. A statement from the White House calls the SLS rocket “grossly expensive” with projected costs of $4 billion per launch.

If not SLS, then what? … “The budget funds a program to replace SLS and Orion flights to the Moon with more cost-effective commercial systems that would support more ambitious subsequent lunar missions,” the Trump administration wrote. There are no further details about those commercial systems. NASA has contracted with SpaceX and Blue Origin to develop reusable landers for the Moon, and both of these systems include vehicles to move from Earth orbit to the Moon. In the budget proposal, the White House sets a priority for a human expedition to Mars to follow the Artemis program’s lunar landing.

FAA unlocks SpaceX launch cadence. Although we are still waiting for SpaceX to signal when it will fly the Starship rocket again, the company got some good news from the Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday, Ars reports. After a lengthy review, the federal agency agreed to allow SpaceX to substantially increase the number of annual launches from its Starbase launch site in South Texas. Previously, the company was limited to five launches, but now it will be able to conduct up to 25 Starship launches and landings during a calendar year.

Waiting for clearance … Although the new finding permits SpaceX to significantly increase its flight rate from South Texas, the company still has work to do before it can fly Starship again. The company’s engineers are still working to get the massive rocket back to flight after its eighth mission broke apart off the coast of Florida on March 6. This was the second time, in two consecutive missions, that the Starship upper stage failed during its initial phase of flight. After two consecutive failures, there will be a lot riding on the next test flight of Starship. It will also be the first time the company attempts to fly a first stage of the rocket for a second time. According to some sources, if additional testing of this upper stage goes well, Starship could launch as early as May 19. This date is also supported by a notice to mariners, but it should be taken as notional rather than something to be confident in.

SpaceX adds to its dominion. Elon Musk’s wish to create his own city has come true, the Texas Tribune reports. On Saturday, voters living around SpaceX’s Starship rocket testing and launch facility in South Texas approved a measure to incorporate the area as a new city. Unofficial results later Saturday night showed the election was a landslide: 212 voted in favor; 6 opposed. After the county certifies the results, the new city will be official.

Elections have consequences … Only 283 people, those who live within the boundaries of the proposed city, were eligible to vote in the election. A Texas Newsroom analysis of the voter rolls showed two-thirds of them either work for SpaceX or had already indicated their support. The three unopposed people who ran to lead the city also have ties to SpaceX. It’s not clear if Musk, whose primary residence is at Starbase, cast a ballot. The vote clears the way for Musk to try to capture more control over the nearby public beach, which must be closed for launches.

Next three launches

May 10: Falcon 9 | Starlink 15-3 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 00: 00 UTC

May 10: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-91 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 06: 28 UTC

May 11: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-83 | Kennedy Space Center, Florida | 04: 24 UTC

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Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

Rocket Report: Rocket Lab to demo cargo delivery; America’s new ICBM in trouble Read More »

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Rocket Report: Stoke is stoked; sovereignty is the buzzword in Europe

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“The idea that we will be able to do it through America… I think is very, very doubtful.”

Stoke Space’s Andromeda upper stage engine is hot-fired on a test stand. Credit: Stoke Space

Welcome to Edition 7.37 of the Rocket Report! It’s been interesting to watch how quickly European officials have embraced ensuring they have a space launch capability independent of other countries. A few years ago, European government satellites regularly launched on Russian Soyuz rockets, and more recently on SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets from the United States. Russia is now non grata in European government circles, and the Trump administration is widening the trans-Atlantic rift. European leaders have cited the Trump administration and its close association with Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, as prime reasons to support sovereign access to space, a capability currently offered only by Arianespace. If European nations can reform how they treat their commercial space companies, there’s enough ambition, know-how, and money in Europe to foster a competitive launch industry.

As always, we welcome reader submissions. 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.

Isar Aerospace aims for weekend launch. A German startup named Isar Aerospace will try to launch its first rocket Saturday, aiming to become the first in a wave of new European launch companies to reach orbit, Ars reports. The Spectrum rocket consists of two stages, stands about 92 feet (28 meters) tall, and can haul payloads up to 1 metric ton (2,200 pounds) into low-Earth orbit. Based in Munich, Isar was founded by three university graduate students in 2018. Isar scrubbed a launch attempt Monday due to unfavorable winds at the launch site in Norway.

From the Arctic … Notably, this will be the first orbital launch attempt from a launch pad in Western Europe. The French-run Guiana Space Center in South America is the primary spaceport for European rockets. Virgin Orbit staged an airborne launch attempt from an airport in the United Kingdom in 2023, and the Plesetsk Cosmodrome is located in European Russia. The launch site for Isar is named Andøya Spaceport, located about 650 miles (1,050 kilometers) north of Oslo, inside the Arctic Circle. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

A chance for competition in Europe. The European Space Agency is inviting proposals to inject competition into the European launch market, an important step toward fostering a dynamic multiplayer industry officials hope one day will mimic that of the United States, Ars reports. The near-term plan for the European Launcher Challenge is for ESA to select companies for service contracts to transport ESA and other European government payloads to orbit from 2026 through 2030. A second component of the challenge is for companies to perform at least one demonstration of an upgraded launch vehicle by 2028. The competition is open to any European company working in the launch business.

Challenging the status quo … This is a major change from how ESA has historically procured launch services. Arianespace has been the only European launch provider available to ESA and other European institutions for more than 40 years. But there are private companies across Europe at various stages of developing their own small launchers, and potentially larger rockets, in the years ahead. With the European Launcher Challenge, ESA will provide each of the winners up to 169 million euros ($182 million), a significant cash infusion that officials hope will shepherd Europe’s nascent private launch industry toward liftoff. Companies like Isar Aerospace, Rocket Factory Augsburg, MaiaSpace, and PLD Space are among the contenders for ESA contracts.

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Rocket Lab launches eight satellites. Rocket Lab launched eight satellites Wednesday for a German company that is expanding its constellation to detect and track wildfires, Space News reports. An Electron rocket lifted off from New Zealand and completed deploying its payload of eight CubeSats for OroraTech about 55 minutes later, placing them into Sun-synchronous orbits at an altitude of about 341 miles (550 kilometers). This was Rocket Lab’s fifth launch of the year, and the third in less than two weeks.

Fire goggles … OroraTech launched three satellites before this mission, fusing data from those satellites and government missions to detect and track wildfires. The new satellites are designed to fill a gap in coverage in the afternoon, a peak time for wildfire formation and spread. OroraTech plans to launch eight more satellites later this year. Wildfire monitoring from space is becoming a new application for satellite technology. Last month, OroraTech partnered with Spire for a contract to build a CubeSat constellation called WildFireSat for the Canadian Space Agency. Google is backing FireSat, another constellation of more than 50 satellites to be deployed in the coming years to detect and track wildfires. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Should Britain have a sovereign launch capability? A UK House of Lords special inquiry committee has heard from industry experts on the importance of fostering a sovereign launch capability, European Spaceflight reports. On Monday, witnesses from the UK space industry testified that the nation shouldn’t rely on others, particularly the United States, to put satellites into orbit. “The idea that we will be able to do it through America… certainly in today’s, you know, the last 50 days, I think is very, very doubtful. The UK needs access to space,” said Scott Hammond, deputy CEO of SaxaVord Spaceport in Scotland.

Looking inward … A representative from one of the most promising UK launch startups agreed. “Most people who are looking to launch are beholden to the United States solutions or services that are there,” said Alan Thompson, head of government affairs at Skyrora. “Without having our own home-based or UK-based service provider, we risk not having that voice and not being able to undertake all these experiments or be able to manifest ourselves better in space.” The UK is the only nation to abandon an independent launch capability after putting a satellite into orbit. The British government canceled the Black Arrow rocket in the early 1970s, citing financial reasons. A handful of companies, including Skyrora, is working to restore the orbital launch business to the UK.

This rocket engine CEO faces some salacious allegations. The Independent published what it described as an exclusive report Monday describing a lawsuit filed against the CEO of RocketStar, a New York-based company that says its mission is “improving upon the engines that power us to the stars.” Christopher Craddock is accused of plundering investor funds to underwrite pricey jaunts to Europe, jewelry for his wife, child support payments, and, according to the company’s largest investor, “airline tickets for international call girls to join him for clandestine weekends in Miami,” The Independent reports. Craddock established RocketStar in 2014 after financial regulators barred him from working on Wall Street over a raft of alleged violations.

Go big or go home … The $6 million lawsuit filed by former CEO Michael Mojtahedi alleges RocketStar “is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme… [that] has been predicated on Craddock’s ability to con new people each time the company has run out of money.” On its website, RocketStar says its work focuses on aerospike rocket engines and a “FireStar Fusion Drive, the world’s first electric propulsion device enhanced with nuclear fusion.” These are tantalizing technologies that have proven elusive for other rocket companies. RocketStar’s attorney told The Independent: “The company denies the allegations and looks forward to vindicating itself in court.”

Another record for SpaceX. Last Thursday, SpaceX launched a batch of clandestine SpaceX-built surveillance satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, Spaceflight Now reports. This was the latest in a series of flights populating the NRO’s constellation of low-Earth orbit reconnaissance satellites. What was unique about this mission was its use of a Falcon 9 first stage booster that flew to space just nine days prior with a NASA astronomy satellite. The successful launch broke the record for the shortest span between flights of the same Falcon 9 booster, besting a 13.5-day turnaround in November 2024.

A mind-boggling number of launches … This flight also marked the 450th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since its debut in 2010, and the 139th within a 365-day period, despite suffering its first mission failure in nearly 10 years and a handful of other glitches. SpaceX’s launch pace is unprecedented in the history of the space industry. No one else is even close. In the last Rocket Report I authored, I wrote that SpaceX’s steamroller no longer seems to be rolling downhill. That may be the case as the growth in the Falcon 9 launch cadence has slowed, but it’s hard for me to see anyone else matching SpaceX’s launch rate until at least the 2030s.

Rocket Lab and Stoke Space find an on-ramp. Space Systems Command announced Thursday that it selected Rocket Lab and Stoke Space to join the Space Force’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program. The contracts have a maximum value of $5.6 billion, and the Space Force will dole out “task orders” for individual missions as they near launch. Rocket Lab and Stoke Space join SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin as eligible launch providers for lower-priority national security satellites, a segment of missions known as Phase 3 Lane 1 in the parlance of the Space Force. For these missions, the Space Force won’t require certification of the rockets, as the military does for higher-value missions in the so-called “Lane 2” segment. However, Rocket Lab and Stoke Space must complete at least one successful flight of their new Neutron and Nova rockets before they are cleared to launch national security payloads.

Stoked at Stoke … This is a big win for Rocket Lab and Stoke. For Rocket Lab, it bolsters the business case for the medium-class Neutron rocket it is developing for flights from Wallops Island, Virginia. Neutron will be partially reusable with a recoverable first stage. But Rocket Lab already has a proven track record with its smaller Electron launch vehicle. Stoke hasn’t launched anything, and it has lofty ambitions for a fully reusable two-stage rocket called Nova. This is a huge vote of confidence in Stoke. When the Space Force released its invitation for an on-ramp to the NSSL program last year, it said bidders must show a “credible plan for a first launch by December 2025.” Smart money is that neither company will launch its rockets by the end of this year, but I’d love to be proven wrong.

Falcon 9 deploys spy satellite. Monday afternoon, a SpaceX Falcon 9 took flight from Florida’s Space Coast and delivered a national security payload designed, built, and operated by the National Reconnaissance Office into orbit, Florida Today reports. Like almost all NRO missions, details about the payload are classified. The mission codename was NROL-69, and the launch came three-and-a-half days after SpaceX launched another NRO mission from California. While we have some idea of what SpaceX launched from California last week, the payload for the NROL-69 mission is a mystery.

Space sleuthing … There’s an online community of dedicated skywatchers who regularly track satellites as they sail overhead around dawn and dusk. The US government doesn’t publish the exact orbital parameters for its classified spy satellites (they used to), but civilian trackers coordinate with one another, and through a series of observations, they can produce a pretty good estimate of a spacecraft’s orbit. Marco Langbroek, a Dutch archeologist and university lecturer on space situational awareness, is one of the best at this, using publicly available information about the flight path of a launch to estimate when the satellite will fly overhead. He and three other observers in Europe managed to locate the NROL-69 payload just two days after the launch, plotting the object in an orbit between 700 and 1,500 kilometers at an inclination of 64.1 degrees to the equator. Analysts speculated this mission might carry a pair of naval surveillance spacecraft, but this orbit doesn’t match up well with any known constellations of NRO satellites.

NASA continues with Artemis II preps. Late Saturday night, technicians at Kennedy Space Center in Florida moved the core stage for NASA’s second Space Launch System rocket into position between the vehicle’s two solid-fueled boosters, Ars reports. Working inside the iconic 52-story-tall Vehicle Assembly Building, ground teams used heavy-duty cranes to first lift the butterscotch orange core stage from its cradle, then rotate it to a vertical orientation and lift it into a high bay, where it was lowered into position on a mobile launch platform. The 212-foot-tall (65-meter) core stage is the largest single hardware element for the Artemis II mission, which will send a team of four astronauts around the far side of the Moon and back to Earth as soon as next year.

Looking like a go … With this milestone, the slow march toward launch continues. A few months ago, some well-informed people in the space community thought there was a real possibility the Trump administration could quickly cancel NASA’s Space Launch System, the high-priced heavy-lifter designed to send astronauts from the Earth to the Moon. The most immediate possibility involved terminating the SLS program before it flies with Artemis II. This possibility appears to have been overcome by circumstances. The rockets most often mentioned as stand-ins for the Space Launch System—SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s New Glenn—aren’t likely to be cleared for crew missions for at least several years. The long-term future of the Space Launch System remains in doubt.

Space Force says Vulcan is good to go. The US Space Force on Wednesday announced that it has certified United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket to conduct national security missions, Ars reports. “Assured access to space is a core function of the Space Force and a critical element of national security,” said Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, program executive officer for Assured Access to Space, in a news release. “Vulcan certification adds launch capacity, resiliency, and flexibility needed by our nation’s most critical space-based systems.” The formal announcement closes a yearslong process that has seen multiple delays in the development of the Vulcan rocket, as well as two anomalies in recent years that were a further setback to certification.

Multiple options … This certification allows ULA’s Vulcan to launch the military’s most sensitive national security missions, a separate lot from those Rocket Lab and Stoke Space are now eligible for (as we report in a separate Rocket Report entry). It elevates Vulcan to launch these missions alongside SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. Vulcan will not be the next rocket that the company launches, however. First up is one of the company’s remaining Atlas V boosters, carrying Project Kuiper broadband satellites for Amazon. This launch could occur in April, although ULA has not set a date. This will be followed by the first Vulcan national security launch, which the Space Force says could occur during the coming “summer.”

Next three launches

March 29: Spectrum | “Going Full Spectrum” | Andøya Spaceport, Norway | 11: 30 UTC

March 29: Long March 7A | Unknown Payload | Wenchang Space Launch Site, China | 16: 05 UTC

March 30: Alpha | LM-400 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 13: 37 UTC

Photo of Stephen Clark

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

Rocket Report: Stoke is stoked; sovereignty is the buzzword in Europe Read More »

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As preps continue, it’s looking more likely NASA will fly the Artemis II mission

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NASA’s existing architecture still has a limited shelf life, and the agency will probably have multiple options for transporting astronauts to and from the Moon in the 2030s. A decision on the long-term future of SLS and Orion isn’t expected until the Trump administration’s nominee for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, takes office after confirmation by the Senate.

So, what is the plan for SLS?

There are different degrees of cancellation options. The most draconian would be an immediate order to stop work on Artemis II preparations. This is looking less likely than it did a few months ago and would come with its own costs. It would cost untold millions of dollars to disassemble and dispose of parts of Artemis II’s SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft. Canceling multibillion-dollar contracts with Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin would put NASA on the hook for significant termination costs.

Of course, these liabilities would be less than the $4.1 billion NASA’s inspector general estimates each of the first four Artemis missions will cost. Most of that money has already been spent for Artemis II, but if NASA spends several billion dollars on each Artemis mission, there won’t be much money left over to do other cool things.

Other options for NASA might be to set a transition point when the Artemis program would move off of the Space Launch System rocket, and perhaps even the Orion spacecraft, and switch to new vehicles.

Looking down on the Space Launch System for Artemis II. Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

Another possibility, which seems to be low-hanging fruit for Artemis decision-makers, could be to cancel the development of a larger Exploration Upper Stage for the SLS rocket. If there are a finite number of SLS flights on NASA’s schedule, it’s difficult to justify the projected $5.7 billion cost of developing the upgraded Block 1B version of the Space Launch System. There are commercial options available to replace the rocket’s Boeing-built Exploration Upper Stage, as my colleague Eric Berger aptly described in a feature story last year.

For now, it looks like NASA’s orange behemoth has a little life left in it. All the hardware for the Artemis II mission has arrived at the launch site in Florida.

The Trump administration will release its fiscal-year 2026 budget request in the coming weeks. Maybe then NASA will also have a permanent administrator, and the veil will lift over the White House’s plans for Artemis.

As preps continue, it’s looking more likely NASA will fly the Artemis II mission Read More »

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NASA says Orion’s heat shield is good to go for Artemis II—but does it matter?

artemis, artemis II, bill nelson, human spaceflight, moon, NASA, orion, space launch system, Uncategorized / /

“We have since determined that while the capsule was dipping in and out of the atmosphere, as part of that planned skip entry, heat accumulated inside the heat shield outer layer, leading to gases forming and becoming trapped inside the heat shield,” said Pam Melroy, NASA’s deputy administrator. “This caused internal pressure to build up and led to cracking and uneven shedding of that outer layer.”

An independent team of experts concurred with NASA’s determination of the root cause, Melroy said.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, Associate Administrator Jim Free, and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman speak with reporters Thursday in Washington, DC. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Counterintuitively, this means NASA engineers are comfortable with the safety of the heat shield if the Orion spacecraft reenters the atmosphere at a slightly steeper angle than it did on Artemis I and spends more time subjected to higher temperatures.

When the Orion spacecraft climbed back out of the atmosphere during the Artemis I skip reentry, a period known as the skip dwell, NASA said heating rates decreased and thermal energy accumulated inside the heat shield’s Avcoat material. This generated gases inside the heat shield through a process known as pyrolysis. 

“Pyrolysis is just burning without oxygen,” said Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator of NASA’s Moon to Mars program. “We learned that as part of that reaction, the permeability of the Avcoat material is essential.”

During the skip dwell, “the production of those gases was higher than the permeability could tolerate, so as a result, pressure differential was created. That pressure led to cracks in plane with the outer mold line of the vehicle,” Kshatriya said.

NASA didn’t know this could happen because engineers tested the heat shield on the ground at higher temperatures than the Orion spacecraft encountered in flight to prove the thermal barrier could withstand the most extreme possible heating during reentry.

“What we missed was this critical region in the middle, and we missed that region because we didn’t have the test facilities to produce the low-level energies that occur during skip and dwell,” Kshatriya said Thursday.

During the investigation, NASA replicated the charring and cracking after engineers devised a test procedure to expose Avcoat heat shield material to the actual conditions of the Artemis I reentry.

So, for Artemis II, NASA plans to modify the reentry trajectory to reduce the skip reentry’s dwell time. Let’s include some numbers to help illustrate the difference.

The distance traveled by Artemis I during the reentry phase of the mission was more than 3,000 nautical miles (3,452 miles; 5,556 kilometers), according to Kshatriya. This downrange distance will be limited to no more than 1,775 nautical miles (2,042 miles; 3,287 kilometers) on Artemis II, effectively reducing the dwell time the Orion spacecraft spends in the lower heating regime that led to the cracking on Artemis I.

NASA’s inspector general report in May included new images of Orion’s heat shield that the agency did not initially release after the Artemis I mission. Credit: NASA Inspector General

With this change, Kshatriya said NASA engineers don’t expect to see the heat shield erosion they saw on Artemis I. “The gas generation that occurs during that skip dwell is sufficiently low that the environment for crack generation is not going to overwhelm the structural integrity of the char layer.”

For future Orion spaceships, NASA and its Orion prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, will incorporate changes to address the heat shield’s permeability problem.

Waiting for what?

NASA officials discussed the heat shield issue, and broader plans for the Artemis program, in a press conference in Washington on Thursday. But the event’s timing added a coat of incredulity to much of what they said. President-elect Donald Trump, with SpaceX founder Elon Musk in his ear, has vowed to cut wasteful government spending.

NASA says Orion’s heat shield is good to go for Artemis II—but does it matter? Read More »

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NASA is stacking the Artemis II rocket, implying a simple heat shield fix

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A good sign

The readiness of the Orion crew capsule, where the four Artemis II astronauts will live during their voyage around the Moon, is driving NASA’s schedule for the mission. Officially, Artemis II is projected to launch in September of next year, but there’s little chance of meeting that schedule.

At the beginning of this year, NASA officials ruled out any opportunity to launch Artemis II in 2024 due to several technical issues with the Orion spacecraft. Several of these issues are now resolved, but NASA has not released any meaningful updates on the most significant problem.

This problem involves the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield. During atmospheric reentry at the end of the uncrewed Artemis I test flight in 2022, the Orion capsule’s heat shield eroded and cracked in unexpected ways, prompting investigations by NASA engineers and an independent panel.

NASA’s Orion heat shield inquiry ran for nearly two years. The investigation has wrapped up, two NASA officials said last month, but they declined to discuss any details of the root cause of the heat shield issue or the actions required to resolve the problem on Artemis II.

These corrective options ranged from doing nothing to changing the Orion spacecraft’s reentry angle to mitigate heating or physically modifying the Artemis II heat shield. In the latter scenario, NASA would have to disassemble the Orion spacecraft, which is already put together and is undergoing environmental testing at Kennedy Space Center. This would likely delay the Artemis II launch by a couple of years.

In August, NASA’s top human exploration official told Ars that the agency would hold off on stacking the SLS rocket until engineers had a good handle on the heat shield problem. There are limits to how long the solid rocket boosters can remain stacked vertically. The joints connecting each segment of the rocket motors are certified for one year. This clock doesn’t actually start ticking until NASA stacks the next booster segments on top of the lowermost segments.

However, NASA waived this rule on Artemis I when the boosters were stacked nearly two years before the successful launch.

A NASA spokesperson told Ars on Wednesday that the agency had nothing new to share on the Orion heat shield or what changes, if any, are required for the Artemis II mission. This information should be released before the end of the year, she said. At the same time, NASA could announce a new target launch date for Artemis II at the end of 2025, or more likely in 2026.

But because NASA gave the “go” for SLS stacking now, it seems safe to rule out any major hardware changes on the Orion heat shield for Artemis II.

NASA is stacking the Artemis II rocket, implying a simple heat shield fix Read More »

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It’s increasingly unlikely that humans will fly around the Moon next year

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Don’t book your tickets for the launch of NASA’s Artemis II mission next year just yet.

We have had reason to doubt the official September 2025 launch date for the mission, the first crewed flight into deep space in more than five decades, for a while now. This is principally because NASA is continuing to mull the implications of damage to the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield from the Artemis I mission nearly two years ago.

However, it turns out that there are now other problems with holding to this date as well.

No schedule margin

A new report from the US Government Accountability Office found that NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems program—this is, essentially, the office at Kennedy Space Center in Florida responsible for building ground infrastructure to support the Space Launch System rocket and Orion—is in danger of missing its schedule for Artemis II.

During this flight a crew of four astronauts, commanded by NASA’s Reid Wiseman, will launch inside Orion on a 10-day mission out to the Moon and back. The spacecraft will follow a free-return trajectory, which is important, because if there is a significant problem with Orion spacecraft’s propulsion system, the trajectory of the vehicle will still carry it back to Earth. At their closest approach, the crew will come within about 6,500 miles (10,400 km) of the surface of the far side of the Moon.

The new report, published Thursday, finds that the Exploration Ground Systems program had several months of schedule margin in its work toward a September 2025 launch date at the beginning of the year. But now, the program has allocated all of that margin to technical issues experienced during work on the rocket’s mobile launcher and pad testing.

“Earlier in 2024, the program was reserving that time for technical issues that may arise during testing of the integrated SLS and Orion vehicle or if weather interferes with planned activities, among other things,” the report states. “Officials said it is likely that issues will arise because this is the first time testing many of these systems. Given the lack of margin, if further issues arise during testing or integration, there will likely be delays to the September 2025 Artemis II launch date.”

It’s increasingly unlikely that humans will fly around the Moon next year Read More »