NASA

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Senate response to White House budget for NASA: Keep SLS, nix science

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This legislation, the committee said in a messaging document, “Dedicates almost $10 billion to win the new space race with China and ensure America dominates space. Makes targeted, critical investments in Mars-forward technology, Artemis Missions and Moon to Mars program, and the International Space Station.”

The reality is that it signals that Republicans in the US Senate are not particularly interested in sending humans to Mars, probably are OK with the majority of cuts to science programs at NASA, and want to keep the status quo on Artemis, including the Space Launch System rocket.

Where things go from here

It is difficult to forecast where US space policy will go from here. The very public breakup between President Trump and SpaceX founder Elon Musk on Thursday significantly complicates the equation. At one point, Trump and Musk were both championing sending humans to Mars, but Musk is gone from the administration, and Trump may abandon that idea due to their rift.

For what it’s worth, a political appointee in NASA Communications said on Thursday that the president’s vision for space—Trump spoke of landing humans on Mars frequently during his campaign speeches—will continue to be implemented.

“NASA will continue to execute upon the President’s vision for the future of space,” NASA’s press secretary, Bethany Stevens, said on X. “We will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the President’s objectives in space are met.”

Congress, it seems, may be heading in a different direction.

Senate response to White House budget for NASA: Keep SLS, nix science Read More »

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Jared Isaacman speaks out, and it’s clear that NASA lost a visionary leader

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“There’s enough hardware now to fly a couple of missions and make sure you beat China back to the Moon,” he said. “But you can’t be stuck on this forever. This is literally the equivalency, by the way, of taking P-51 Mustangs [a fighter aircraft] from World War II and using them in Desert Storm, because we got to keep the plants open.
And that obviously makes no logical sense whatsoever.”

On his de-nomination

Isaacman said he is, politically, a moderate, although he leans right. He supports Trump’s desire to cut alleged waste and fraud from the US government, and that is what he intended to do at NASA. He also did not blame Trump for his departure, saying that a president makes a thousand decisions a day, often with a few seconds of information.

He also said he enjoyed the Senate confirmation process, which allowed him to candidly discuss his positions on NASA with individual US senators.

As for why he was removed, Isaacman said the following: “I had a pretty good idea, I don’t think the timing was much of a coincidence,” he said. “Obviously, there was more than one departure that was covered on that day.”

The phone call to Isaacman saying his nomination was being pulled came the same day that SpaceX founder Elon Musk left his position as a special advisor to the president. Musk had been supportive of Isaacman’s nomination. However, in his time running the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk had made enemies within the US government.

“There were some people who had some axes to grind, and I was a good, visible target,” Isaacman said. “I want to be overwhelmingly clear: I don’t fault the president.”

Although Isaacman did not name anyone, multiple sources have told Ars that it was Sergio Gor, an official in the White House Presidential Personnel Office, who moved against Isaacman after Musk left the White House. Gor was irked by Musk’s failure to consult him and other personnel officials on some decisions.

As a result of what appears to be political pettiness, NASA lost a visionary leader who had the potential to lead the space agency into the middle of the 21st century at a time when an aging agency needs to modernize. If you listen to him, losing that potential in such a way is downright painful. It’s a damn shame.

Jared Isaacman speaks out, and it’s clear that NASA lost a visionary leader Read More »

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Some parts of Trump’s proposed budget for NASA are literally draconian

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“That’s exactly the kind of thing that NASA should be concentrating its resources on.”

Artist’s illustration of the DRACO nuclear rocket engine in space. Credit: Lockheed Martin

New details of the Trump administration’s plans for NASA, released Friday, revealed the White House’s desire to end the development of an experimental nuclear thermal rocket engine that could have shown a new way of exploring the Solar System.

Trump’s NASA budget request is rife with spending cuts. Overall, the White House proposes reducing NASA’s budget by about 24 percent, from $24.8 billion this year to $18.8 billion in fiscal year 2026. In previous stories, Ars has covered many of the programs impacted by the proposed cuts, which would cancel the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft and terminate numerous robotic science missions, including the Mars Sample Return, probes to Venus, and future space telescopes.

Instead, the leftover funding for NASA’s human exploration program would go toward supporting commercial projects to land on the Moon and Mars.

NASA’s initiatives to pioneer next-generation space technologies are also hit hard in the White House’s budget proposal. If the Trump administration gets its way, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, or STMD, will see its budget cut nearly in half, from $1.1 billion to $568 million.

Trump’s budget request isn’t final. Both Republican-controlled houses of Congress will write their own versions of the NASA budget, which must be reconciled before going to the White House for President Trump’s signature.

“The budget reduces Space Technology by approximately half, including eliminating failing space propulsion projects,” the White House wrote in an initial overview of the NASA budget request released May 2. “The reductions also scale back or eliminate technology projects that are not needed by NASA or are better suited to private sector research and development.”

Breathing fire

Last week, the White House and NASA put a finer point on these “failing space propulsion projects.”

“This budget provides no funding for Nuclear Thermal Propulsion and Nuclear Electric Propulsion projects,” officials wrote in a technical supplement released Friday detailing Trump’s NASA budget proposal. “These efforts are costly investments, would take many years to develop, and have not been identified as the propulsion mode for deep space missions. The nuclear propulsion projects are terminated to achieve cost savings and because there are other nearer-term propulsion alternatives for Mars transit.”

Foremost among these cuts, the White House proposes to end NASA’s participation in the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) project. NASA said this proposal “reflects the decision by our partner to cancel” the DRACO mission, which would have demonstrated a nuclear thermal rocket engine in space for the first time.

NASA’s partner on the DRACO mission was the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the Pentagon’s research and development arm. A DARPA spokesperson confirmed the agency was closing out the project.

“DARPA has completed the agency’s involvement in the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Orbit (DRACO) program and is transitioning its knowledge to our DRACO mission partner, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and to other potential DOD programs,” the spokesperson said in a response to written questions.

A nuclear rocket engine, which was to be part of NASA’s aborted NERVA program, is tested at Jackass Flats, Nevada, in 1967. Credit: Corbis via Getty Images)

Less than two years ago, NASA and DARPA announced plans to move forward with the roughly $500 million DRACO project, targeting a launch into Earth orbit aboard a traditional chemical rocket in 2027. “With the help of this new technology, astronauts could journey to and from deep space faster than ever, a major capability to prepare for crewed missions to Mars,” former NASA administrator Bill Nelson said at the time.

The DRACO mission would have consisted of several elements, including a nuclear reactor to rapidly heat up super-cold liquid hydrogen fuel stored in an insulated tank onboard the spacecraft. Temperatures inside the engine would reach nearly 5,000° Fahrenheit, boiling the hydrogen and driving the resulting gas through a nozzle, generating thrust. From the outside, the spacecraft’s design looks a lot like the upper stage of a traditional rocket. However, theoretically, a nuclear thermal rocket engine like DRACO’s would offer twice the efficiency of the highest-performing conventional rocket engines. That translates to significantly less fuel that a mission to Mars would have to carry across the Solar System.

Essentially, a nuclear thermal rocket engine combines the high-thrust capability of a chemical engine with some of the fuel efficiency benefits of low-thrust solar-electric engines. With DRACO, engineers sought hard data to verify their understanding of nuclear propulsion and wanted to make sure the nuclear engine’s challenging design actually worked. DRACO would have used high-assay low-enriched uranium to power its nuclear reactor.

Nuclear electric propulsion uses an onboard nuclear reactor to power plasma thrusters that create thrust by accelerating an ionized gas, like xenon, through a magnetic field. Nuclear electric propulsion would provide another leap in engine efficiency beyond the capabilities of a system like DRACO and may ultimately offer the most attractive option for enduring deep space transportation.

NASA led the development of DRACO’s nuclear rocket engine, while DARPA was responsible for the overall spacecraft design, operations, and the thorny problem of securing regulatory approval to launch a nuclear reactor into orbit. The reactor on DRACO would have launched in “cold” mode before activating in space, reducing the risk to people on the ground in the event of a launch accident. The Space Force agreed to pay for DRACO’s launch on a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket.

DARPA and NASA selected Lockheed Martin as the lead contractor for the DRACO spacecraft in 2023. BWX Technologies, a leader in the US nuclear industry, won the contract to develop the mission’s reactor.

“We received the notice from DARPA that it ended the DRACO program,” a Lockheed Martin spokesperson said. “While we’re disappointed with the decision, it doesn’t change our vision of how nuclear power influences how we will explore and operate in the vastness of space.”

Mired in the lab

More than 60 years have passed since a US-built nuclear reactor launched into orbit. Aviation Week reported in January that one problem facing DRACO engineers involved questions about how to safely test the nuclear thermal engine on the ground while adhering to nuclear safety protocols.

“We’re bringing two things together—space mission assurance and nuclear safety—and there’s a fair amount of complexity,” said Matthew Sambora, a DRACO program manager at DARPA, in an interview with Aviation Week. At the time, DARPA and NASA had already given up on a 2027 launch to concentrate on developing a prototype engine using helium as a propellant before moving on to an operational engine with more energetic liquid hydrogen fuel, Aviation Week reported.

Greg Meholic, an engineer at the Aerospace Corporation, highlighted the shortfall in ground testing capability in a presentation last year. Nuclear thermal propulsion testing “requires that engine exhaust be scrubbed of radiologics before being released,” he wrote. This requirement “could result in substantially large, prohibitively expensive facilities that take years to build and qualify.”

These safety protocols weren’t as stringent when NASA and the Air Force first pursued nuclear propulsion in the 1960s. Now, the first serious 21st-century effort to fly a nuclear rocket engine in space is grinding to a halt.

“Given that our near-term human exploration and science needs do not require nuclear propulsion, current demonstration projects will end,” wrote Janet Petro, NASA’s acting administrator, in a letter accompanying the Trump administration’s budget release last week.

This figure illustrates the major elements of a typical nuclear thermal rocket engine. Credit: NASA/Glenn Research Center

NASA’s 2024 budget allocated $117 million for nuclear propulsion work, an increase from $91 million the previous year. Congress added more funding for NASA’s nuclear propulsion programs over the Biden administration’s proposed budget in recent years, signaling support on Capitol Hill that may save at least some nuclear propulsion initiatives next year.

It’s true that nuclear propulsion isn’t required for any NASA missions currently on the books. Today’s rockets are good at hurling cargo and people off planet Earth, but once a spacecraft arrives in orbit, there are several ways to propel it toward more distant destinations.

NASA’s existing architecture for sending astronauts to the Moon uses the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, both of which are proposed for cancellation and look a lot like the vehicles NASA used to fly astronauts to the Moon more than 50 years ago. SpaceX’s reusable Starship, designed with an eye toward settling Mars, uses conventional chemical propulsion, with methane and liquid oxygen propellants that SpaceX one day hopes to generate on the surface of the Red Planet.

So NASA, SpaceX, and other companies don’t need nuclear propulsion to beat China back to the Moon or put the first human footprints on Mars. But there’s a broad consensus that in the long run, nuclear rockets offer a better way of moving around the Solar System.

The military’s motive for funding nuclear thermal propulsion was its potential for becoming a more efficient means of maneuvering around the Earth. Many of the military’s most important spacecraft are limited by fuel, and the Space Force is investigating orbital refueling and novel propulsion methods to extend the lifespan of satellites.

NASA’s nuclear power program is not finished. The Trump administration’s budget proposal calls for continued funding for the agency’s fission surface power program, with the goal of fielding a nuclear reactor that could power a base on the surface of the Moon or Mars. Lockheed and BWXT, the contractors involved in the DRACO mission, are part of the fission surface power program.

There is some funding in the White House’s budget request for tech demos using other methods of in-space propulsion. NASA would continue funding experiments in long-term storage and transfer of cryogenic propellants like liquid methane, liquid hydrogen, and liquid oxygen. These joint projects between NASA and industry could pave the way for orbital refueling and orbiting propellant depots, aligning with the direction of companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance.

But many scientists and engineers believe nuclear propulsion offers the only realistic path for a sustainable campaign ferrying people between the Earth and Mars. A report commissioned by NASA and the National Academies concluded in 2021 that an aggressive tech-development program could advance nuclear thermal propulsion enough for a human expedition to Mars in 2039. The prospects for nuclear electric propulsion were murkier.

This would have required NASA to substantially increase its budget for nuclear propulsion immediately, likely by an order of magnitude beyond the agency’s baseline funding level, or to an amount exceeding $1 billion per year, said Bobby Braun, co-chair of the National Academies report, in a 2021 interview with Ars. That didn’t happen.

Going nuclear

The interplanetary transportation architectures envisioned by NASA and SpaceX will, at least initially, primarily use chemical propulsion for the cruise between Earth and Mars.

Kurt Polzin, chief engineer of NASA’s space nuclear propulsion projects, said significant technical hurdles stand in the way of any propulsion system selected to power heavy cargo and humans to Mars.

“Anybody who says that they’ve solved the problem, you don’t know that because you don’t have enough data,” Polzin said last week at the Humans to the Moon and Mars Summit in Washington.

“We know that to do a Mars mission with a Starship, you need lots of refuelings at Earth, you need lots of refuelings at Mars, which you have to send in advance,” Polzin said. “You either need to send that propellant in advance or send a bunch of material and hardware to the surface to be set up and robotically make your propellant in situ while you’re there.”

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is betting on chemical propulsion for round-trip flights to Mars with its Starship rocket. This will require assembly of propellant-generation plants on the Martian surface. Credit: SpaceX

Last week, SpaceX founder Elon Musk outlined how the company plans to land its first Starships on Mars. His roadmap includes more than 100 cargo flights to deliver equipment to produce methane and liquid oxygen propellants on the surface of Mars. This is necessary for any Starship to launch off the Red Planet and return to Earth.

“You can start to see that this starts to become a Rube Goldberg way to do Mars,” Polzin said. “Will I say it can’t work? No, but will I say that it’s really, really difficult and challenging. Are there a lot of miracles to make it work? Absolutely. So the notion that SpaceX has solved Mars or is going to do Mars with Starship, I would challenge that on its face. I don’t think the analysis and the data bear that out.”

Engineers know how methane-fueled rocket engines perform in space. Scientists have created liquid oxygen and liquid methane since the late 1800s. Scaling up a propellant plant on Mars to produce thousands of tons of cryogenic liquids is another matter. In the long run, this might be a suitable solution for Musk’s vision of creating a city on Mars, but it comes with immense startup costs and risks. Still, nuclear propulsion is an entirely untested technology as well.

“The thing with nuclear is there are challenges to making it work, too,” Polzin said. “However, all of my challenges get solved here at Earth and in low-Earth orbit before I leave. Nuclear is nice. It has a higher specific impulse, especially when we’re talking about nuclear thermal propulsion. It has high thrust, which means it will get our astronauts there and back quickly, but I can carry all the fuel I need to get back with me, so I don’t need to do any complicated refueling at Mars. I can return without having to make propellant or send any pre-positioned propellant to get back.”

The tug of war over nuclear propulsion is nothing new. The Air Force started a program to develop reactors for nuclear thermal rockets at the height of the Cold War. NASA took over the Air Force’s role a few years later, and the project proceeded into the next phase, called the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA). President Richard Nixon ultimately canceled the NERVA project in 1973 after the government had spent $1.4 billion on it, equivalent to about $10 billion in today’s dollars. Despite nearly two decades of work, NERVA never flew in space.

Doing the hard things

The Pentagon and NASA studied several more nuclear thermal and nuclear electric propulsion initiatives before DRACO. Today, there’s a nascent commercial business case for compact nuclear reactors beyond just the government. But there’s scant commercial interest in mounting a full-scale nuclear propulsion demonstration solely with private funding.

Fred Kennedy, co-founder and CEO of a space nuclear power company called Dark Fission, said most venture capital investors lack the appetite to wait for financial returns in nuclear propulsion that they may see in 15 or 20 years.

“It’s a truism: Space is hard,” said Kennedy, a former DARPA program manager. “Nuclear turns out to be hard for reasons we can all understand. So space-nuclear is hard-squared, folks. As a result, you give this to your average associate at a VC firm and they get scared quick. They see the moles all over your face, and they run away screaming.”

But commercial launch costs are coming down. With sustained government investment and streamlined regulations, “this is the best chance we’ve had in a long time” to get a nuclear propulsion system into space, Kennedy said.

Technicians prepare a nozzle for a prototype nuclear thermal rocket engine in 1964. Credit: NASA

“I think, right now, we’re in this transitional period where companies like mine are going have to rely on some government largesse, as well as hopefully both commercial partnerships and honest private investment,” Kennedy said. “Three years ago, I would have told you I thought I could have done the whole thing with private investment, but three years have turned my hair white.”

Those who share Kennedy’s view thought they were getting an ally in the Trump administration. Jared Isaacman, the billionaire commercial astronaut Trump nominated to become the next NASA administrator, promised to prioritize nuclear propulsion in his tenure as head of the nation’s space agency.

During his Senate confirmation hearing in April, Isaacman said NASA should turn over management of heavy-lift rockets, human-rated spacecraft, and other projects to commercial industry. This change, he said, would allow NASA to focus on the “near-impossible challenges that no company, organization, or agency anywhere in the world would be able to undertake.”

The example Isaacman gave in his confirmation hearing was nuclear propulsion. “That’s something that no company would ever embark upon,” he told lawmakers. “There is no obvious economic return. There are regulatory challenges. That’s exactly the kind of thing that NASA should be concentrating its resources on.”

But the White House suddenly announced on Saturday that it was withdrawing Isaacman’s nomination days before the Senate was expected to confirm him for the NASA post. While there’s no indication that Trump’s withdrawal of Isaacman had anything to do with any specific part of the White House’s funding plan, his removal leaves NASA without an advocate for nuclear propulsion and a number of other projects falling under the White House’s budget ax.

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.

Some parts of Trump’s proposed budget for NASA are literally draconian Read More »

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Trump pulls Isaacman nomination for space. Source: “NASA is f***ed”

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Musk was a key factor behind Isaacman’s nomination as NASA administrator, and with his backing, Isaacman was able to skip some of the party purity tests that have been applied to other Trump administration nominees. One mark against Isaacman is that he had recently donated money to Democrats. He also indicated opposition to some of the White House’s proposed cuts to NASA’s science budget.

Musk’s role in the government was highly controversial, winning him enemies both among opponents of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” agenda as well as inside the administration. One source told Ars that, with Musk’s exit, his opponents within the administration sought to punish him by killing Isaacman’s nomination.

The loss of Isaacman is almost certainly a blow to NASA, which faces substantial budget cuts. The Trump Administration’s budget request for fiscal year 2026, released Friday, seeks $18.8 billion for the agency next year—a 24 percent cut from the agency’s budget of $24.8 billion for FY 2025.

Going out of business?

Isaacman is generally well-liked in the space community and is known to care deeply about space exploration. Officials within the space agency—and the larger space community—hoped that having him as NASA’s leader would help the agency restore some of these cuts.

Now? “NASA is f—ed,” one current leader in the agency told Ars on Saturday.

“NASA’s budget request is just a going-out-of-business mode without Jared there to innovate,” a former senior NASA leader said.

The Trump administration did not immediately name a new nominee, but two people told Ars that former US Air Force Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast may be near the top of the list. Now retired, Kwast has a distinguished record in the Air Force and is politically loyal to Trump and MAGA.

However, his background seems to be far less oriented toward NASA’s civil space mission and far more focused on seeing space as a battlefield—decidedly not an arena for cooperation and peaceful exploration.

Trump pulls Isaacman nomination for space. Source: “NASA is f***ed” Read More »

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Ars Live: Four space journalists debate whether NASA is really going to Mars

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I’m incredibly excited, as part of the Ars Live series, to host a conversation with three of the very best space reporters in the business on Thursday, May 29, 2025, at 3: 00 pm EDT about the future of NASA and its deep space exploration ambitions.

Joining me in a virtual panel discussion will be:

  • Christian Davenport, of The Washington Post
  • Loren Grush, of Bloomberg
  • Joey Roulette, of Reuters

The community of professional space reporters is fairly small, and Chris, Loren, and Joey are some of my smartest and fiercest competitors. They all have deep sourcing within the industry and important insights about what is really going on.

And there are some juicy things for us to discuss: expectations for soon-to-be-confirmed NASA administrator Jared Isaacman; the viability of whether humans really are going to Mars any time soon; Elon Musk’s conflicts of interest when it comes to space and space policy; NASA’s transparency in the age of Trump, and more.

Please join us for what will be a thoughtful and (if I have anything to say about it, and I will) spicy conversation about NASA in the age of a second Trump administration.

Add to Google Calendar  |  Add to calendar (.ics download)

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SpaceX may have solved one problem only to find more on latest Starship flight

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SpaceX’s ninth Starship survived launch, but engineers now have more problems to overcome.

An onboard camera shows the six Raptor engines on SpaceX’s Starship upper stage, roughly three minutes after launching from South Texas on Tuesday. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX made some progress on another test flight of the world’s most powerful rocket Tuesday, finally overcoming technical problems that plagued the program’s two previous launches.

But minutes into the mission, SpaceX’s Starship lost control as it cruised through space, then tumbled back into the atmosphere somewhere over the Indian Ocean nearly an hour after taking off from Starbase, Texas, the company’s privately owned spaceport near the US-Mexico border.

SpaceX’s next-generation rocket is designed to eventually ferry cargo and private and government crews between the Earth, the Moon, and Mars. The rocket is complex and gargantuan, wider and longer than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet, and after nearly two years of steady progress since its first test flight in 2023, this has been a year of setbacks for Starship.

During the rocket’s two previous test flights—each using an upgraded “Block 2” Starship design—problems in the ship’s propulsion system led to leaks during launch, eventually triggering an early shutdown of the rocket’s main engines. On both flights, the vehicle spun out of control and broke apart, spreading debris over an area near the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The good news is that that didn’t happen Tuesday. The ship’s main engines fired for their full duration, putting the vehicle on its expected trajectory toward a splashdown in the Indian Ocean. For a short time, it appeared the ship was on track for a successful flight.

“Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff, so big improvement over last flight! Also, no significant loss of heat shield tiles during ascent,” wrote Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, on X.

The bad news is that Tuesday’s test flight revealed more problems, preventing SpaceX from achieving the most important goals Musk outlined going into the launch.

“Leaks caused loss of main tank pressure during the coast and reentry phase,” Musk posted on X. “Lot of good data to review.”

With the loss of tank pressure, the rocket started slowly spinning as it coasted through the blackness of space more than 100 miles above the Earth. This loss of control spelled another premature end to a Starship test flight. Most notable among the flight’s unmet objectives was SpaceX’s desire to study the performance of the ship’s heat shield, which includes improved heat-absorbing tiles to better withstand the scorching temperatures of reentry back into the atmosphere.

“The most important thing is data on how to improve the tile design, so it’s basically data during the high heating, reentry phase in order to improve the tiles for the next iteration,” Musk told Ars Technica before Tuesday’s flight. “So we’ve got like a dozen or more tile experiments. We’re trying different coatings on tiles. We’re trying different fabrication techniques, different attachment techniques. We’re varying the gap filler for the tiles.”

Engineers are hungry for data on the changes to the heat shield, which can’t be fully tested on the ground. SpaceX officials hope the new tiles will be more robust than the ones flown on the first-generation, or Block 1, version of Starship, allowing future ships to land and quickly launch again, without the need for time-consuming inspections, refurbishment, and in some cases, tile replacements. This is a core tenet of SpaceX’s plans for Starship, which include delivering astronauts to the surface of the Moon, proliferating low-Earth orbit with refueling tankers, and eventually helping establish a settlement on Mars, all of which are predicated on rapid reusability of Starship and its Super Heavy booster.

Last year, SpaceX successfully landed three Starships in the Indian Ocean after they survived hellish reentries, but they came down with damaged heat shields. After an early end to Tuesday’s test flight, SpaceX’s heat shield engineers will have to wait a while longer to satiate their appetites. And the longer they have to wait, the longer the wait for other important Starship developmental tests, such as a full orbital flight, in-space refueling, and recovery and reuse of the ship itself, replicating what SpaceX has now accomplished with the Super Heavy booster.

Failing forward or falling short?

The ninth flight of Starship began with a booming departure from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site at 6: 35 pm CDT (7: 35 pm EDT; 23: 35 UTC) Tuesday.

After a brief hold to resolve last-minute technical glitches, SpaceX resumed the countdown clock to tick away the final seconds before liftoff. A gush of water poured over the deck of the launch pad just before 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines ignited on the rocket’s massive Super Heavy first stage booster. Once all 33 engines lit, the enormous stainless steel rocket—towering more than 400 feet (123 meters)—began to climb away from Starbase.

SpaceX’s Starship rocket, flying with a reused first-stage booster for the first time, climbs away from Starbase, Texas. Credit: SpaceX

Heading east, the Super Heavy booster produced more than twice the power of NASA’s Saturn V rocket, an icon of the Apollo Moon program, as it soared over the Gulf of Mexico. After two-and-a-half minutes, the Raptor engines switched off and the Super Heavy booster separated from Starship’s upper stage.

Six Raptor engines fired on the ship to continue pushing it into space. As the booster started maneuvering for an attempt to target an intact splashdown in the sea, the ship burned its engines more than six minutes, reaching a top speed of 16,462 mph (26,493 kilometers per hour), right in line with preflight predictions.

A member of SpaceX’s launch team declared “nominal orbit insertion” a little more than nine minutes into the flight, indicating the rocket reached its planned trajectory, just shy of the velocity required to enter a stable orbit around the Earth.

The flight profile was supposed to take Starship halfway around the world, with the mission culminating in a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean northwest of Australia. But a few minutes after engine shutdown, the ship started to diverge from SpaceX’s flight plan.

First, SpaceX aborted an attempt to release eight simulated Starlink Internet satellites in the first test of the Starship’s payload deployer. The cargo bay door would not fully open, and engineers called off the demonstration, according to Dan Huot, a member of SpaceX’s communications team who hosted the company’s live launch broadcast Tuesday.

That, alone, would not have been a big deal. However, a few minutes later, Huot made a more troubling announcement.

“We are in a little bit of a spin,” he said. “We did spring a leak in some of the fuel tank systems inside of Starship, which a lot of those are used for attitude control. So, at this point, we’ve essentially lost our attitude control with Starship.”

This eliminated any chance for a controlled reentry and an opportunity to thoroughly scrutinize the performance of Starship’s heat shield. The spin also prevented a brief restart of one of the ship’s Raptor engines in space.

“Not looking great for a lot of our on-orbit objectives for today,” Huot said.

SpaceX continued streaming live video from Starship as it soared over the Atlantic Ocean and Africa. Then, a blanket of super-heated plasma enveloped the vehicle as it plunged into the atmosphere. Still in a slow tumble, the ship started shedding scorched chunks of its skin before the screen went black. SpaceX lost contact with the vehicle around 46 minutes into the flight. The ship likely broke apart over the Indian Ocean, dropping debris into a remote swath of sea within its expected flight corridor.

Victories where you find them

Although the flight did not end as well as SpaceX officials hoped, the company made some tangible progress Tuesday. Most importantly, it broke the streak of back-to-back launch failures on Starship’s two most recent test flights in January and March.

SpaceX’s investigation earlier this year into a January 16 launch failure concluded vibrations likely triggered fuel leaks and fires in the ship’s engine compartment, causing an early shutdown of the rocket’s engines. Engineers said the vibrations were likely in resonance with the vehicle’s natural frequency, intensifying the shaking beyond the levels SpaceX predicted.

Engineers made fixes and launched the next Starship test flight March 6, but it again encountered trouble midway through the ship’s main engine burn. SpaceX said earlier this month that the inquiry into the March 6 failure found its most probable root cause was a hardware failure in one of the upper stage’s center engines, resulting in “inadvertent propellant mixing and ignition.”

In its official statement, the company was silent on the nature of the hardware failure but said engines for future test flights will receive additional preload on key joints, a new nitrogen purge system, and improvements to the propellant drain system. A new generation of Raptor engines, known as Raptor 3, should begin flying around the end of this year with additional improvements to address the failure mechanism, SpaceX said.

Another bright spot in Tuesday’s test flight was that it marked the first time SpaceX reused a Super Heavy booster from a prior launch. The booster used Tuesday previously launched on Starship’s seventh test flight in January before it was caught back at the launch pad and refurbished for another space shot.

Booster 14 comes in for the catch after flying to the edge of space on January 16. SpaceX flew this booster again Tuesday but did not attempt a catch. Credit: SpaceX

After releasing the Starship upper stage to continue its journey into space, the Super Heavy booster flipped around to fly tail-first and reignited 13 of its engines to begin boosting itself back toward the South Texas coast. On this test flight, SpaceX aimed the booster for a hard splashdown in the ocean just offshore from Starbase, rather than a mid-air catch back at the launch pad, which SpaceX accomplished on three of its four most recent test flights.

SpaceX made the change for a few reasons. First, engineers programmed the booster to fly at a higher angle of attack during its descent, increasing the amount of atmospheric drag on the vehicle compared to past flights. This change should reduce propellant usage on the booster’s landing burn, which occurs just before the rocket is caught by the launch pad’s mechanical arms, or “chopsticks,” on a recovery flight.

During the landing burn itself, engineers wanted to demonstrate the booster’s ability to respond to an engine failure on descent by using just two of the rocket’s 33 engines for the end of the burn, rather than the usual three. Instead, the rocket appeared to explode around the beginning of the landing burn before it could complete the final landing maneuver.

Before the explosion at the end of its flight, the booster appeared to fly as designed. Data displayed on SpaceX’s live broadcast of the launch showed all 33 of the rocket’s engines fired normally during its initial ascent from Texas, a reassuring sign for the reliability of the Super Heavy booster.

SpaceX kicked off the year with the ambition to launch as many as 25 Starship test flights in 2025, a goal that now seems to be unattainable. However, an X post by Musk on Tuesday night suggested a faster cadence of launches in the coming months. He said the next three Starships could launch at intervals of about once every three to four weeks. After that, SpaceX is expected to transition to a third-generation, or Block 3, Starship design with more changes.

It wasn’t immediately clear how long it might take SpaceX to correct whatever problems caused Tuesday’s test flight woes. The Starship vehicle for the next flight is already built and completed cryogenic prooftesting April 27. For the last few ships, SpaceX has completed this cryogenic testing milestone around one-and-a-half to three months prior to launch.

A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration said the agency is “actively working” with SpaceX in the aftermath of Tuesday’s test flight but did not say if the FAA will require SpaceX to conduct a formal mishap investigation.

Shana Diez, director of Starship engineering at SpaceX, chimed in with her own post on X. Based on preliminary data from Tuesday’s flight, she is optimistic the next test flight will fly soon. She said engineers still need to examine data to confirm none of the problems from Starship’s previous flight recurred on this launch but added that “all evidence points to a new failure mode” on Tuesday’s test flight.

SpaceX will also study what caused the Super Heavy booster to explode on descent before moving forward with another booster catch attempt at Starbase, she said.

“Feeling both relieved and a bit disappointed,” Diez wrote. “Could have gone better today but also could have gone much worse.”

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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.

SpaceX may have solved one problem only to find more on latest Starship flight 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

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

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NASA’s Psyche spacecraft hits a speed bump on the way to a metal asteroid

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An illustration depicts a NASA spacecraft approaching the metal-rich asteroid Psyche. Though there are no plans to mine Psyche, such asteroids are being eyed for their valuable resources. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Each electric thruster on Psyche generates just 250 milli-newtons of thrust, roughly equivalent to the weight of three quarters. But they can operate for months at a time, and over the course of a multi-year cruise, these thrusters provide a more efficient means of propulsion than conventional rockets.

The plasma thrusters are reshaping the Psyche spacecraft’s path toward its destination, a metal-rich asteroid also named Psyche. The spacecraft’s four electric engines, known as Hall effect thrusters, were supplied by a Russian company named Fakel. Most of the other components in Psyche’s propulsion system—controllers, xenon fuel tanks, propellant lines, and valves—come from other companies or the spacecraft’s primary manufacturer, Maxar Space Systems, in California.

The Psyche mission is heading first for Mars, where the spacecraft will use the planet’s gravity next year to slingshot itself into the asteroid belt, setting up for arrival and orbit insertion around the asteroid Psyche in August 2029.

Psyche launched in October 2023 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on the opening leg of a six-year sojourn through the Solar System. The mission’s total cost adds up to more than $1.4 billion, including development of the spacecraft and its instruments, the launch, operations, and an experimental laser communications package hitching a ride to deep space with Psyche.

Psyche, the asteroid, is the size of Massachusetts and circles the Sun in between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. No spacecraft has visited Psyche before. Of the approximately 1 million asteroids discovered so far, scientists say only nine have a metal-rich signature like Psyche. The team of scientists who put together the Psyche mission have little idea of what to expect when the spacecraft gets there in 2029.

Metallic asteroids like Psyche are a mystery. Most of Psyche’s properties are unknown other than estimates of its density and composition. Predictions about the look of Psyche’s craters, cliffs, and color have inspired artists to create a cacophony of illustrations, often showing sharp spikes and grooves alien to rocky worlds.

In a little more than five years, assuming NASA gets past Psyche’s propulsion problem, scientists will supplant speculation with solid data.

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft hits a speed bump on the way to a metal asteroid Read More »

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After convincing senators he supports Artemis, Isaacman nomination advances

isaacman, NASA, Space / /

The US Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday advanced the nomination of private astronaut and businessman Jared Isaacman as the next administrator of NASA to the Senate floor, setting up the final step before he is confirmed.

The vote was not unanimous, at 19–9, with all of the nay votes coming from senators on the Democratic side of the aisle.

However, some key Democrats voted in favor of Isaacman, including the ranking member of the committee, Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. Before the vote, Cantwell said she appreciated that a candidate like Isaacman, with his background in business and private spaceflight, could bring new ideas and energy to the space agency.

Committing to Artemis

Cantwell and the committee chair, Texas Republican Ted Cruz, both emphasized that their support for Isaacman was based on his public support for the Artemis Program to return humans to the Moon.

“A commitment to keeping on with the Moon mission is the key requirement we have to have in this position,” Cantwell said. “While it’s not clear to me where the Trump administration ultimately will end up on the NASA budget, and I have concerns about some of their proposed cuts today, Mr. Isaacman seems to be committed to the current plan. I think this is a very big competitive issue for the United States of America. That competitiveness is not just a goal; it’s a reality that we may some day wake up and find ourselves falling behind.”

This sets up what is likely to be one of the fundamental tensions of the next several years of US space policy. President Trump has expressed his interest in sending humans to Mars, a goal that Isaacman also supports. But key officeholders in Congress have told Isaacman they expect the administration to also beat China back to the Moon with American astronauts and to establish a sustainable presence there.

After convincing senators he supports Artemis, Isaacman nomination advances Read More »

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Rocket Report: The pitfalls of rideshare; China launches next Tiangong crew

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This week, engineers ground-tested upgrades for Blue Origin’s New Glenn and Europe’s Ariane 6.

A Long March 2F carrier rocket, carrying the Shenzhou 20 spacecraft and a crew of three astronauts, lifts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on April 24, 2025. Credit: Photo by Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images

Welcome to Edition 7.41 of the Rocket Report! NASA and its contractors at Kennedy Space Center in Florida continue building a new mobile launch tower for the Space Launch System Block 1B rocket, a taller, upgraded version of the SLS rocket being used for the agency’s initial Artemis lunar missions. Workers stacked another segment of the tower a couple of weeks ago, and the structure is inching closer to its full height of 355 feet (108 meters). But this is just the start. Once the tower is fully assembled, it must be outfitted with miles of cabling, tubing, and piping and then be tested before it can support an SLS launch campaign. Last year, NASA’s inspector general projected the tower won’t be ready for a launch until the spring of 2029, and its costs could reach $2.7 billion. The good news, if you can call it that, is that there probably won’t be an SLS Block 1B rocket that needs to use it in 2029, whether it’s due to delays or cancellation.

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.

Fresh details on Astra’s strategic pivot. Astra, the once high-flying rocket startup that crashed back to Earth with investors before going private last year, has unveiled new details about its $44 million contract with the Department of Defense, Space News reports. The DOD contract announced last year supports the development of Rocket 4, a two-stage, mobile launch vehicle with ambitions to deliver cargo across the globe in under an hour. While Astra’s ill-fated Rocket 3 focused on launching small satellites into low-Earth orbit, Astra wants to make Rocket 4 a military utility vehicle. Rocket 4 will still be able to loft conventional satellites, but Astra’s most lucrative contract for the new launch vehicle involves using the rocket for precise point-to-point delivery of up to 1,300 pounds (590 kilograms) of supplies from orbit via specialized reentry vehicles. The military has shown interest in developing a rocket-based rapid global cargo delivery system for several years, and it has a contract with SpaceX to study how the much larger Starship rocket could do a similar job.

Back from the brink… The Alameda, California-based company, which was delisted from Nasdaq in June 2024 after its shares collapsed, is now targeting the first test flight of Rocket 4 in 2026. Astra’s arrangement with the Defense Innovation Unit includes two milestones: one suborbital (point-to-point) and the other orbital, with the option to launch from a location outside the United States, as Astra is developing a mobile launcher. Chris Kemp, Astra’s co-founder and CEO, told Space News the orbital launch will likely originate from Australia. Astra’s first launches with the new-retired Rocket 3 vehicle were based in Alaska and Florida.

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The Army has a catchy name for its newest weapon. The Long Range Hypersonic Weapon has a new name: Dark Eagle. The US Army announced the popular name for the service’s quick strike missile this week. “Part of the name pays tribute to the eagle—a master hunter known for its speed, stealth and agility—due to the LRHW’s combination of velocity, accuracy, maneuverability, survivability and versatility,” the Army said in a press release. “In addition, the bald eagle—our national bird—represents independence, strength, and freedom.” The Dark Eagle is designed to strike targets with little or no warning via a hypersonic glide vehicle capable of maneuvering in the upper atmosphere after an initial launch with a conventional missile. The hypersonic weapon’s ability to overcome an adversary’s air and missile defenses is embodied in the word “dark” in Dark Eagle, the Army said.

Flying again soon… The Army tested the hypersonic weapon’s “all-up round” during a missile launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in December. The test was delayed more than a year due to unspecified issues. The Army appears to be preparing for another Dark Eagle test from Florida’s Space Coast as soon as Friday, according to airspace and maritime warning notices in the Atlantic Ocean. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Northrop’s niche with Minotaur. Ars mentioned in last week’s Rocket Report that Northrop Grumman’s Minotaur IV rocket launched April 16 with a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. This was the first Minotaur IV launch in nearly five years and the first orbital Minotaur launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, in 14 years. The low-volume Minotaur IV uses solid rocket motors from the Air Force’s stockpile of retired Peacekeeper ballistic missiles, turning part of a weapon of mass destruction into, in this case, a tool to support the US government’s spy satellite agency. The Minotaur IV’s lift capability fits neatly between the capacity of smaller commercial rockets, like Firefly’s Alpha or Rocket Lab’s Electron, and larger rockets like SpaceX’s Falcon 9. The most recent Minotaur IV launch contract cost the Space Force roughly $30 million, more than a mission with Firefly but less than a dedicated ride on a Falcon 9.

Minotaur IV will keep flying… The Space Force has at least two more missions reserved to launch on the expendable Minotaur IV rocket. One of the missions will launch multiple small satellites for the US military’s Space Test Program, and the other will place a military weather satellite into orbit. Both missions will launch from California, with planning launch dates in 2026, a Space Systems Command spokesperson told Ars. “We do have multiple launches planned using Minotaur family launch vehicles between our OSP-4 (Orbital/Suborbital Program) and SRP-4 (Sounding Rocket Program) contracts,” the spokesperson said. “We will release more information on those missions as we get closer to launch.” The Commercial Space Act of 1998 prohibits the use of surplus ICBM motors for commercial launches and limits their use to only specific kinds of military launches. The restrictions were intended to encourage NASA and commercial satellite operators to use privately developed launch vehicles.

NASA’s launch prices have somehow gone up. In an era of reusable rockets and near-daily access to space, NASA is still paying more than it did 30 years ago to launch missions into orbit, according to a study soon to be published in the scientific journal Acta Astronautica. Adjusted for inflation, the prices NASA pays for launch services rose at an annual average rate of 2.82 percent from 1996 to 2024, the report says. “Furthermore, there is no evidence of shift in the launch service costs trend after the introduction of a new launch service provider [SpaceX] in 2016.” Ars analyzed NASA’s launch prices in a story published Thursday.

Why is this? … One might think SpaceX’s reuse of Falcon 9 rocket components would drive down launch prices, but no. Rocket reuse and economies of scale have significantly reduced SpaceX’s launch costs, but the company is charging NASA roughly the same as it did before booster reuse became commonplace. There are a few reasons this is happening. One is that SpaceX hasn’t faced any meaningful competition for NASA launch contracts in the last six years. That should change soon with the recent debuts of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket and Blue Origin’s New Glenn launcher. NASA levies additional requirements on its commercial launch providers, and the agency must pay for them. These include schedule priority, engineering oversight, and sometimes special payload cleanliness requirements and the choice of a particular Falcon 9 booster from SpaceX’s inventory.

What’s holding up ULA’s next launch? After poor weather forced ULA to scrub a launch attempt on April 9, the company will have to wait nearly three weeks for another try to launch an Atlas V rocket with Amazon’s first full-up load of 27 Kuiper broadband satellites, Ars reports. The rocket and satellites are healthy, according to ULA. But the military-run Eastern Range at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, is unable to accommodate ULA until Monday, April 28. The Space Force is being unusually cagey about the reasons for the lengthy delay, which isn’t affecting SpaceX launches to the same degree.

Finally, a theory… The publishing of airspace and maritime warning notices for an apparent test launch of the Army’s Long Range Hypersonic Weapon, or Dark Eagle, might explain the range’s unavailability. The test launch could happen as soon as Friday, and offshore keep-out zones cover wide swaths of the Atlantic Ocean. If this is the reason for the long Atlas V launch delay, we still have questions. If this launch is scheduled for Friday, why has it kept ULA from launching the last few weeks? Why was SpaceX permitted to launch multiple times in the same time period? And why didn’t the first test flight of the Dark Eagle missile in December result in similar lengthy launch delays on the Eastern Range?

Shenzhou 20 bound for Tiangong. A spaceship carrying three astronauts docked Thursday with China’s space station in the latest crew rotation, approximately six hours after their launch on a Long March 2F rocket from the Gobi Desert, the Associated Press reports. The Shenzhou 20 mission is commanded by Chen Dong, who is making his third flight. He is accompanied by fighter pilot Chen Zhongrui and engineer Wang Jie, both making their maiden voyages. They will replace three astronauts currently on the Chinese Tiangong space station. Like those before them, they will stay on board for roughly six months.

Finding a rhythm… China’s human spaceflight missions have launched like clockwork since the country’s first domestic astronaut launch in 2003. Now, with the Tiangong space station fully operational, China is launching fresh crews at six-month intervals. While in space, the astronauts will conduct experiments in medical science and new technologies and perform spacewalks to carry out maintenance and install new equipment. Their tasks will include adding space debris shielding to the exterior of the Tiangong station. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

SpaceX resupplies the ISS. SpaceX launched an uncrewed Cargo Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station early Monday on a resupply mission with increased importance after a transportation mishap derailed a flight by another US cargo ship, Spaceflight Now reports. The Dragon cargo vessel docked at the space station early Tuesday with 4,780 pounds (2,168 kilograms) of pressurized cargo and 1,653 pounds (750 kilograms) of unpressurized payloads in the vehicle’s trunk. NASA adjusted the Dragon spacecraft’s payload because an upcoming flight by Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus supply freighter was canceled after the Cygnus cargo module was damaged during transport to the launch site.

Something strange… The payloads aboard this Dragon cargo mission—the 32nd by SpaceX—include normal things like fresh food (exactly 1,262 tortillas), biomedical and pharmaceutical experiments, and the technical demonstration of a new atomic clock. However, there’s something onboard nobody at NASA or SpaceX wants to talk about. A payload package named STP-H10 inside Dragon’s trunk section will be installed on a mounting post outside of the space station to perform a mission for the US military’s Space Test Program. STP-H10 wasn’t mentioned in NASA’s press kit for this mission, and SpaceX didn’t show the usual views of Dragon’s trunk when the spacecraft deployed from its Falcon 9 rocket shortly after launch. These kinds of Space Test Program experiment platforms have launched to the ISS before without any secrecy. Stranger still is the fact that the STP-H10 experiments are unclassified. You can see the list here. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

There are some drawbacks to rideshare. SpaceX launched its third “Bandwagon” rideshare mission into a mid-inclination orbit Monday evening from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Space News reports. The payloads included a South Korean military radar spy satellite, a small commercial weather satellite, and the most interesting payload: an experimental reentry vehicle from a German startup named Atmos Space Cargo. The startup’s Phoenix vehicle, fitted with an inflatable heat shield, separated from the Falcon 9’s upper stage about 90 minutes after liftoff. Roughly a half-hour later, it began reentry for a splashdown in the South Atlantic Ocean, about 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) off the coast of Brazil. Until last month, the Phoenix vehicle was supposed to reenter over the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar, near the island of Réunion. The late change to the mission’s trajectory meant Atmos could not recover the spacecraft after splashdown.

Changes in longitude… Five weeks before the launch, SpaceX informed Atmos of a change in trajectory because of “operational constraints” of the primary payload, a South Korean reconnaissance satellite. Smaller payloads on rideshare launches benefit from lower launch prices, but their owners have no control over the schedule or trajectory of the launch. The change for this mission resulted in a splashdown well off the coast of Brazil, ruling out any attempt to recover Phoenix after splashdown. It also meant a steeper reentry than previously planned, creating higher loads on the spacecraft. The company lined up new ground stations in South America to communicate with the spacecraft during key phases of flight leading up to reentry. In addition, it chartered a plane to attempt to collect data during reentry, but the splashdown location was beyond the range of the aircraft. Some data suggests that the heat shield inflated as planned, but Atmos’s CEO said the company needed more time to analyze the data it had, adding that it was “very difficult” to get data from Phoenix in the final phases of its flight, given its distance from ground stations.

Ariane 6 is gonna need a bigger booster. A qualification motor for an upgraded solid rocket booster for Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket successfully fired up for the first time on a test stand Thursday in Kourou, French Guiana, according to the European Space Agency. The new P160C solid rocket motor burned for more than two minutes, and ESA declared the test-firing a success. ESA’s member states approved the development of the P160C motor in 2022. The upgraded motor is about 3 feet (1 meter) longer than the P120C motor currently flying on the Ariane 6 rocket and carries about 31,000 pounds (14 metric tons) more solid propellant. The Ariane 6 rocket can fly with two or four of these strap-on boosters. Officials plan to introduce the P160C on Ariane 6 flights next year, giving the rocket’s heaviest version the ability to haul up to 4,400 pounds (2 metric tons) of additional cargo mass to orbit.

A necessary change… The heavier P160C solid rocket motor is required for Arianespace to fulfill its multi-mission launch contract with Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite broadband network. Alongside similar contracts with ULA and Blue Origin, Amazon reserved 18 Kuiper launches on Ariane 6 rockets, and 16 of them must use the upgraded P160C booster to deliver additional Kuiper satellites to orbit. The P160C is a joint project between ArianeGroup and Avio, which will use the same motor design on Europe’s smaller Vega C rocket to improve its performance. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Progress toward the second flight of New Glenn. Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said his team completed a full-duration 15-second hot-fire test Thursday of the upper stage for the company’s second New Glenn rocket. In a post on X, Limp wrote that the upper stage for the next New Glenn flight will have “enhanced performance.” The maximum power of its hydrogen-fueled BE-3U engine will increase from 173,000 pounds to 175,000 pounds of thrust. Two BE-3U engines fly on New Glenn’s second stage.

A good engine… The BE-3U engine is a derivative of the BE-3 engine flying on Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard rocket. Limp wrote that the upper stage on the first New Glenn launch in January “performed remarkably” and achieved an orbital injection with less than 1 percent deviation from its target. So when will New Glenn launch again? We’ve heard late spring, June, or October, depending on the source. I’ll note that Blue Origin test-fired the New Glenn upper stage for the rocket’s first flight about four months before it launched.

Next three launches

April 27: Alpha | “Message in a Booster” | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 13: 37 UTC

April 27: Long March 3B/E | Unknown Payload | Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China | 15: 55 UTC

April 27: Falcon 9 | Starlink 11-9 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 20: 55 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.

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reusable-rockets-are-here,-so-why-is-nasa-paying-more-to-launch-stuff-to-space?

Reusable rockets are here, so why is NASA paying more to launch stuff to space?

blue origin, launch, NASA, Space, spacex, united launch alliance / /

• 1998: Deep Space 1 — Delta II rocket — $86 million

• 1999: Mars Polar Lander — Delta II rocket — $88 million

• 2001: Mars Odyssey — Delta II rocket — $96 million

• 2003: Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers — two Delta II rockets — $87 million per launch

• 2004: Swift — Delta II rocket — $90 million

• 2005: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter — Atlas V rocket — $147 million

• 2007: Phoenix Mars lander — Delta II rocket — $132 million

Launch prices for NASA missions soared after the late 2000s, following the creation of United Launch Alliance through a merger of the Atlas and Delta rocket programs developed by Lockheed Martin and Boeing. The merger eliminated competition for most of NASA’s launch contracts until SpaceX’s Falcon 9 became available for NASA science missions in the mid-2010s. Here’s a sample of missions as examples of the rising costs, with contract values adjusted for inflation from the time of their award to reflect 2025 dollars:

• 2009: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter — Atlas V rocket — $220 million

• 2012: Radiation Belt Storm Probes — Atlas V rocket — $226 million (averaged from a bulk buy)

• 2014: Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 — Delta II rocket — $191 million (averaged from a bulk buy)

• 2016: OSIRIS-REx asteroid mission — Atlas V rocket — $252 million

• 2017: TDRS-M data relay satellite — Atlas V rocket — $179 million

• 2017: JPSS-2 weather satellite — Atlas V rocket — $224 million

• 2018: InSight Mars lander — Atlas V rocket — $220 million

• 2018: ICESAT-2 — Delta II rocket — $134 million

Again, the missions listed above would likely launch on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets if NASA awarded these contracts today. So, how do SpaceX’s more recent Falcon 9 prices compare? Let’s take a look. These contract values are adjusted for inflation from the time of their award to reflect 2025 dollars:

• 2016: Jason 3 oceanography satellite — Falcon 9 rocket — $114 million

• 2018: Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite — Falcon 9 rocket — $118 million

• 2020: Sentinel-6A — Falcon 9 rocket — $126 million

• 2021: Double Asteroid Redirection Test — Falcon 9 rocket — $86 million

• 2021: Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer — Falcon 9 rocket — $62 million

• 2022: Surface Water and Ocean Topography — Falcon 9 rocket — $148 million

• 2024: PACE Earth sciences mission — Falcon 9 rocket — $99 million

• 2025: SPHEREx astronomy mission — Falcon 9 rocket — $99 million

And here are a few future launches NASA has booked to fly on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Some of these contracts were awarded in the last 12 months, and those have not been adjusted for inflation. The others reflect 2025 dollars:

• 2025: Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe — Falcon 9 rocket — $134 million

• 2025: Sentinel-6B — Falcon 9 rocket — $101 million

• 2027: NEO Surveyor — Falcon 9 rocket — $100 million

• 2027: JPSS-4 weather satellite — Falcon 9 rocket — $113 million

• 2027: Compton Spectrometer and Imager — Falcon 9 rocket — $69 million

There are a few other things worth noting when we chart NASA’s launch prices. One is that SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, used for NASA’s heaviest missions, costs more than a Falcon 9 rocket. For example, two identical weather satellites launched in 2022 and 2024 on ULA’s Atlas V and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket for $207 million and $178 million, respectively, again adjusted for inflation.

Reusable rockets are here, so why is NASA paying more to launch stuff to space? Read More »

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Republican space officials criticize “mindless” NASA science cuts

NASA, Science, Space / /

In the nearly two weeks since Ars reported on the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts for NASA’s science programs, scientists and Democratic lawmakers have both expressed deep concerns about the future of the space agency.

However, in a pattern consistent across a host of issues in which GOP lawmakers do not want to be seen to be publicly criticizing the Trump administration, the response to these sweeping cuts from Republican officials has been much more muted.

But this week, three prominent Republican space policy officials broke their silence. In an op-ed published Tuesday on Real Clear Science, former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former House Chair Robert Walker, and the head of the landing team for NASA for the Trump-Vance transition team, Charles Miller, said they were “deeply disturbed” by the proposed cuts. All three men have played an important role in setting Republican space policy over the last decade.

Slashing the Sun

The cuts were part of a “passback” proposal sent to NASA leadership by the White House Office of Management and Budget two weeks ago. Overall, the White House sought a 20 percent cut for NASA, but by far the deepest cuts were earmarked for the agency’s science division: a two-thirds cut to astrophysics, down to $487 million; a nearly 50 percent cut to heliophysics, down to $455 million; a greater than 50 percent cut to Earth science, down to $1.033 billion; and a 30 percent cut to planetary science, down to $1.929 billion.

“Certainly, the space agency needs to modernize and reform practices and personnel management—but not at the expense of world-class science programs,” the Republican officials wrote this week. “Deep cuts to NASA’s science programs would be the end of America’s leadership in space science. It would clearly signal to the world (and to America’s children) that America is a declining power.”

Republican space officials criticize “mindless” NASA science cuts Read More »