rocket report

Rocket Report: Alpha explodes on test stand; Europe wants a mini Starship

firefly, rocket report, Space / Shannon Garcia / October 3, 2025

“We are trying to find a partner that is willing to invest.”

An Electron rocket launches a Synspective satellite in 2022. Credit: Rocket Lab

Welcome to Edition 8.13 of the Rocket Report! It’s difficult for me to believe, but we have now entered the fourth quarter of the year. Accordingly, there are three months left in 2025, with a lot of launch action still to come. The remainder of the year will be headlined by Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket making its second flight (and landing attempt), and SpaceX’s Starship making its final test flight of the year. There is also the slim possibility that Rocket Lab’s Neutron vehicle will make its debut this year, but it will almost certainly slip into 2026.

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.

An Alpha rocket blows up on the pad. The booster stage for Firefly Aerospace’s next Alpha rocket was destroyed Monday in a fiery accident on the company’s vertical test stand in Central Texas, Ars reports. Firefly released a statement confirming the rocket “experienced an event that resulted in a loss of the stage.” The company confirmed all personnel were safe and said ground teams followed “proper safety protocols.” Imagery posted on social media platforms showed a fireball engulfing the test stand and a column of black smoke rising into the sky over Firefly’s facility roughly 40 miles north of Austin.

Supposed to be a return-to-flight mission … Engineers were testing the rocket before shipment to Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, to prepare for launch later this year with a small commercial satellite for Lockheed Martin. The booster destroyed Monday was slated to fly on the seventh launch of Firefly’s Alpha rocket, an expendable, two-stage launch vehicle capable of placing a payload of a little over 2,200 pounds, or a metric ton, into low-Earth orbit. This upcoming launch was supposed to be the Alpha rocket’s return to flight after an in-flight failure in April, when the upper stage’s engine shut down before the rocket could reach orbit and deploy its satellite payload.

Europe wants a mini Starship. The European Space Agency signed a contract Monday with Avio, the Italian company behind the small Vega rocket, to begin designing a reusable upper stage capable of flying into orbit, returning to Earth, and launching again. The deal is worth 40 million euros ($47 million), Ars reports. In a statement, Avio said it will “define the requirements, system design, and enabling technologies needed to develop a demonstrator capable of safely returning to Earth and being reused in future missions.”

Don’t expect progress too quickly … At the end of the two-year contract, Avio will deliver a preliminary design for the reusable upper stage and the ground infrastructure needed to make it a reality. The preliminary design review is a milestone in the early phases of an aerospace project, typically occurring many years before completion. For example, Europe’s flagship Ariane 6 rocket passed its preliminary design review in 2016, eight years before its first launch. Avio and ESA did not release any specifications on the size or performance of the launcher.

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Rocket Lab scores 10 more Electron launches. Synspective, a Japanese company developing a constellation of radar imaging satellites, has signed a deal with Rocket Lab for an additional 10 Electron launches, Space News reports. The companies announced the agreement on Tuesday at the International Astronautical Congress, confirming that each launch would carry a single StriX radar imaging satellite.

A repeat customer … Synspective signed a separate contract in June 2024 for 10 Electron launches, scheduled for 2025 through 2027. That was the largest single contract for Electron to date. Rocket Lab notes that Synspective is its largest Electron customer, with six launches completed to date and a backlog of 21 launches through the end of the decade. Synspective aims to place 30 synthetic aperture radar imaging satellites in orbit by 2030. This contract ensures that Electron will continue flying for quite a while.

German investment could benefit small launchers. During his address at Germany’s third annual Space Congress, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced that Germany would invest 35 billion euros ($41 billion) in space-related defense projects by 2030, European Spaceflight reports. “The conflicts of the future will no longer be limited to the Earth’s surface or the deep sea,” he said. “They will also be fought openly in orbit. That’s why we are building structures within the Bundeswehr to enable us to effectively defend and deter [threats] in space in the medium and long term.”

Launch an investment area … The investment will cover five main priorities: hardening against data disruptions and attacks, improved space situational awareness, redundancy through several networked satellite constellations, secure, diverse, and on-demand launch capabilities, and a dedicated military satellite operations center. Although Germany’s heavy-lift needs will continue to be met by Ariane 6, a program to which the country contributes heavily, domestic small-launch providers such as Rocket Factory Augsburg, Isar Aerospace, and HyImpulse are likely to see a boost in support.

Blue Origin seeks to expand New Shepard program. Blue Origin is developing three new suborbital New Shepard launch systems and is mulling expanding flight services beyond West Texas, Aviation Week reports. The current two-ship fleet will be retired by the end of 2027, with the first of three new spacecraft expected to debut next year, Senior Vice President Phil Joyce said during the Global Spaceport Alliance forum.

Looking for an overseas partner … Joyce said the new vehicles feature upgraded systems throughout, particularly in the propulsion system. The new ships are designed for quicker turnaround, which will enable Blue Origin to offer weekly flights. The company’s West Texas spaceport can accommodate three New Shepard vehicles, though Blue Origin is interested in possibly offering the suborbital flight service from another location, including outside the US, Joyce said. “We are trying to find a partner that is willing to invest,” he added. (submitted by Chuckgineer)

Next Nuri launch set for November. The Korea AeroSpace Administration completed a review of preparations for the next launch of the Nuri rocket and announced that the vehicle was ready for a window that would open on November 28. The main payload will be a satellite to observe Earth’s aurora and magnetic field, along with a smaller secondary payload.

Coming back after a while … The liquid-fueled Nuri rocket is the first booster to be entirely developed within Korea, and has a lift capacity of 3.3 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. The rocket failed on its debut launch in October 2021, but flew successfully in 2022 and 2023. If the rocket launches in November, it will be Nuri’s first mission in two and a half years. (submitted by CP)

Galactic Energy scores big fundraising round. Beijing-based Galactic Energy has raised what appears to be China’s largest disclosed round for a launch startup as it nears orbital test flights of new rockets, Space News reports. The company announced Series D financing of 2.4 billion yuan ($336 million) in a statement on Sunday. The funding will be used for the Pallas series of reusable liquid propellant launchers and the Ceres-2 solid rocket, both of which appear close to test launches. The investment will also go toward related production, testing, and launch facilities.

Big funding, big ambitions … Founded in February 2018, Galactic Energy has established a strong record of reliability with its light-lift Ceres-1 solid rocket, and previously raised $154 million in C-round funding in late 2023 for its Pallas-1 plans. Pallas-1, a kerosene-liquid oxygen rocket, is to be able to carry 7 metric tons of payload to a 200-km low-Earth orbit. New plans for Pallas-2 envision a capability of 20,000 to 58,000 kg, depending on a single-stick or tri-core configuration, with an aggressive target of a debut launch in 2026.

Blue Origin seeks to reuse next New Glenn booster. There’s a good bit riding on the second launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, Ars reports. Most directly, the fate of a NASA science mission to study Mars’ upper atmosphere hinges on a successful launch. The second flight of Blue Origin’s heavy-lifter will send two NASA-funded satellites toward the red planet to study the processes that drove Mars’ evolution from a warmer, wetter world to the cold, dry planet of today. But there’s more on the line. If Blue Origin plans to launch its first robotic Moon lander early next year—as currently envisioned—the company needs to recover the New Glenn rocket’s first stage booster.

Managing prop … Crews will again dispatch Blue Origin’s landing platform into the Atlantic Ocean, just as they did for the first New Glenn flight in January. The debut launch of New Glenn successfully reached orbit, a difficult feat for the inaugural flight of any rocket. But the booster fell into the Atlantic Ocean after three of the rocket’s engines failed to reignite to slow down for landing. Engineers identified seven changes to resolve the problem, focusing on what Blue Origin calls “propellant management and engine bleed control improvements.” Company officials expressed confidence this week the booster will be recovered.

SpaceX nearing next Starship test flight. With the next Starship launch, scheduled for no earlier than October 13, SpaceX officials hope to show they can repeat the successes of the 10th test flight of the vehicle in late August, Ars reports. On its surface, the flight plan for SpaceX’s next Starship flight looks a lot like the last one. The rocket’s Super Heavy booster will again splash down in the Gulf of Mexico just offshore from SpaceX’s launch site in South Texas. And Starship, the rocket’s upper stage, will fly on a suborbital arc before reentering the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean for a water landing northwest of Australia.

Preparing for a future ship catch … There are, however, some changes to SpaceX’s flight plan for the next Starship. Most of these changes will occur during the ship’s reentry, when the vehicle’s heat shield is exposed to temperatures of up to 2,600° Fahrenheit (1,430° Celsius). These include new tests of ceramic thermal protection tiles to “intentionally stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle.” Another new test objective for the upcoming Starship flight will be a “dynamic banking maneuver” during the final phase of the trajectory “to mimic the path a ship will take on future flights returning to Starbase,” SpaceX said. This will help engineers test Starship’s subsonic guidance algorithms.

Senators seek to halt space shuttle move. A former NASA astronaut turned US senator has joined with other lawmakers to insist that his two rides to space remain on display in the Smithsonian, Ars reports. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) has joined fellow Democratic Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both of Virginia, and Dick Durbin of Illinois in an effort to halt the move of space shuttle Discovery to Houston, as enacted into law earlier this year. In a letter sent to the leadership of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Kelly and his three colleagues cautioned that any effort to transfer the winged orbiter would “waste taxpayer dollars, risk permanent damage to the shuttle, and mean fewer visitors would be able to visit it.”

Seeking to block Cruz control … In the letter, the senators asked that Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) block funding for Discovery‘s relocation in both the fiscal year 2026 Interior-Environment appropriations bill and FY26 Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill. The letter is the latest response to a campaign begun by Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, both Republicans from Texas, to remove Discovery from its 13-year home at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, and put it on display at Space Center Houston, the visitor center for NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas.

Next three launches

October 3: Falcon 9 | Starlink 11-39 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 13: 00 UTC

October 6: Falcon 9 | Starlink 10-59 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla.| 04: 32 UTC

October 8: Falcon 9 | Starlink 11-17 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 01: 00 UTC

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: Alpha explodes on test stand; Europe wants a mini Starship Read More »

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

ariane 6, artemis II, astra, blue origin, Firefly Aerospace, moon, NASA, new glenn, rocket report, Security, Space, space launch system, spacex, starship, VIPER / Kelly Newman / September 26, 2025

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

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 »

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

artemis II, rocket report, sls, Space, starship / Kelly Newman / September 19, 2025

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.

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

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

Rocket Report: Russia’s rocket engine predicament; 300th launch to the ISS

astrobotic, falcon 9, india, international space station, NASA, North Korea, PSLV, rocket report, russia, Science, Space, space launch system, spacex, starship / 9u50fv / September 12, 2025

North Korea test-fired a powerful new solid rocket motor for its next-generation ICBM.

A Soyuz-2.1a rocket is propelled by kerosene-fueled RD-107A and RD-108A engines after lifting off Thursday with a resupply ship bound for the International Space Station. Credit: Roscosmos

Welcome to Edition 8.10 of the Rocket Report! Dear readers, if everything goes according to plan, four astronauts are less than six months away from traveling around the far side of the Moon and breaking free of low-Earth orbit for the first time in more than 53 years. Yes, there are good reasons to question NASA’s long-term plans for the Artemis lunar program—the woeful cost of the Space Launch System rocket, the complexity of new commercial landers, and a bleak budget outlook. But many of us who were born after the Apollo Moon landings have been waiting for this moment our whole lives. It is almost upon us.

North Korea fires solid rocket motor. North Korea said Tuesday it had conducted the final ground test of a solid-fuel rocket engine for a long-range ballistic missile in its latest advancement toward having an arsenal that could viably threaten the continental United States, the Associated Press reports. The test Monday observed by leader Kim Jong Un was the ninth of the solid rocket motor built with carbon fiber and capable of producing 1,971 kilonewtons (443,000 pounds) of thrust, more powerful than past models, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

Mobility and flexibility … Solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, have advantages over liquid-fueled missiles, which have historically comprised the bulk of North Korea’s inventory. Solid rocket motors can be stored for longer periods of time and are easier to conceal, transport, and launch on demand. The new solid rocket motor will be used on a missile called the Hwasong-20, according to North Korean state media. The AP reports some analysts say North Korea may conduct another ICBM test around the end of the year, showcasing its military strength ahead of a major ruling party congress expected in early 2026.

Sign Me Up!

Astrobotic eyes Andøya. US-based lunar logistics company Astrobotic and Norwegian spaceport operator Andøya Space have signed a term sheet outlining the framework for a Launch Site Agreement, European Spaceflight reports. The agreement, once finalized, will facilitate flights of Astrobotic’s Xodiac lander testbed from the Andøya Space facilities. The Xodiac vertical takeoff, vertical landing rocket was initially developed by Masten Space Systems to simulate landing on the Moon and Mars. When Masten filed for bankruptcy in 2022, Astrobotic acquired its intellectual property and assets, including the Xodiac vehicle.

Across the pond … So far, the small Xodiac rocket has flown on low-altitude atmospheric hops from Mojave, California, reaching altitudes of up to 500 meters, or 1,640 feet. The agreement between Astrobotic and Andøya paves the way for “several” Xodiac flight campaigns from Andøya Space facilities on the Norwegian coast. “Xodiac’s presence at Andøya represents a meaningful step toward delivering reliable, rapid, and cost-effective testing and demonstration capabilities to the European space market,” said Astrobotic CEO John Thornton.

Ursa Major breaks ground in Colorado. Ursa Major on Wednesday said it has broken ground on a new 400-acre site where it will test and qualify large-scale solid rocket motors for current and future missiles, including the Navy’s Standard Missile fleet, Defense Daily reports. The new site in Weld County, Colorado, north of Denver, will be ready for testing to begin in the fourth quarter of 2025. Ursa Major will be able to conduct full-scale static firings, and drop and temperature storage testing for current and future missile systems.

Seeking SRM options … Ursa Major said the new facility will support national and missile defense programs. The company’s portfolio includes solid rocket motors (SRMs) ranging from 2 inches to 22 inches in diameter for missiles like the Stinger, Javelin, and air-defense interceptors. Ursa Major aims to join industry incumbents Northrop Grumman, L3Harris, and newcomer Anduril as a major supplier of SRMs to the government. “This facility represents a major step forward in our ability to deliver qualified SRMs that are scalable, flexible, and ready to meet the evolving threat environment,” said Dan Jablonsky, CEO of Ursa Major, in a statement. “It’s a clear demonstration of our commitment and ability to rapidly advance and expand the American-made solid rocket motor industrial base that the country needs, ensuring warfighters will have the quality and quantity of SRMs needed to meet mission demands.”

Falcon 9 launches first satellites in a military megaconstellation. The first 21 satellites in a constellation that could become a cornerstone for the Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile-defense shield successfully launched from California Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Ars reports. The Falcon 9 took off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, and headed south over the Pacific Ocean, reaching an orbit over the poles before releasing the 21 military-owned satellites to begin several weeks of activations and checkouts.

First of many … These 21 satellites will boost themselves to a final orbit at an altitude of roughly 600 miles (1,000 kilometers). The Pentagon plans to launch 133 more satellites over the next nine months to complete the build-out of the Space Development Agency’s first-generation, or Tranche 1, constellation of missile-tracking and data-relay satellites. Military officials have worked for six years to reach this moment. The Space Development Agency (SDA) was established during the first Trump administration, which made plans for an initial set of demonstration satellites that launched a couple of years ago. In 2022, the Pentagon awarded contracts for the first 154 operational spacecraft, including the ones launched Wednesday. “Back in 2019, when the SDA was stood up, it was to do two things. One was to make sure that we can do beyond line of sight targeting, and the other was to pace the threat, the emerging threat, in the missile-warning and missile-tracking domain. That’s what the focus has been,” said Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo, the SDA’s acting director.

Another Falcon 9 was delayed three times. SpaceX scrubbed launching a communications satellite from an Indonesian company for a third consecutive day Wednesday, Spaceflight Now reports. Possible technical issues got in the way of a launch attempt Wednesday evening after back-to-back days of weather delays at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The Falcon 9 finally launched Thursday evening with the Boeing-built Nusantara Lima communications satellite, targeting a geosynchronous transfer orbit. It’s the latest satellite from the Indonesian company Pasifik Satelit Nusantara.

A declining market … This was just the fifth geosynchronous communications satellite to launch on a commercial rocket this year, all by SpaceX. There were 21 such satellites that launched on commercial vehicles in 2015, including SpaceX’s Falcon 9, Europe’s Ariane 5, Russia’s Proton, ULA’s Atlas V, and Japan’s H-IIA. Much of the world’s launch capacity today is used to deploy smaller communications satellites into low-Earth orbit, primarily for broadband connectivity rather than for the video broadcast market once dominated by higher-altitude geosynchronous satellites.

Putin urges Russia to build more rocket engines. Russian President Vladimir Putin urged aerospace industry leaders on September 5 to press on with efforts to develop booster rocket engines for space launch vehicles and build on Russia’s longstanding reputation as a leader in space technology, Reuters reports. Putin, who spent the preceding days in China and the Russian far eastern port of Vladivostok, flew to the southern Russian city of Samara, where he met industry specialists and toured the Kuznetsov design bureau engine manufacturing plant.

A shell of its former self … “It is important to consistently renew production capacity in terms of engines for booster rockets,” Russian news agencies quoted Putin as saying during the visit. “And in doing so, we must not only meet our own current and future needs but also move actively on world markets and be successful competitors.” The Kuznetsov plant in Samara builds medium-class RD-107 and RD-108 engines for Russia’s Soyuz-2 rockets, which launch Russian military satellites and crew and cargo to the International Space Station. Their designs can be traced to the dawn of the Space Age nearly 70 years ago. Meanwhile, the outlook for heavier-duty Russian rocket engines is murky, at best. Russia’s most-flown large rocket engine in the post-Cold War era, the RD-180, produced by a company called Energomash, is out of production after the end of sales to the United States.

India nabs a noteworthy launch contract. Astroscale, a satellite servicing and space debris mitigation company based in Japan, has selected India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) to deliver a small satellite named ISSA-J1 to orbit in 2027. This is an interesting mission. The ISSA-J1 spacecraft will fly up to two large pieces of satellite debris in orbit to image and inspect them. ISSA-J1, developed in partnership with the Japanese government, is one in a series of Astroscale missions testing different ways of approaching, monitoring, capturing, and refueling other objects in space. The launch agreement was signed between Astroscale and NewSpace India Limited, the commercial arm of India’s space agency.

Rideshare not an option … “We selected NSIL after thorough evaluations of more than 10 launch service providers over the past year, considering technical capabilities, track record, cost, and other elements,” said Eddie Kato, president and managing director of Astroscale Japan. India’s PSLV is right-sized for a mission like this. ISSA-J1 is a rarity in that it must launch on a dedicated rocket because it has to reach a specific orbit to line up with the pieces of space debris it will approach and inspect. Rideshare launches, such as those that routinely fly on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, are cheaper but go to standard orbits popular for many different types of satellite missions. A dedicated launch on a Falcon 9 would presumably have been more expensive than a flight on India’s smaller PSLV. Rocket Lab’s Electron, another rocket popular for dedicated launches of small satellites, lacks the performance required for Astroscale’s mission.

Russian cargo en route to ISS. Another cargo ship is flying to humanity’s orbital outpost with the successful launch of Russia’s Progress MS-32 supply freighter Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, NASASpaceflight.com reports. The supply ship launched aboard a Soyuz-2.1a rocket and arrived in orbit about nine minutes later, kicking off a two-day pursuit of the International Space Station. This was the 300th launch of an assembly, crew, or cargo mission to the ISS since 1998, including a handful of missions that didn’t reach the complex due to rocket or spacecraft failures.

Important stuff … The Progress MS-32 cargo craft will dock with the aft port of the space station’s Russian Zvezda service module Saturday. The payloads flying on the Progress mission include food, experiments, clothing, water, air, and propellant to be pumped into the space station’s onboard tanks. The spacecraft will also reboost the lab’s orbit.

Metallic tiles? Not so great. It has been two weeks since SpaceX’s last Starship test flight, and engineers have diagnosed issues with its heat shield, identified improvements, and developed a preliminary plan for the next time the ship heads into space, Ars reports. Bill Gerstenmaier, a SpaceX executive in charge of build and flight reliability, presented the findings Monday at the American Astronautical Society’s Glenn Space Technology Symposium in Cleveland. The test flight went “extremely well,” Gerstenmaier said, but he noted some important lessons learned with the ship’s heat shield.

Crunch wrap reigns supreme … “We were essentially doing a test to see if we could get by with non-ceramic tiles, so we put three metal tiles on the side of the ship to see if they would provide adequate heat control, because they would be simpler to manufacture and more durable than the ceramic tiles. It turns out they’re not,” Gerstenmaier said. “The metal tiles… didn’t work so well.” One bright spot with the heat shield was the performance of a new experimental material around and under the tiles. “We call it crunch wrap,” Gerstenmaier said. “It’s like a wrapping paper that goes around each tile.” On the next Starship flight, SpaceX will likely cover more parts of the heat shield with this crunch wrap material. Gerstenmaier said the inaugural flight of Starship Version 3, with upgraded engines and more fuel, is now set to occur next year.

An SLS compromise might be afoot in DC. The Trump administration is seeking to cancel NASA’s Space Launch System rocket after two more flights, but key lawmakers in Congress, including Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, aren’t ready to go along. So is this an impasse? Possibly not, as sources say the White House and Congress may not be all that far apart on how to handle this. The solution involves canceling part of the SLS rocket now, but not all of it, Ars reports.

Goodbye EUS? … The compromise might be to cancel a large new upper stage for the SLS rocket called the Exploration Upper Stage. This would save NASA billions of dollars, and the agency could instead procure commercial upper stages, such as those built by United Launch Alliance or Blue Origin, to fly on SLS rockets after NASA’s Artemis III mission. It would also eliminate the need for NASA to finish building an expensive new launch tower at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The upper stage flying on the first three SLS missions is no longer in production. Sources indicated to Ars that Blue Origin has already begun work on a modified version of its New Glenn upper stage that could fit within the shroud of the SLS rocket.

Next three launches

Sept. 13: Soyuz-2.1b | Glonass-K1 No. 18L | Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia | 02: 30 UTC

Sept. 13: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-10 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 15: 41 UTC

Sept. 14: Falcon 9 | Cygnus NG-23 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 22: 11 UTC

Rocket Report: Russia’s rocket engine predicament; 300th launch to the ISS Read More »

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

rocket report, sls, Space, starship, ted cruz / DJ Henderson / September 5, 2025

All the news that’s fit to lift

“Nobody’s waving the white flag here until the last hour of the last day.”

Image of a Starlink launch on Falcon 9 this week. Credit: SpaceX

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

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

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

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

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

Sign Me Up!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next three launches

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

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

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

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

Rocket Report: SpaceX achieved daily launch this week; ULA recovers booster

alpha rocket, falcon 9, Firefly Aerospace, launch, rocket report, Science, Space, spacex, Starbase, starship, united launch alliance, vulcan, wallops island / Beth Washington / August 29, 2025

Firefly Aerospace reveals why its Alpha booster exploded after launch in April.

Starship and its Super Heavy booster ascend through a clear sky over Starbase, Texas, on Tuesday evening. A visible vapor cone enveloped the rocket as it passed through maximum aerodynamic pressure and the speed of sound. Credit: Stephen Clark/Ars Technica

Welcome to Edition 8.08 of the Rocket Report! What a week it’s been for SpaceX. The company completed its first successful Starship test flight in nearly a year, and while it wasn’t perfect, it sets up SpaceX for far more ambitious tests ahead. SpaceX’s workhorse rocket, the Falcon 9, launched six times since our last edition of the Rocket Report. Many of these missions were noteworthy in their own right, including the launch of the US military’s X-37B spaceplane, an upgraded Dragon capsule to boost the International Space Station to a higher orbit, and the record 30th launch and landing of a flight-proven Falcon 9 booster. All told, that’s seven SpaceX launches in seven days.

Firefly announces cause of Alpha launch failure. Firefly Aerospace closed the investigation into the failure of one of its Alpha rockets during an April mission for Lockheed Martin and received clearance from the FAA to resume launches, Payload reports. The loss of the launch vehicle was a dark cloud hanging over the company’s otherwise successful IPO this month. The sixth flight of Firefly’s Alpha rocket launched in April from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, and failed when its first stage booster broke apart milliseconds after stage separation. This created a shockwave that destroyed the engine nozzle extension on the second stage, damaging the engine before the second stage ran out of propellant seconds before it attained orbital velocity. Both stages ultimately fell into the Pacific Ocean.

Too much stress … Investigators concluded that “plume induced flow separation” caused the failure. The phenomenon occurs when a rocket’s exhaust disrupts airflow around the vehicle in flight. In this case, Firefly said the rocket was flying at a higher angle of attack than prior missions, which resulted in the flow separation and created intense heat that broke the first stage apart just after it jettisoned from the second stage. Firefly will increase heat shielding on the first stage of the rocket and fly at reduced angles of attack on future missions. Alpha has now launched six times since 2021, with only two complete successes. Firefly said it was working on setting a date for the seventh Alpha launch. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

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ESA books a ticket on European launchers. The European Space Agency has awarded launch service contracts to Avio and Isar Aerospace under its Flight Ticket Initiative, European Spaceflight reports. Announced in October 2023, the Flight Ticket Initiative is a program run jointly by ESA and the European Union that offers subsidized flight opportunities for European companies and organizations seeking to demonstrate new satellite technologies in orbit. The initiative is part of ESA’s strategy to foster the continent’s commercial space industry, offering institutional funding to support satellite and launch companies. Avio won contracts to launch three small European space missions as secondary payloads on Vega C rockets flying into low-Earth orbit. Isar Aerospace will launch two small satellite missions to orbit for European companies.

No other options … Avio and Isar Aerospace were the obvious contenders for the Flight Ticket Initiative from a pool of five European companies eligible for launch awards. The other companies, PLD Space, Orbex, and Rocket Factory Augsburg, haven’t launched their orbital-class rockets yet. Avio, based in Italy, builds the now-operational Vega C rocket, and Germany’s Isar Aerospace launched its first Spectrum rocket earlier this year, but it failed to reach orbit. Avio’s selection replaces Arianespace, which was originally part of the Flight Ticket Initiative. Arianespace was previously responsible for marketing and sales for the Vega rocket, but ESA transferred its Flight Ticket Initiative eligibility to Avio following its split from Arianespace. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Canadian rocket company ready for launch. NordSpace is preparing to launch its 6-meter tall Taiga rocket from Newfoundland, CBC reports. It will be a suborbital launch, meaning it won’t orbit Earth, but NordSpace says the launch will be the first of a Canadian commercial rocket from a Canadian commercial spaceport. The rocket is powered by a 3D-printed liquid-fueled engine and is a stepping stone to an orbital-class rocket NordSpace is developing called Tundra, scheduled to debut in 2027. The smaller Taiga rocket will launch partially fueled and fire its engine for approximately 60 seconds, according to NordSpace.

Newfoundland to space … The launch site, called the Atlantic Spaceport Complex, is located on the Atlantic coast near the town of St. Lawrence, Newfoundland. It will have two launch pads, one for suborbital flights like Taiga, and another for orbital missions by the Tundra rocket and other launch vehicles from US and European companies. The Taiga launch is scheduled no earlier than Friday morning at 5: 00 am EDT (09: 00 UTC). NordSpace says it is a “fully privately funded and managed initiative crucial for Canada to build a space launch capability that supports our security, economy, and sovereignty.” (submitted by Matthew P)

SpaceX’s reuse idea isn’t so dumb after all. A Falcon 9 rocket launched early Thursday from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, with another batch of Starlink Internet satellites. These types of missions launch multiple times per week, but this flight was special. The first stage of the Falcon 9, designated Booster 1067, launched and landed on drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, completing its 30th flight to space and back, Ars reports. This is a new record for a reusable orbital-class booster stage and comes less than 24 hours after a preceding SpaceX launch from Florida that marked the 400th Falcon 9 landing on a drone ship since the first offshore recovery in 2016.

30 going for 40 … SpaceX is now aiming for at least 40 launches per Falcon 9 first stage, four times as many flights as the company’s original target for Falcon 9 booster reuse. Many people in the industry were skeptical about SpaceX’s approach to reuse. In the mid-2010s, both the European and Japanese space agencies were looking to develop their next generation of rockets. In both cases, Europe with the Ariane 6 and Japan with the H3, the space agencies opted for traditional, expendable rockets instead of pushing toward reuse. In the United States, the main competitor to SpaceX has historically been United Launch Alliance. Their reaction to SpaceX’s plan to reuse first stages a decade ago was dismissive. ULA dubbed its plan to reuse just the engine section of its Vulcan rocket “Smart Reuse” a few years ago. But ULA hasn’t even attempted to recover the engines from the Vulcan core stage yet, and reuse is still at least several years away.

Russia nears debut of Soyuz-5 rocket. In recent comments to the Russian state-run media service TASS, the chief of Roscosmos said the country’s newest rocket, the Soyuz-5, should take flight for the first time before the end of this year, Ars reports. “Yes, we are planning for December,” said Dmitry Bakanov, the director of Roscosmos, Russia’s main space corporation. “Everything is in place.” According to the report, translated for Ars by Rob Mitchell, the debut launch of Soyuz-5 will mark the first of several demonstration flights, with full operational service not expected to begin until 2028. It will launch from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan.

Breaking free of Ukraine … From an innovation standpoint, the Soyuz-5 vehicle does not stand out. It has been a decade in the making and is fully expendable, unlike a lot of newer medium-lift rockets coming online in the next several years. However, for Russia, this is an important advancement because it seeks to break some of the country’s dependency on Ukraine for launch technology. The new rocket is also named Irtysh, a river that flows through Russia and Kazakhstan. The rocket has been in development since 2016 and largely repurposes older technology. But for Russia, a key advantage is that it takes rocket elements formerly made in Ukraine and now manufactures them in Russia.

SpaceX launches mission to reboost the ISS. SpaceX completed its 33rd cargo delivery to the International Space Station (ISS) early Monday, when a Dragon supply ship glided to an automated docking with more than 5,000 pounds of scientific experiments and provisions for the lab’s seven-person crew, Ars reports. The resupply flight is part of the normal rotation of cargo and crew missions that keep the space station operating, but this one carries something new. What’s different with this mission is a new rocket pack mounted inside the Dragon spacecraft’s rear trunk section. In the coming weeks, SpaceX and NASA will use this first-of-its-kind propulsion system to begin boosting the altitude of the space station’s orbit.

A rocket on a rocket … SpaceX engineers installed two small Draco rocket engines in the trunk of the Dragon spacecraft. The thrusters have their own dedicated propellant tanks and will operate independently of 16 other Draco thrusters used to maneuver Dragon on its journey to the ISS. When NASA says it’s the right time, SpaceX controllers will command the Draco thrusters to ignite and gently accelerate the massive 450-ton space station. All told, the reboost kit can add about 20 mph, or 9 meters per second, to the space station’s already-dizzying speed. Maintaining the space station’s orbit has previously been the responsibility of Russia.

X-37B rides with SpaceX again. The US military’s reusable winged spaceship rocketed back into orbit from Florida on August 21 atop a SpaceX rocket, kicking off a mission that will, among other things, demonstrate how future spacecraft can navigate without relying on GPS signals, Ars reports. The core of the navigation experiment is what the Space Force calls the “world’s highest performing quantum inertial sensor ever used in space.” The spaceplane also hosts a laser inter-satellite communications demo. This is the eighth flight of the X-37B spaceplane, and the third to launch with SpaceX.

Back to LEO … This mission launched on a Falcon 9 rocket into low-Earth orbit (LEO) a few hundred miles above the Earth. This marks a return to LEO after the previous X-37B mission flew on a Falcon Heavy rocket into a much higher orbit. Many of the spaceplane’s payloads have been classified, but officials typically identify a handful of unclassified experiments flying on each X-37B mission. Past X-37B missions have also deployed small satellites into orbit before returning to Earth for a runway landing at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, or Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

Rocket Lab cuts the ribbon on Neutron launch pad. Launch Complex 3, the Virginia Spaceport Authority’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport and home to Rocket Lab’s newest reusable rocket, Neutron, is now complete and celebrated its official opening Thursday, WAVY-TV reports. Officials said Launch Complex 3 is ready to bring the largest orbital launch capacity in the spaceport’s history with Neutron, Rocket Lab’s reusable launch vehicle, a medium-lift vehicle capable of launching 33,000 pounds (15 metric tons) to space for commercial constellations, national security, and interplanetary missions.

Not budging … “We’re trying as hard as we can to get this on the pad by the end of the year and get it away,” said Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO. Beck is holding to his hope the Neutron rocket will be ready to fly in the next four months, but time is running out to make this a reality. The Neutron rocket will be Rocket Lab’s second orbital-class launch vehicle after the Electron, which can place payloads of several hundred pounds in orbit. Electron has a launch pad in Virginia, too, but most Electron rockets take off from New Zealand.

Starship completes a largely successful test flight. SpaceX launched the 10th test flight of the company’s Starship rocket Tuesday evening, sending the stainless steel spacecraft halfway around the world to an on-target splashdown in the Indian Ocean, Ars reports. The largely successful mission for the world’s largest rocket was an important milestone for SpaceX’s Starship program after months of repeated setbacks, including three disappointing test flights and a powerful explosion on the ground that destroyed the ship that engineers were originally readying for this launch.

Lessons to learn … For the first time, SpaceX engineers received data on the performance of the ship’s upgraded heat shield and control flaps during reentry back into the atmosphere. The three failed Starship test flights to start the year ended before the ship reached reentry. Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, has described developing a durable, reliable heat shield as the most pressing challenge for making Starship a fully and rapidly reusable rocket. But there were lessons to learn from Tuesday’s flight. A large section of the ship transitioned from its original silver color to a rusty hue of orange and brown by the time it reached the Indian Ocean. Officials didn’t immediately address this or say whether it was anticipated.

ULA recovering boosters, too. United Launch Alliance decided to pull four strap-on solid rocket boosters from the Atlantic Ocean after their use on the company’s most recent launch. Photos captured by Florida photographer Jerry Pike showed a solid rocket motor casing on a ship just off the coast of Cape Canaveral. Tory Bruno, ULA’s president and CEO, wrote on X that the booster was one of four flown on the USSF-106 mission earlier this month, which marked the third flight of ULA’s Vulcan rocket and the first with a US national security payload.

A GEM from the sea … The boosters, built by Northrop Grumman, are officially called Graphite Epoxy Motors, or GEMs. They jettison from the Vulcan rocket less than two minutes after liftoff and fall into the ocean. They’re not designed for reuse, but ULA decided to recover this set of four from the Atlantic for inspections. The company also raised from the sea two motors from the previous Vulcan launch last year after one of them suffered a nozzle failure during launch. Bruno wrote on X that “performance and ballistics were spot on” with all four boosters from the more recent USSF-106 mission, but that engineers decided to go ahead and recover them to close out a “nice data set” from inspections of now six recovered motors—two from last year and four this year.

Next three launches

Aug. 30: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-7 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 03: 09 UTC

Aug. 31: Falcon 9 | Starlink 10-14 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 11: 15 UTC

Sept. 3: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-8 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 02: 33 UTC

Rocket Report: SpaceX achieved daily launch this week; ULA recovers booster Read More »

Rocket Report: Pivotal Starship test on tap, Firefly wants to be big in Japan

rocket report, Space / Beth Washington / August 22, 2025

All the news that’s fit to lift

Starship returns to the launch pad for the first time in three months.

SpaceX released this new photo of the Starbase production site, with a Starship vehicle, on Thursday. Credit: SpaceX

Welcome to Edition 8.07 of the Rocket Report! It’s that time again: another test flight of SpaceX’s massive Starship vehicle. In this week’s report, we have a review of what went wrong on Flight 9 in May and a look at the stakes for the upcoming mission, which are rather high. The flight test is presently scheduled for 6: 30 pm local time in Texas (23: 30 UTC) on Sunday, and Ars will be on hand to provide in-depth coverage.

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 and a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Firefly looks at possibility of Alpha launches in Japan. On Monday, Space Cotan Co., Ltd., operator of the Hokkaido Spaceport, announced it entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Texas-based launch company to conduct a feasibility study examining the practicality of launching Firefly’s Alpha rocket from its launch site, Spaceflight Now reports. Located in Taiki Town on the northern Japanese Island of Hokkaido, the spaceport bills itself as “a commercial spaceport that serves businesses and universities in Japan and abroad, as well as government agencies and other organizations.” It advertises launches from 42 degrees to 98 degrees, including Sun-synchronous orbits.

Talks are exploratory for now … “We look forward to exploring the opportunity to launch our Alpha rocket from Japan, which would allow us to serve the larger satellite industry in Asia and add resiliency for US allies with a proven orbital launch vehicle,” said Adam Oakes, vice president of launch at Firefly Aerospace. All six of Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket launches so far took off from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The company is slated to launch its seventh Alpha rocket on a mission for Lockheed Martin, but a date hasn’t been announced while the company continues to work through a mishap investigation stemming from its sixth Alpha launch in April. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Chinese methane rocket fails. A flight test of one of Chinese commercial rocket developer LandSpace Technology’s methane-powered rockets failed on Friday after the carrier rocket experienced an “anomaly,” Reuters reports. The Beijing-based startup became the world’s first company to launch a methane-liquid oxygen rocket with the successful launch of Zhuque-2 in July 2023. This was the third flight of an upgraded version of the rocket, known as Zhuque-2E Y2.

Comes as larger vehicle set to make debut … The launch was carrying four Guowang low-Earth orbit Internet satellites for the Chinese government. The failure was due to some issue with the upper stage of the vehicle, which is capable of lofting about 3 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. LandSpace, one of China’s most impressive ‘commercial’ space companies, has been working toward the development and launch of the medium-lift Zhuque-3 vehicle. This rocket was due to make its debut later this year, and it’s not clear whether this setback with a smaller vehicle will delay that flight.

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Avio gains French Guiana launch license. The French government has granted Italian launch services provider Avio a 10-year license to carry out Vega rocket operations from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, European Spaceflight reports. The decision follows approval by European Space Agency Member States of Italy’s petition to allow Avio to market and manage Vega rocket launches independently of Arianespace, which had overseen the rocket’s operations since its introduction.

From Vega to Vega … With its formal split from Arianespace now imminent, Avio is required to have its own license to launch from the Guiana Space Centre, which is owned and operated by the French government. Avio will make use of the ELV launch complex at the Guiana Space Centre for the launch of its Vega C rockets. The pad was previously used for the original Vega rocket, which was officially retired in September 2024. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

First space rocket launch from Canada this century. Students from Concordia University cheered and whistled as the Starsailor rocket lifted off on Cree territory on August 15, marking the first of its size to be launched by a student team, Radio Canada International reports. The students hoped Starsailor would enter space, past the Kármán line, which is at an altitude of 100 kilometers, before coming back down. But the rocket separated earlier than expected. The livestream can be seen here.

Persistence is thy name … This was Canada’s first space launch in more than 25 years, and the first to be achieved by a team of students, according to the university. Originally built for a science competition, the 13-meter tall rocket was left without a contest after the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, the team, made up of over 700 members since 2018, pressed forward with the goal of making history and launching the most powerful student-built rocket. (submitted by ArcticChris, durenthal, and CD)

SpaceX launches its 100th Falcon 9 of the year. SpaceX launched its 100th Falcon 9 rocket of the year Monday morning, Spaceflight Now reports. The flight from Vandenberg Space Force Base carried another batch of Starlink optimized V2 Mini satellites into low-Earth orbit. The Starlink 17-5 mission was also the 72nd SpaceX launch of Starlink satellites so far in 2025. It brings the total number of Starlink satellites orbited in 2025 to 1,786.

That’s quite a cadence … The Monday morning flight was a notable milestone for SpaceX. It is just the second time in the company’s history that it achieved 100 launches in one calendar year, a feat so far unmatched by any other American space company, and it is ahead of last year’s pace. Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX’s vice president of launch, said on the social media site X, “For reference on the increase in launch rate from last year, we hit 100 on Oct 20th in 2024. SpaceX is likely to launch more Falcon 9s this year than the total number of Space Shuttle missions NASA flew in three decades. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

X-37B launch set for Thursday night. The US Department of Defense’s reusable X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle is about to make its eighth overall flight into orbit, NASASpaceflight.com reports. Vehicle 1, the first X-37B to fly, is scheduled to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A on Thursday at 11: 50 pm ET (03: 50 UTC on Friday, August 22). The launch window is just under four hours long.

Will fly for an unspecified amount of time … Falcon 9 will follow a northeast trajectory to loft the X-37B into a low-Earth orbit, possibly a circular orbit at 500 km altitude inclined 49.5 degrees to the equator. The Orbital Test Vehicle 8 mission will spend an unspecified amount of time in orbit, with missions lasting hundreds of days in orbit before landing on a runway. The booster supporting this mission, B1092-6, will perform a return-to-launch-site landing and touchdown on the concrete pad at Landing Zone 2. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Report finds SpaceX pays few taxes. SpaceX has received billions of dollars in federal contracts over its more than two-decade existence, but it has most likely paid little to no federal income taxes since its founding in 2002, The New York Times reports. The rocket maker’s finances have long been secret because the company is privately held. But the documents reviewed by the Times show that SpaceX can seize on a legal tax benefit that allows it to use the more than $5 billion in losses it racked up by late 2021 to offset paying future taxable income.

Use of tax benefit called ‘quaint’ … Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a group that investigates corruption and waste in the government, said the tax benefit had historically been aimed at encouraging companies to stay in business during difficult times. It was “quaint” that SpaceX was using it, she said, as it “was clearly not intended for a company doing so well.” It may be quaint, but it is legal. And the losses are very real. Since its inception, SpaceX has invested heavily in its technology and poured revenues into further advances. This has been incredibly beneficial to NASA and the Department of Defense. (submitted by Frank OBrien)

There’s a lot on the line for Starship’s next launch. In a feature, Ars reviews the history of Starbase and its production site, culminating in the massive new Starfactory building that encompasses 1 million square feet. The opening of the sleek, large building earlier this year came as SpaceX continues to struggle with the technical development of the Starship vehicle. Essentially, the article says, SpaceX has built the machine to build the machine. But what about the machine?

Three failures in a row … SpaceX has not had a good run of things with the ambitious Starship vehicle this year. Three times, in January, March, and May, the vehicle took flight. And three times, the upper stage experienced significant problems during ascent, and the vehicle was lost on the ride up to space, or just after. Sources at SpaceX believe the upper stage issues can be resolved, especially with a new “Version 3” of Starship due to make its debut late this year or early in 2026. But the acid test will only come on upcoming flights, beginning Sunday with the vehicle’s tenth test flight.

China tests lunar rocket. In recent weeks, the secretive Chinese space program has reported some significant milestones in developing its program to land astronauts on the lunar surface by the year 2030, Ars reports. Among these efforts, last Friday, the space agency and its state-operated rocket developer, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, successfully conducted a 30-second test firing of the Long March 10 rocket’s center core with its seven YF-100K engines that burn kerosene and liquid oxygen.

A winner in the space race? … The primary variant of the rocket will combine three of these cores to lift about 70 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. As part of China’s plan to land astronauts on the Moon “before” 2030, this rocket will be used for a crewed mission and lunar lander. Recent setbacks with SpaceX’s Starship vehicle—one of two lunar landers under contract with NASA, alongside Blue Origin’s Mark 2 lander—indicate that it will still be several years until these newer technologies are ready to go. Ars concludes that it is now probable that China will “beat” NASA back to the Moon this decade and win at least the initial heat of this new space race.

Why did Flight 9 of Starship fail? In an update shared last Friday ahead of the company’s next launch, SpaceX identified the most probable cause for the May failure as a faulty main fuel tank pressurization system diffuser located on the forward dome of Starship’s primary methane tank. The diffuser failed a few minutes after launch, when sensors detected a pressure drop in the main methane tank and a pressure increase in the ship’s nose cone just above the tank, Ars reports.

Diffusing the diffuser … The rocket compensated for the drop in main tank pressure and completed its engine burn, but venting from the nose cone and a worsening fuel leak overwhelmed Starship’s attitude control system. Finally, detecting a major problem, Starship triggered automatic onboard commands to vent all remaining propellant into space and “passivate” itself before an unguided reentry over the Indian Ocean, prematurely ending the test flight. Engineers recreated the diffuser failure on the ground during the investigation and then redesigned the part to better direct pressurized gas into the main fuel tank. This will also “substantially decrease” strain on the diffuser structure, SpaceX said.

Next three launches

August 22: Falcon 9 | X-37B space plane | Kennedy Space Center, Fla. | 03: 50 UTC

August 22: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-6 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 17: 02 UTC

August 23: Electron | Live, Laugh, Launch | Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand | 22: 30 UTC

Rocket Report: Pivotal Starship test on tap, Firefly wants to be big in Japan Read More »

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 / DJ Henderson / August 15, 2025

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.

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

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

Rocket Report: Firefly lights the markets up; SpaceX starts selling trips to Mars

rocket report, Space / Beth Washington / August 8, 2025

All the news that’s fit to lift

“Get on board! We are going to Mars!”

The Vulcan rocket for ULA’s first national security mission nears its initial launch, NET August 12. Credit: United Launch Alliance

Welcome to Edition 8.06 of the Rocket Report! After years of disappointing results from SPACs and space companies, it is a good sign to see Firefly’s more traditional initial public offering doing so well. The company has had such a long and challenging road over more than a decade; the prospect of their success should be heartening to the commercial space 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.

Virgin Galactic delays resumption of spaceflights. The Richard Branson-founded company plans to resume private space tourism trips in the autumn of 2026 after its Delta spacecraft’s first commercial flight, a research mission that was delayed from summer 2026 to also occur in the fall, Bloomberg reports. Virgin Galactic announced an updated timeline on Wednesday, when it reported quarterly financial results that fell short of analysts’ expectations. Revenue was about $410,000 for the second quarter.

Waiting on Delta … The company paused commercial operations in June 2024 to focus on developing the upgraded Delta vehicle, which is being optimized for reusability and faster turnaround time between flights. Virgin Galactic had been selling seats on the Delta spacecraft for about $600,000 and said that it plans to raise prices when ticket sales resume in the first quarter of 2026. The company also recently adjusted the size of its in-house engineering team and reduced the overall headcount by 7 percent to control costs.

Firefly is a big hit with investors. Shares in the Cedar Park, Texas-based space company began trading at $70 on the NASDAQ stock exchange midday Thursday under the symbol FLY, jumping from their initial public offering price of $45, The Wall Street Journal reports. The company sold more than 19 million shares in the listing, raising $868 million. Bankers and traders are closely tracking the stock’s performance as a sign of both the US IPO market strength and investor interest in space companies. The offering will allow the company to accelerate production and its launch cadence, Firefly CEO Jason Kim said in an interview.

Time to build and fly … “We have to execute,” said Kim, who led a Boeing satellite business before taking the top role at Firefly last year. “We’ve got a really strong backlog.” Firefly’s listing comes five months after it successfully guided its Blue Ghost lander to the lunar surface, carrying scientific gear to research moondust and ground temperatures. The NASA-funded mission marked the first fully successful private moon landing, following misfires on three other flights handled by competitors. The company’s next challenge is to prove that its other vehicles can work as well, including the Alpha rocket.

Sign Me Up!

iRocket says it has signed a huge deal. A largely unknown small launch startup, iRocket, says it has signed a multi-year agreement with SpaceBelt KSA valued at up to $640 million. iRocket will support up to 30 satellite launches, providing mission planning, propulsion systems, and integration services to help establish a secure, autonomous space communications network across Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region.

Yes, but … iRocket says the agreement represents a significant commercial milestone. However, since its founding in 2018, New York-based iRocket hasn’t released much information on any technical progress toward a first flight of the Shockwave launch vehicle. It is difficult to know how much (if any) money changed hands with this agreement.

Indian space startup builds 3D-printed engine. The Chennai-based startup Agnikul Cosmos has announced the successful development of the world’s largest single-piece 3D-printed Inconel rocket engine, Business Today reports. The engine, printed in one go without any welds, joints, or fasteners, represents a leap in additive manufacturing for aerospace, the company said.

Earned a patent … Agnikul also said it has been granted a US patent for the design and manufacturing process of single-piece rocket engines. “Means something to have a completely Indian-origin design patented in the US—a nation that has built some of the most complex engines in this industry,” the company said. Agnikul is developing a small-lift booster that can put about 100 kg to low-Earth orbit.

Skyrora wins first UK launch license. Skyrora became the first British commercial rocket manufacturer to secure a launch license from the UK Civil Aviation Authority, paving the way for its Skylark L suborbital rocket to lift off from the SaxaVord spaceport in the Shetland Islands, Payload reports. Derek Harris, Skyrora’s business development lead, said this test flight could take place as early as May 2026.

Waiting on launch pads … Skyrora said it could launch sooner if it opted to fly from an international launch pad. That’s the route it took in 2022, when it launched a rocket from Iceland’s mobile Langanes launch site. “Unfortunately, we are still technically locked out of SaxaVord,” Harris said. “What is still open to us is Oman, and Australia, or even going back to Iceland…[but] it would be a sad indictment of what’s going on with the government funding if we have to go elsewhere to launch it.”

The Philippines condemns China’s rocket launch. A top Philippine security official on Tuesday condemned China’s latest rocket launch, which caused suspected debris to fall near a western Philippine province, the AP reports. Authorities said the incident sparked alarm and posed a danger to people, ships, and aircraft. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage from the suspected Chinese rocket debris that fell near Palawan province Monday night, following a launch of the medium-lift Long March 12.

No NOTAMs it seems … China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported that the Long March-12 rocket that lifted off Monday night from a commercial spacecraft launch site on the southern island province of Hainan successfully carried a group of Internet satellites into pre-set orbit. It was not immediately clear whether Chinese authorities had notified nearby countries, such as the Philippines, of possible debris from its latest rocket launch. Philippine aircraft and vessels were deployed on Tuesday to search for the rocket debris.

Crew-11 mission launches from Florida. The next four-person team to live and work aboard the International Space Station departed from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center last Friday, taking aim at the massive orbiting research complex for a planned stay of six to eight months, Ars reports. Spacecraft commander Zena Cardman leads the mission, designated Crew-11, with three others aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour capsule: veteran NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, Kimiya Yui of Japan, and Oleg Platonov of Russia.

Au revoir to an old friend … The Falcon 9’s reusable first stage booster detached and returned to a propulsive touchdown at Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, a few miles south of the launch site. This was the 53rd and final rocket landing at LZ-1 since SpaceX aced the first intact recovery of a Falcon 9 booster there on December 21, 2015. SpaceX will move onshore rocket landings to new landing zones to be constructed next to the two Falcon 9 launch pads at the Florida spaceport. Landing Zone 2, located adjacent to Landing Zone 1, will also be decommissioned and handed back over to the Space Force once SpaceX activates the new landing sites.

NASA says it will move a space shuttle. The head of NASA has decided to move one of the agency’s retired space shuttles to Houston, but which shuttle remains unclear, Ars reports. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), who earlier this year introduced and championed an effort to relocate the space shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian to Space Center Houston, issued a statement on Tuesday evening applauding the decision. The senator did not state which of NASA’s winged orbiters would be making the move.

Playing coy for no clear reason … The legislation that required Duffy to choose a “space vehicle” that had “flown in space” and “carried people” did not specify an orbiter by name, but the language in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that President Donald Trump signed into law last month was inspired by Cornyn and fellow Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s bill to relocate Discovery. It is unclear why the choice of orbiters is being kept a secret. According to the bill, the decision was to be made “with the concurrence of an entity designated” by the NASA administrator to display the shuttle. Cornyn’s release only confirmed that Duffy had identified the location to be “a non-profit near the Johnson Space Center.”

SpaceX begins offering Starship services to Mars. On Thursday, Gwynne Shotwell, the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, announced that the company has begun selling rides to Mars. “Get on board! We are going to Mars! SpaceX is now offering Starship services to the red planet,” Shotwell said on X. As part of the announcement, Shotwell said SpaceX has signed a “first of its kind” agreement with the Italian Space Agency.

Racing the Giro d’Mars … The president of the Italian Space Agency, Teodoro Valente, confirmed the news, saying the first Starship flights to Mars (which will, of course, be uncrewed) will carry Italian experiments. “The payloads will gather scientific data during the missions. Italy continues to lead in space exploration!” Valente wrote on X. Left unsaid, of course, is when such flights will take place. It is difficult to see Starship now being ready for a late 2026 window, but early 2029 seems plausible.

ULA will eventually test reuse technology. On Thursday, ahead of the first Vulcan launch of a national security payload next week, United Launch Alliance chief executive Tory Bruno spoke with reporters about various topics, NASA Spaceflight reports. A highlight was ULA’s progress on SMART Reuse, a system aimed at recovering and reusing booster components to reduce costs. Bruno announced that the critical design review for key components is complete, paving the way for building flight-like hardware for certification.

Testing remains a ways away … As development progresses, ULA plans to relocate more components to the aft section of the booster for recovery. “By the time that path is finished, pretty much the only thing being discarded from the booster will be the fuel tanks,” he said. Experimental flights incorporating SMART Reuse could begin as early as 2026, or at least by 2027, but only when aligned with customer needs. One wonders when actual engine recovery and reuse might begin.

Next three launches

August 8: Falcon 9 | Project Kuiper KF-02 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 13: 40 UTC

August 8: Jielong 3 | Undeclared payload | Offshore site, Chinese coastal waters | 16: 30 UTC

August 10: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-4 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 03: 43 UTC

Rocket Report: Firefly lights the markets up; SpaceX starts selling trips to Mars Read More »

Rocket Report: NASA finally working on depots, Air Force tests new ICBM

rocket report, Space / Shannon Garcia / August 1, 2025

“I didn’t expect that we would get to orbit.”

Gilmour Space’s Eris rocket lifts off from Bowen Orbital Spaceport in Austraia. Credit: Gilmour Space

Welcome to Edition 8.05 of the Rocket Report! One of the most eye-raising things I saw this week was an online update from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center touting its work on cryogenic propellant management in orbit. Why? Because until recently, this was a forbidden research topic at the space agency, as propellant depots would obviate the need for a large rocket like the Space Launch System. But now that Richard Shelby is retired…

Australian launch goes sideways. Back-to-back engine failures doomed a privately developed Australian rocket moments after liftoff Tuesday, cutting short a long-shot attempt to reach orbit with the country’s first homegrown launch vehicle, Ars reports. The 82-foot-tall (25-meter) Eris rocket ignited its four main engines and took off from its launch pad in northeastern Australia, but the rocket quickly lost power from two of its engines and stalled just above the launch pad before coming down in a nearby field. The crash sent a plume of smoke thousands of feet over the launch site, which sits on a remote stretch of coastline on Australia’s northeastern frontier.

Setting expectations … Gilmour Space, the private company that developed the rocket, said in a statement that there were no injuries and “no adverse environmental impacts” in the aftermath of the accident. The launch pad also appeared to escape any significant damage. The company’s cofounder and CEO, Adam Gilmour, spoke with Ars a few hours after the launch. Gilmour said he wasn’t surprised by the outcome of the Eris rocket’s inaugural test flight, which lasted just 14 seconds. “I didn’t expect that we would get to orbit,” he said. “Never did. I thought best case was maybe 40 seconds of flight time, but I’ll take 14 as a win.” (submitted by zapman987 and Tfargo04)

Firefly seeks to go public. Firefly Aerospace seeks to raise more than $600 million through a public stock offering, an arrangement that would boost the company’s market valuation to nearly $5.5 billion, according to a document filed with the SEC on Monday, Ars reports. The launch of Firefly’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) comes as the company works to build on a historic success in March, when Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander touched down on the surface of the Moon. Firefly plans to sell 16.2 million shares of common stock at a price of between $35 and $39 per share. Under those terms, Firefly could raise up to $631.8 million on the public market.

A lot of financial needs … In a statement, Firefly said it will use the funds to pay off a “substantial” amount of debt and support dividend payments and “for general corporate purposes.” Firefly’s general corporate purposes include a spectrum of activities, and some are going better than others. Firefly is deep into the capital-intensive development of a new medium-class rocket named Eclipse in partnership with Northrop Grumman, which made a $50 million strategic investment into Firefly in May. And Firefly is developing a spacecraft line called Elytra, a platform that can host military sensors and other payloads and maneuver them into different orbits.

Sign Me Up!

Air Force tests new ICBM. It’s been half a decade since the Air Force awarded Northrop Grumman a sole-source contract to develop a next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile, known as the LGM-35 Sentinel. The missiles will carry thermonuclear warheads and are intended to replace all 450 Minuteman III missiles starting in 2029. This week, the Air Force announced that testing of the rocket’s second stage motor in a vacuum chamber to simulate high-altitude conditions is going well. “This test reflects our disciplined digital engineering approach and the continued momentum behind the Sentinel program,” said Brig. Gen. William S. Rogers of the Air Force.

Real-world tests to validate models … The stage-two motor is one of three booster segments that make up the three-stage Sentinel missile. According to the Air Force, this test is part of a series intended to qualify the stage-two design and validate predictive performance models developed in a digital engineering environment. The data gathered from the test will be used to refine design elements and reduce technical risk as the program moves toward production. The milestone follows the stage-one rocket motor test conducted in March at Northrop Grumman’s facility in Promontory, Utah.

Starship debris clouds future of SpaceX Bahamas landings. In a new report, Reuters provides additional details about the deal between SpaceX and the Bahamas to land Falcon 9 first stages there and why it still may go sideways. The Bahamas rocket-landing deal, which unlocked a more efficient path to space for SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9, was signed in February last year by Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper. Sources told the publication that the quick approval created tension within the Bahamian government, with some officials expressing misgivings about a lack of transparency in the negotiations.

Landing agreement on hold … SpaceX’s deal with the Bahamas, the government said, included a $1 million donation to the University of Bahamas, where the company pledged to conduct quarterly seminars on space and engineering topics. The company must also pay a $100,000 fee per landing. In April, the landing agreement was put on hold after the explosion of SpaceX’s Starship rocket, whose mid-flight failure sent hundreds of pieces of debris washing ashore on Bahamian islands. Local activists have increased criticism of the Falcon 9 landing agreement since then, which remains under review. (submitted by Tom Nelson)

A single cloud delays Crew 11 launch. The SpaceX Crew-11 mission was a little more than a minute away from the planned launch Thursday onboard the Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft when cumulus clouds popped up in just the right spot to trigger a scrub, Spaceflight Now reports. The four astronauts, led by NASA’s Zena Cardman, are bound for the International Space Station when they leave Earth.

Forecasters for the win? … On Wednesday, the 45th Weather Squadron forecast a 90 percent chance for favorable weather at launch. Meteorologists said there was a low probability for interference from cumulus clouds, but that proved to be enough to stymie a launch attempt. As a meteorologist, I feel like I should apologize for my colleagues. Another attempt is likely Friday, although weather conditions will deteriorate somewhat.

Mysterious rocket engine undergoes testing. The Exploration Company has successfully completed a six-week test campaign of the oxygen-rich preburner for its Typhoon rocket engine, European Spaceflight reports. With co-financing from the French space agency CNES, The Exploration Company began work on its Typhoon rocket engine in January 2024. The reusable engine uses a full-flow staged combustion cycle and is designed to produce 250 metric tons of thrust, which is comparable to a SpaceX Raptor. On Thursday, the company announced that it had completed a series of 16 hot-fire tests of the oxygen-rich preburner for the Typhoon engine.

What is the engine for? … At this point, the Typhoon engine does not have a confirmed application, as it is far too powerful for any of the company’s current in-space logistics projects. According to information provided to European Spaceflight by the company, The Exploration Company partnered with an industrial prime contractor to submit a proposal for the European Space Agency’s European Launcher Challenge. While unconfirmed, the company’s contribution to the bid likely included the Typhoon engine.

India’s GSLV delivers for NASA. A $1.5 billion synthetic aperture radar imaging satellite, a joint project between NASA and the Indian space agency ISRO, successfully launched into orbit on Wednesday aboard that nation’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, Ars reports. The mission, named NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar), was subsequently deployed into its intended orbit 464 miles (747 km) above the Earth’s surface. From this Sun-synchronous orbit, it will collect data about the planet’s land and ice surfaces two times every 12 days.

A growing collaboration … After Wednesday’s launch, the spacecraft will undergo a three-month commissioning phase. The NISAR mission is notable both for its price tag—Earth observation missions typically cost less because they do not need to be hardened for long-duration flight in deep space—as well as the partnership with India. In terms of complexity and cost, this is the largest collaboration between NASA and ISRO to date and could set a template for further cooperation in space as part of the Artemis program or other initiatives.

You can now see a Merlin engine at the Smithsonian. The National Air and Space Museum welcomed the public into five more of its renovated galleries on Monday, including two showcasing spaceflight artifacts, Ars reports. The new exhibitions shine a modern light on returning displays and restore the museum’s almost 50-year-old legacy of adding objects that made history but have yet to become historical.

The mighty Merlin … Among the artifacts debuting in “Futures in Space” are a Merlin engine and grid fin that flew on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Sian Proctor’s pressure suit that she wore on the private Inspiration4 mission in 2021, and a mockup of a New Shepard crew module that Blue Origin has pledged to replace with its first flown capsule when it is retired from flying. It’s great to see elements of the Falcon 9 rocket in the museum. Although the booster is still active, it is by far the most-flown US rocket in history, and the Merlin engine is the most reliable rocket engine over that timeframe.

Reason Foundation calls for termination of SLS. A libertarian think tank, the Reason Foundation, has published a new report that is deeply critical of NASA’s Artemis program and its use of the Space Launch System Rocket and Orion spacecraft. “NASA needs to bite the bullet and end its use of obsolete, non-reusable launch vehicles and sole-source, cost-plus contracts,” the report states. “It should shift to state-of-the-art reusable spacecraft and public-private partnerships like those now transporting cargo and people between Earth and the International Space Station.”

How to get to the Moon … The report estimates that canceling the SLS rocket, its ground systems, Orion, and the Lunar Gateway would save NASA $5.25 billion a year. The authors posit several different architectures for a lunar lander that would be ready sooner and be compatible with existing rockets. This includes a novel plan to use Crew Dragon, with legs, as a lander. It is not clear how much impact the report will have, as Congress seems to want to fly the SLS indefinitely, and the Trump administration seeks to cancel the rocket after two more flights.

NASA is finally interested in propellant depots. This week NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center posted an update noting its recent work on developing and testing technology to manage cryogenic propellants in space. Teams at the field center in Huntsville, Alabama tested an innovative approach to achieve zero boiloff storage of liquid hydrogen using two stages of active cooling, which could prevent the loss of valuable propellant. “Technologies for reducing propellant loss must be implemented for successful long-duration missions to deep space like the Moon and Mars,” said Kathy Henkel, acting manager of NASA’s Cryogenic Fluid Management Portfolio Project, based at NASA Marshall.

If only this had been done earlier … This is great, obviously, as long-term storage of liquid propellants such as oxygen, hydrogen, and methane are critical to the strategies of SpaceX, Blue Origin, and other companies working to develop reusable and more cost-effective space transportation vehicles. However, it is somewhat ironic to see NASA and Marshall promoting this work after it was suppressed for a decade by US Sen. Richard Shelby, the Alabama Republican. As Ars has previously reported, in order to protect the Space Launch System rocket, Shelby directed NASA to end its work on storage and transfer of cryogenic propellants, going so far as to say he would fire anyone who used the word ‘depot.’ Well, we will say it: Depot.

Next three launches

August 1: Falcon 9 | Crew-11 | Kennedy Space Center, Florida | 15: 43 UTC

August 2: Electron | JAKE 4 suborbital flight | Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia | 01: 45 UTC

August 4: Falcon 9 | Starlink 10-30 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 04: 11 UTC

Rocket Report: NASA finally working on depots, Air Force tests new ICBM Read More »

Rocket Report: Channeling the future at Wallops; SpaceX recovers rocket wreckage

artemis, china, FAA, falcon 9, rocket lab, rocket report, Science, Space, space launch system, spacex, starship, super heavy, tianlong 3 / Shannon Garcia / July 25, 2025

China’s Space Pioneer seems to be back on track a year after an accidental launch.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a payload of 24 Starlink Internet satellites soars into space after launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, shortly after sunset on July 18, 2025. This image was taken in Santee, California, approximately 250 miles (400 kilometers) away from the launch site. Credit: Kevin Carter/Getty Images

Welcome to Edition 8.04 of the Rocket Report! The Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile defense shield will be a lot of things. Along with new sensors, command and control systems, and satellites, Golden Dome will require a lot of rockets. The pieces of the Golden Dome architecture operating in orbit will ride to space on commercial launch vehicles. And Golden Dome’s space-based interceptors will essentially be designed as flying fuel tanks with rocket engines. This shouldn’t be overlooked, and that’s why we include a couple of entries discussing Golden Dome in this week’s Rocket Report.

Space-based interceptors are a real challenge. The newly installed head of the Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile defense shield knows the clock is ticking to show President Donald Trump some results before the end of his term in the White House, Ars reports. Gen. Michael Guetlein identified command-and-control and the development of space-based interceptors as two of the most pressing technical challenges for Golden Dome. He believes the command-and-control problem can be “overcome in pretty short order.” The space-based interceptor piece of the architecture is a different story.

Proven physics, unproven economics … “I think the real technical challenge will be building the space-based interceptor,” Guetlein said. “That technology exists. I believe we have proven every element of the physics that we can make it work. What we have not proven is, first, can I do it economically, and then second, can I do it at scale? Can I build enough satellites to get after the threat? Can I expand the industrial base fast enough to build those satellites? Do I have enough raw materials, etc.?” Military officials haven’t said how many space-based interceptors will be required for Golden Dome, but outside estimates put the number in the thousands.

Sign Me Up!

One big defense prime is posturing for Golden Dome. Northrop Grumman is conducting ground-based testing related to space-based interceptors as part of a competition for that segment of the Trump administration’s Golden Dome missile-defense initiative, The War Zone reports. Kathy Warden, Northrop Grumman’s CEO, highlighted the company’s work on space-based interceptors, as well as broader business opportunities stemming from Golden Dome, during a quarterly earnings call this week. Warden identified Northrop’s work in radars, drones, and command-and-control systems as potentially applicable to Golden Dome.

But here’s the real news … “It will also include new innovation, like space-based interceptors, which we’re testing now,” Warden continued. “These are ground-based tests today, and we are in competition, obviously, so not a lot of detail that I can provide here.” Warden declined to respond directly to a question about how the space-based interceptors Northrop Grumman is developing now will actually defeat their targets. (submitted by Biokleen)

Trump may slash environmental rules for rocket launches. The Trump administration is considering slashing rules meant to protect the environment and the public during commercial rocket launches, changes that companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX have long sought, ProPublica reports. A draft executive order being circulated among federal agencies, and viewed by ProPublica, directs Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy to “use all available authorities to eliminate or expedite” environmental reviews for launch licenses. It could also, in time, require states to allow more launches or even more launch sites along their coastlines.

Getting political at the FAA … The order is a step toward the rollback of federal oversight that Musk, who has fought bitterly with the Federal Aviation Administration over his space operations, and others have pushed for. Commercial rocket launches have grown exponentially more frequent in recent years. In addition to slashing environmental rules, the draft executive order would make the head of the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation a political appointee. This is currently a civil servant position, but the last head of the office took a voluntary separation offer earlier this year.

There’s a SPAC for that. An unproven small launch startup is partnering with a severely depleted SPAC trust to do the impossible: go public in a deal they say will be valued at $400 million, TechCrunch reports. Innovative Rocket Technologies Inc., or iRocket, is set to merge with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company, or SPAC, founded by former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. But the most recent regulatory filings by this SPAC showed it was in a tenuous financial position last year, with just $1.6 million held in trust. Likewise, iRocket isn’t flooded with cash. The company has raised only a few million in venture funding, a fraction of what would be needed to develop and test the company’s small orbital-class rocket, named Shockwave.

SpaceX traces a path to orbit for NASA. Two NASA satellites soared into orbit from California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday, commencing a $170 million mission to study a phenomenon of space physics that has eluded researchers since the dawn of the Space Age, Ars reports. The twin spacecraft are part of the NASA-funded TRACERS mission, which will spend at least a year measuring plasma conditions in narrow regions of Earth’s magnetic field known as polar cusps. As the name suggests, these regions are located over the poles. They play an important but poorly understood role in creating colorful auroras as plasma streaming out from the Sun interacts with the magnetic field surrounding Earth. The same process drives geomagnetic storms capable of disrupting GPS navigation, radio communications, electrical grids, and satellite operations.

Plenty of room for more … The TRACERS satellites are relatively small, each about the size of a washing machine, so they filled only a fraction of the capacity of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Three other small NASA tech demo payloads hitched a ride to orbit with TRACERS, kicking off missions to test an experimental communications terminal, demonstrate an innovative scalable satellite platform made of individual building blocks, and study the link between Earth’s atmosphere and the Van Allen radiation belts. In addition to those missions, the European Space Agency launched its own CubeSat to test 5G communications from orbit. Five smallsats from an Australian company rounded out the group. Still, the Falcon 9 rocket’s payload shroud was filled with less than a quarter of the payload mass it could have delivered to the TRACERS mission’s targeted Sun-synchronous orbit.

Tianlong launch pad ready for action. Chinese startup Space Pioneer has completed a launch pad at Jiuquan spaceport in northwestern China for its Tianlong 3 liquid propellent rocket ahead of a first orbital launch, Space News reports. Space Pioneer said the launch pad passed an acceptance test, and ground crews raised a full-scale model of the Tianlong 3 rocket on the launch pad. “The rehearsal test was successfully completed,” said Space Pioneer, one of China’s leading private launch companies. The activation of the launch pad followed a couple of weeks after Space Pioneer announced the completion of static loads testing on Tianlong 3.

More to come … While this is an important step forward for Space Pioneer, construction of the launch pad is just one element the company needs to finish before Tianlong 3 can lift off for the first time. In June 2024, the company ignited Tianlong 3’s nine-engine first stage on a test stand in China. But the rocket broke free of its moorings on the test stand and unexpectedly climbed into the sky before crashing in a fireball nearby. Space Pioneer says the “weak design of the rocket’s tail structure was the direct cause of the failure” last year. The company hasn’t identified next steps for Tianlong 3, or when it might be ready to fly. Tianlong 3 is a kerosene-fueled rocket with nine main engines, similar in design architecture and payload capacity to SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Also, like Falcon 9, Tianlong 3 is supposed to have a recoverable and reusable first stage booster.

Dredging up an issue at Wallops. Rocket Lab has asked regulators for permission to transport oversized Neutron rocket structures through shallow waters to a spaceport off the coast of Virginia as it races to meet a September delivery deadline, TechCrunch reports. The request, which was made in July, is a temporary stopgap while the company awaits federal clearance to dredge a permanent channel to the Wallops Island site. Rocket Lab plans to launch its Neutron medium-lift rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Virginia, a lower-traffic spaceport that’s surrounded by shallow channels and waterways. Rocket Lab has a sizable checklist to tick off before Neutron can make its orbital debut, like mating the rocket stages, performing a “wet dress” rehearsal, and getting its launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration. Before any of that can happen, the rocket hardware needs to make it onto the island from Rocket Lab’s factory on the nearby mainland.

Kedging bets … Access to the channel leading to Wallops Island is currently available only at low tides. So, Rocket Lab submitted an application earlier this year to dredge the channel. The dredging project was approved by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission in May, but the company has yet to start digging because it’s still awaiting federal sign-off from the Army Corps of Engineers. As the company waits for federal approval, Rocket Lab is seeking permission to use a temporary method called “kedging” to ensure the first five hardware deliveries can arrive on schedule starting in September. We don’t cover maritime issues in the Rocket Report, but if you’re interested in learning a little about kedging, here’s a link.

Any better ideas for an Exploration Upper Stage? Not surprisingly, Congress is pushing back against the Trump administration’s proposal to cancel the Space Launch System, the behemoth rocket NASA has developed to propel astronauts back to the Moon. But legislation making its way through the House of Representatives includes an interesting provision that would direct NASA to evaluate alternatives for the Boeing-built Exploration Upper Stage, an upgrade for the SLS rocket set to debut on its fourth flight, Ars reports. Essentially, the House Appropriations Committee is telling NASA to look for cheaper, faster options for a new SLS upper stage.

CYA EUS? … The four-engine Exploration Upper Stage, or EUS, is an expensive undertaking. Last year, NASA’s inspector general reported that the new upper stage’s development costs had ballooned from $962 million to $2.8 billion, and the project had been delayed more than six years. That’s almost a year-for-year delay since NASA and Boeing started development of the EUS. So, what are the options if NASA went with a new upper stage for the SLS rocket? One possibility is a modified version of United Launch Alliance’s dual-engine Centaur V upper stage that flies on the Vulcan rocket. It’s no longer possible to keep flying the SLS rocket’s existing single-engine upper stage because ULA has shut down the production line for it.

Raising Super Heavy from the deep. For the second time, SpaceX has retrieved an engine section from one of its Super Heavy boosters from the Gulf of Mexico, NASASpaceflight.com reports. Images posted on social media showed the tail end of a Super Heavy booster being raised from the sea off the coast of northern Mexico. Most of the rocket’s 33 Raptor engines appear to still be attached to the lower section of the stainless steel booster. Online sleuths who closely track SpaceX’s activities at Starbase, Texas, have concluded the rocket recovered from the Gulf is Booster 13, which flew on the sixth test flight of the Starship mega-rocket last November. The booster ditched in the ocean after aborting an attempted catch back at the launch pad in South Texas.

But why? … SpaceX recovered the engine section of a different Super Heavy booster from the Gulf last year. The company’s motivation for salvaging the wreckage is unclear. “Speculated reasons include engineering research, environmental mitigation, or even historical preservation,” NASASpaceflight reports.

Next three launches

July 26: Vega C | CO3D & MicroCarb | Guiana Space Center, French Guiana | 02: 03 UTC

July 26: Falcon 9 | Starlink 10-26 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 08: 34 UTC

July 27: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-2 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 03: 55 UTC

Rocket Report: Channeling the future at Wallops; SpaceX recovers rocket wreckage Read More »

Rocket Report: SpaceX won’t land at Johnston Atoll; new North Sea launch site

rocket report, Space, spacex / Mike M. / July 18, 2025

All the news that’s fit to lift

“Europe is seizing the opportunity to lead.”

NASA astronauts Mike Fincke (left) and Zena Cardman (right), the pilot and commander of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station, view a Falcon 9 rocket ahead of their spaceflight. Credit: SpaceX

Welcome to Edition 8.03 of the Rocket Report! We are at an interesting stage in Europe, with its efforts to commercialize spaceflight. Finally, it seems the long-slumbering continent is waking up to the need to leverage private capital to drive down the costs of space access, and we are seeing more investment flow into European companies. But it is critical that European policymakers make strategic investments across the industry or companies like PLD Space, which outlined big plans this week, will struggle to get off the launch pad.

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.

Avio celebrates freedom from Arianespace. Representatives from Italy, Germany, and France met at the European Space Agency headquarters last week to sign the Launcher Exploitation Declaration, which officially began the transfer of Vega C launch operation responsibilities from Arianespace to the rocket’s builder, Avio, European Spaceflight reports. “It is a historic step that reinforces our nation’s autonomy in access to space and assigns us a strategic responsibility towards Europe,” said Avio CEO Giulio Ranzo. “We are ready to meet this challenge with determination, and we are investing in technologies, expertise, and infrastructure to ensure a competitive service.”

A breaking of long-term partnerships … In addition to securing control over the full exploitation of the Vega launch vehicle family, Italy, through Avio, is also investing in what comes next. The country has committed more than 330 million euros to the development of the MR60 methalox rocket engine and two demonstrator vehicles. These, along with the MR10 engine being developed under the Vega E programme, will support Avio’s preparation of a future reusable launch vehicle. Historically, France, Germany, and Italy have worked together on European launch vehicles. This appears to be another step in breaking up that long-term partnership toward more nationalistic efforts.

PLD Space outlines grand ambitions. PLD Space, Spain’s sole contestant in the European Launcher Challenge, unveiled its long-term strategy at the company’s Industry Days event this week, Payload reports. The company is targeting a production rate of 32 Miura 5 launchers annually by 2030. To achieve this output, PLD plans to deepen its vertical integration, consolidate its supplier network, and begin to serialize its manufacturing process beginning in 2027.

Building up the supply chain … The company’s production plans also call for the parallel development of Miura Next, a heavy-lift vehicle capable of bringing 13 tons to orbit. However, the company will start with the Miura 5 vehicle, which PLD expects to launch for the first time from French Guiana in 2026. Since the beginning of 2024, PLD has invested a total of 50 million euros in its Miura 5 supply chain, consisting of 397 industrial partners, many of which are located in Spain and other European countries. These plans are great, but sooner or later, the 14-year-old company needs to start putting rockets in space. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Sign Me Up!

New consortium will study space plane. A UK-based space and defense consultant group, Frazer-Nash, will lead a program to design a vehicle and its integrated systems with the goal of building and flying a Mach 5-capable aircraft at the edge of space by early 2031. This so-called INVICTUS program was funded with a 7 million-euro grant from the European Space Agency and is seen as a stepping stone toward developing a reusable space plane that takes off and lands horizontally from a runway.

Seeking to lead a new era of flight … Over 12 months, INVICTUS has been tasked to deliver the concept and elements of the preliminary design of the full flight system. It will attempt to demonstrate the efficacy of hydrogen-fueled, precooled air-breathing propulsion at hypersonic speeds, technology that will ultimately enable horizontal take-off. “With INVICTUS, Europe is seizing the opportunity to lead in technologies that will redefine how we move across the planet and reach beyond it,” said Tommaso Ghidini, head of the Mechanical Department at the European Space Agency. (submitted by Jid)

ESA backs North Sea launch site. A private company developing a launch site in the North Sea, EuroSpaceport, has secured support from the European Space Agency. The company, founded five years ago, is developing a sea-based launch platform built on a repurposed offshore wind turbine service vessel, European Spaceflight reports. Rockets are envisioned to launch from a position 50 to 100 km offshore from the port of Esbjerg, in Denmark.

Seeing the forest for the trees … On Wednesday, EuroSpaceport announced that it had signed an agreement with the European Space Agency and Polish rocket builder SpaceForest to support the first launch from its Spaceport North Sea platform. The company will receive support from the agency through its Boost! Program. SpaceForest has been a recipient of Boost! funding, receiving 2.4 million euros in October 2024. SpaceForest said the mission will be used to verify the launch procedures of its Perun rocket under nominal suborbital conditions. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Amazon and SpaceX, best frenemies? Maybe not, but for the time being, they appear to be friends of convenience. A Falcon 9 rocket launched from Florida’s Space Coast early on Wednesday with a batch of Internet satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper network, thrusting a rival one step closer to competing with SpaceX’s Starlink broadband service. With this launch, Amazon now has 78 Kuiper satellites in orbit, Ars reports. The full Kuiper constellation will consist of 3,232 satellites to provide broadband Internet service to most of the populated world, bringing Amazon in competition with SpaceX’s Starlink network.

Launch is not cheap … Kuiper is an expensive undertaking, estimated at between $16.5 billion and $20 billion by the industry analytics firm Quilty Space. Quilty has concluded that Amazon is spending $10 billion on launch alone, exceeding the company’s original cost estimate for the entire program. Amazon has booked more than 80 launches to deploy the Kuiper constellation, but the company didn’t turn to SpaceX until it had to. A shareholder lawsuit filed in 2023 accused Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the company’s board of directors of breaching their “fiduciary duty” by not considering SpaceX as an option for launching Kuiper satellites. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit alleged Amazon didn’t consider the Falcon 9 due to an intense and personal rivalry between Bezos and SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Amazon bowed to the allegations and announced a contract with SpaceX for three Falcon 9 launches in December 2023 to provide “additional capacity” for deploying the Kuiper network.

NASA targets end of July for Crew-11. NASA said Monday that it and SpaceX were targeting July 31 for the flight of SpaceX’s Crew-11 mission to the orbiting outpost, Spaceflight Now reports. The mission is led by NASA astronaut Zena Cardman. She will be flying along with fellow NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.

Pushing Dragon reuse … The mission was moved up from its previously planned August launch window to create more room in the manifest for the arrival of the Cargo Dragon flying the CRS-33 mission. That Dragon will perform a boost of the space station as a demonstration of some of the capabilities SpaceX will use on its US Deorbit Vehicle currently in work. Crew-11 will fly to the orbiting outpost on Crew Dragon Endeavour, which will be its sixth trip to the ISS. This will be the first Crew Dragon spacecraft to fly for a sixth time.

SpaceX won’t use Johnston Atoll for rocket cargo tests. Johnston Atoll, an unincorporated US territory and Pacific island wildlife refuge with a complicated military history, will no longer become a SpaceX reusable rocket test site, Popular Science reports. “The Department of the Air Force has elected to hold the preparation of the Johnston Atoll Environmental Assessment for a proposed rocket cargo landing demonstration on Johnston Atoll in abeyance while the service explores alternative options for implementation,” Air Force spokesperson Laurel Falls said.

Taking a toll on the atoll … Located roughly 860 miles southwest of Hawaii, Johnston Atoll has served as a base for numerous US military operations for over 90 years. Despite this, the atoll remains a home for 14 tropical bird species as part of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. The site had been under consideration for tests as part of a military program to deliver cargo around the planet, using suborbital missions on rocket such as SpaceX’s Starship vehicle. The Johnston Atoll plans included the construction of two landing pads that were met with public backlash from wildlife experts and indigenous representatives. (submitted by Tfargo04)

Blue Origin confirms ESCAPADE is up next. On Thursday, Blue Origin said on social media that the second launch of its New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s ESCAPADE mission as its primary payload. This launch will support ESCAPADE’s science objectives as the twin spacecraft progress on their journey to the Red Planet. Also onboard is a technology demonstration from @Viasat in support of @NASASpaceOps’ Communications Services Project.

Left unsaid was when the launch will occur … The social media post confirms a report from Ars in June, which said the ESCAPADE spacecraft was up next on New Glenn. Previously, the company has said this second launch will take place no earlier than August 15. However, that is less than one month away. Late September is probably the earliest realistic launch date, with October or November more likely for the second flight of the company’s large rocket.

Next three launches

July 19: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-3 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 03: 44 UTC

July 21: Falcon 9 | O3b mPOWER 9 & 10 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 21: 00 UTC

July 22: Falcon 9 | NASA’s Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 18: 05 UTC

Rocket Report: SpaceX won’t land at Johnston Atoll; new North Sea launch site Read More »