rocket report

Rocket Report: Say cheerio to Orbex; China is getting good at booster landings

rocket report, Space / Beth Washington / February 13, 2026

“You absolutely have to have a plan to compete with SpaceX on price.”

The Ariane 64 rocket makes its debut on Thursday. Credit: État-major des armées

Welcome to Edition 8.29 of the Rocket Report! We have a stuffed report this week with news from across the launch spectrum. Long-term, probably the most significant development this week was a subscale version of the Long March 10 rocket successfully launching and then executing a picture-perfect ocean landing. China is catching up rapidly to the United States when it comes to reusable launch.

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.

Orbex is going away. The UK-based launch company Orbex has entered insolvency proceedings after a planned takeover by European space logistics startup The Exploration Company fell through, European Spaceflight reports. In a statement, Orbex said the decision came after all “fundraising, merger and acquisition opportunities had all concluded unsuccessfully.” For anyone paying attention, this decision should not come as a surprise. A decade into its existence, Orbex had yet to produce demonstrable, ready-for-flight hardware.

Other companies interested in assets … According to the company, the appointment of administrators will give Orbex time to secure “as positive an outcome as possible for its creditors, employees and wider stakeholders.” It added that the process could include the sale of all or parts of the business or its assets, and another UK-based company, Skyrora, has expressed some interest. (submitted by Polynomics, zapman987, and EllPeaTea)

Firefly’s next Alpha mission launching soon. This week, Firefly said that its next Alpha rocket underwent a successful 20-second static fire test. This clears the way for the rocket to make a launch attempt no earlier than February 18 from its launch site at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Au revoir Block I … It’s an important mission, because the previous Alpha launch, in April 2025, ended in failure when stage separation damaged one of the rocket’s upper stage engines and prevented the mission from reaching orbit. Moreover, the company lost the first stage of the flight in September during an accident in Texas. The upcoming flight, “Stairway to Seven,” will be the final flight of Block I of the Alpha booster.

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How can launch companies compete with SpaceX? Rocket firms are divided on how to compete with SpaceX in a market where demand outstrips supply, yet customers remain price sensitive, Space News reports. During a panel at the SmallSat Symposium on February 11, executives from several launch companies acknowledged the challenge of competing with SpaceX, which accounted for about half of all orbital launches globally in 2025, despite strong customer demand for launch services.

A low price is nice … “If your idea is to go into the market competing with SpaceX on price, you’re probably not in a good competitive position,” said Brian Rogers, vice president of global launch services at Rocket Lab, one of the few small launch vehicle developers to thrive despite competition from SpaceX. But this view was far from universal. Devon Papandrew, vice president of business development at Stoke Space, disagreed. “You absolutely have to have a plan to compete with SpaceX on price,” he said. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Rocket Lab blows up a few Archimedes engines. According to reporting by Ars, Rocket Lab has blown up two Archimedes rocket engines in the last three months at its test stand in southern Mississippi. The engine test anomalies come at a critical time for Rocket Lab, as it is attempting to finalize development of a flight version of the Archimedes engine, which burns liquid oxygen and methane and has a sea-level thrust of 165,000 pounds. Nine of these engines will power the company’s much-anticipated Neutron rocket, which is aiming for a debut launch later this year.

Testing the engine to its limits … Rocket Lab Chief Executive Officer Pete Beck downplayed concerns in a statement. “We test to the limits, that’s part of developing a successful rocket,” Beck said. “We often put the engine into very off nominal states to find the limits and sometimes they let go, this is normal and how you ensure rockets don’t fail in flight.” Beck has previously said that Rocket Lab’s goal is to identify failures during component-level testing so that, when Neutron launches, it has a high chance of reaching orbit on its first attempt.

Proton rocket returns to flight. After a nearly three-year break, a Russian Proton rocket flew again with the Elektro-L No. 5 meteorological satellite from Baikonur in Kazakhstan, Russian Space Web reports. This mission was supposed to launch in late 2025, but in December, final checks revealed a problem with the Block DM-03 upper stage.

A not-so-great launch record … The mission marked the last use of the Block DM-03 space tug on Proton, which will now be solely used as an upper stage for the Angara-5 rocket. First launched in 1965, the Proton rocket has undergone several upgrades in the six decades since then. It has launched 430 times, with 48 partial and total failures. No new Protons are under construction, and it will be phased out by the end of this decade in favor of the newer Angara vehicles. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

SpaceX exempted legal labor case. The National Labor Relations Board abandoned a Biden-era complaint against SpaceX after a finding that the agency does not have jurisdiction over Elon Musk’s space company, Ars reports. The US labor board said SpaceX should instead be regulated under the Railway Labor Act, which governs labor relations at railroad and airline companies.

A common carrier? … In January 2024, an NLRB regional director alleged in a complaint that SpaceX illegally fired eight employees who, in an open letter, criticized CEO Musk as a “frequent source of embarrassment.” The complaint sought reinstatement of the employees, back pay, and letters of apology to the fired employees. SpaceX responded by suing the NLRB, claiming the labor agency’s structure is unconstitutional. But a different issue SpaceX raised later—that it is a common carrier, like a rail company or airline—is what compelled the NLRB to drop its case.

More powerful Ariane 6 rocket launches. This first launch of the four-booster version of Ariane 6 took place on Thursday, launching 32 satellites for Amazon’s Leo constellation to low-Earth orbit. “This first flight of Ariane 64 sustains Europe’s autonomous access to space,” Toni Tolker-Nielsen, the European Space Agency’s director of space transportation, said in a news release.

More vrooom coming … Previous launches of Europe’s new Ariane rocket have used two solid rocket boosters. The heavier variant of the rocket is necessary to support Amazon’s constellation as well as more demanding missions to geostationary orbit. And more power is coming. In the near future, the P120C boosters will be replaced by upgraded P160C models, each carrying more than 14 metric tons of solid fuel. The Associated Press provided some interesting color behind the scenes of the launch from the location in France where the rocket’s main engines are manufactured. (submitted by biokleen and EllPeaTea)

Stoke Space increases fundraising round. The Washington-based launch company announced this week that it had extended its recent Series D funding round. The round was initially announced in October 2025 at $510 million, but has now been increased to $860 million. The original Series D funding focused on completing activation of Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, and expanding production capacity for the Nova launch vehicle. Stoke will use the additional capital to accelerate future elements of its product roadmap, the company said.

Putting the $ into $toke $pace … “We’re extremely grateful for our investors’ continued support,” said Andy Lapsa, co-founder and CEO of Stoke. “We’re executing with urgency to bring Nova to market and deliver for our customers. It’s a special vehicle, and there’s more in the pipeline.” With the extension, Stoke has now raised $1.34 billion to date. That is an impressive raise, and it will heighten expectations for the company’s debut of the Nova rocket.

Falcon 9 back after second stage anomaly. A Falcon 9 launched a batch of Starlink satellites on Saturday after SpaceX completed an investigation into an engine malfunction during the rocket’s previous launch, Space News reports. The rocket deployed its payload of 25 Starlink satellites into orbit about 62 minutes after liftoff. The launch was the first Falcon 9 mission since Feb. 2, when the rocket carried another set of Starlink satellites into orbit from Vandenberg.

That didn’t take long … While that mission successfully deployed its payload, SpaceX later said an “off-nominal condition” with the upper stage prevented it from performing a planned deorbit burn. The Federal Aviation Administration said Feb. 6 that it had authorized SpaceX to return the Falcon 9 to flight. “The final mishap report cites the probable root cause as the Falcon 9 second-stage engine’s failure to ignite prior to the deorbit burn,” the agency stated. “SpaceX identified technical and organizational preventive measures to avoid a recurrence of the event.” The FAA provided no additional details about the anomaly. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

China performs an impressive rocket landing. China’s space program, striving to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030, carried out a test flight of a new reusable booster and crew capsule late Tuesday (US time), and the results were spectacular, Ars reports. The launch of a subscale version of the Long March 10 rocket, still in development, provided engineers with an opportunity to verify the performance of an important part of the new Mengzhou capsule’s safety system. A test version of the Mengzhou spacecraft, flying without anyone onboard, climbed into the stratosphere on top of the Long March booster before activating its launch abort motors a little more than a minute into the flight as the rocket reached the moment of maximum aerodynamic pressure, known as Max-Q.

China getting there on rocket reuse … The abort motors pulled the capsule away from the booster, simulating an in-flight escape that might be necessary to whisk crews away from a failing rocket. The Mengzhou spacecraft later deployed parachutes and splashed down offshore from Hainan Island. Remarkably, the booster continued its ascent without the crew capsule, soaring into space on the power of its kerosene-fueled YF-100 engines before reentering the atmosphere, reigniting its engines, and nailing a propulsive landing in the South China Sea, right next to a recovery barge waiting to bring it back to shore.

Vulcan experiences a second nozzle issue. Moments after liftoff from Florida’s Space Coast early Thursday morning, a shower of sparks emerged in the exhaust plume of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket. Seconds later, the rocket twisted on its axis before recovering and continuing the climb into orbit with a batch of US military satellites, Ars reports. The sight may have appeared familiar to seasoned rocket watchers. Sixteen months ago, a Vulcan rocket lost one of its booster nozzles shortly after launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The rocket recovered from the malfunction and still reached the mission’s planned orbit.

Next launch likely to be delayed … Details of Thursday’s booster problem remain unclear. An investigation into the matter is underway, according to ULA, a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. But the circumstances resemble those of the booster malfunction in October 2024. The incident on Thursday’s mission suggests the defect was not fixed, or there is a separate problem with Northrop’s boosters. The next Vulcan launch is scheduled for no earlier than March with a GPS navigation satellite for the US Space Force. This schedule is now in doubt. The military’s Space Systems Command said in a statement it will “work closely with ULA per our mission assurance space flightworthiness process before the next Vulcan national security space mission.” (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Starship nearing next test flight. The upgraded Super Heavy booster slated to launch SpaceX’s next Starship flight has completed cryogenic proof testing, clearing a hurdle that resulted in the destruction of the company’s previous booster, Ars reports. The proof test is notable because it moves engineers closer to launching the first test flight of an upgraded version of SpaceX’s mega-rocket named Starship V3, or Block 3.

Launch possible within the next six to eight weeks … SpaceX launched the previous version, Starship V2, five times last year, but the first three test flights failed. The last two flights achieved SpaceX’s goals, and the company moved on to V3. Assuming that the remaining test work goes according to plan, SpaceX could be in position to launch the first Starship V3 test flight before the end of March.

New Glenn pushing on second stage reuse again. Engineers at Blue Origin have been grappling with a seemingly eternal debate that involves the New Glenn rocket and the economics of flying it. The debate goes back at least 15 years, to the early discussions around the design of the heavy lift rocket. The first stage, of course, would be fully reusable. But what about the upper stage of New Glenn, powered by two large BE-3U engines?

Do you want a job? … Now, Ars reports, reuse is back on the menu. Blue Origin has posted a new job listing for a director of Reusable Upper Stage Development, which says, “As the Director of Program Management for the New Glenn Upper Stage and Payload Accommodations (GS2PA), you will work with the Vice President of New Glenn GS2PA and directly support the execution of a lean engineering initiative to incrementally develop a reusable upper stage.” Ars estimates it presently costs Blue Origin more than $50 million to manufacture a New Glenn second stage.

Next three launches

February 12: Falcon 9 | Crew-12 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla. | 10: 15 UTC

February 14: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-13 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 22: 00 UTC

February 16: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-103 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 05: 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: Say cheerio to Orbex; China is getting good at booster landings Read More »

Rocket Report: SpaceX probes upper stage malfunction; Starship testing resumes

artemis II, blue origin, china, Firefly Aerospace, NASA, new shepard, rocket report, Science, Space, space launch system, spacex, starship / Kelly Newman / February 7, 2026

Amazon has booked 10 more launches with SpaceX, citing a “near-term shortage in launch capacity.”

The top of SpaceX’s next Super Heavy booster, designated Booster 19, as the rocket undergoes testing at Starbase, Texas. The Rio Grande River is visible in the background. Credit: SpaceX

Welcome to Edition 8.28 of the Rocket Report! The big news in rocketry this week was that NASA still hasn’t solved the problem with hydrogen leaks on the Space Launch System. The problem caused months of delays before the first SLS launch in 2022, and the fuel leaks cropped up again Monday during a fueling test on NASA’s second SLS rocket. It is a continuing problem, and NASA’s sparse SLS launch rate makes every countdown an experiment, as my colleague Eric Berger wrote this week. NASA will conduct another fueling test in the coming weeks after troubleshooting the rocket’s leaky fueling line, but the launch of the Artemis II mission is off until March.

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.

Blue Origin “pauses” New Shepard flights. Blue Origin has “paused” its New Shepard program for the next two years, a move that likely signals a permanent end to the suborbital space tourism initiative, Ars reports. The small rocket and capsule have been flying since April 2015 and have combined to make 38 launches, all but one of which were successful, and 36 landings. In its existence, the New Shepard program flew 98 people to space, however briefly, and launched more than 200 scientific and research payloads into the microgravity environment.

Moon first… So why is Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos more than a quarter of a century ago, ending the company’s longest-running program? “We will redirect our people and resources toward further acceleration of our human lunar capabilities inclusive of New Glenn,” wrote the company’s chief executive, Dave Limp, in an internal email on January 30. “We have an extraordinary opportunity to be a part of our nation’s goal of returning to the Moon and establishing a permanent, sustained lunar presence.” The cancellation came, generally, as a surprise to Blue Origin employees. The company flew its most recent mission a week prior to the announcement, launching six people into space.

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Firefly nears return to flight. Firefly Aerospace is preparing to launch its next 1-ton-class Alpha rocket later this month from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. The Texas-based company announced last month that it shipped the Alpha rocket to the California spaceport, and a follow-up post on social media on January 29 showed a video of the rocket rolling out to its launch pad for testing. “Alpha is vertical on the pad and getting ready for our static fire ahead of the Stairway to Seven mission!” Firefly wrote on X.

Getting back on track... This is an important mission for Firefly’s Alpha rocket program. On the most recent Alpha flight last April, the rocket’s first stage exploded in flight, moments after separation from the second stage. The blast wave damaged the upper stage engine, preventing it from reaching orbit with a small commercial tech demo satellite. Then, in September, the booster stage for the next Alpha launch was destroyed during a preflight test in Texas. Firefly says the upcoming mission is purely a test flight and won’t fly with any customer payloads. The company announced that an upgraded “Block II” version of the Alpha rocket will debut on the subsequent mission.

China to test next-gen crew capsule. China is gearing up for an important test of its new Mengzhou spacecraft, perhaps as soon as February 11, according to airspace warning notices issued around the Wenchang spaceport on Hainan Island. Images from public viewing sites around the launch site showed a test model of the Mengzhou spacecraft being lifted atop a booster stage this week. The flight next week is expected to include an in-flight test of the capsule’s launch abort system. Mengzhou is China’s next-generation crew spacecraft for human flights to the Moon. It will also replace China’s Shenzhou crew spacecraft used for flights to the Tiangong space station in low-Earth orbit.

Proceeding apace... The in-flight abort test follows a pad abort test of the Mengzhou spacecraft last year as China marches toward the program’s first orbital test flight. The booster stage for the in-flight abort test is a subscale version of China’s new Long March 10 rocket, the partially reusable human-rated launcher under development for the country’s lunar program. Therefore, next week’s milestone flight will serve as an important test of not only the Mengzhou spacecraft but also its rocket.

SpaceX confirms upper stage malfunction. SpaceX kicked off the month of February with a Monday morning Falcon 9 rocket launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. However, the rocket experienced an anomaly near the end of the mission, Spaceflight Now reports. The rocket deployed its payload of 25 Starlink satellites as planned, but SpaceX said the Falcon 9’s second stage “experienced an off-nominal condition” during preparation for an engine firing to steer back into the atmosphere for a guided, destructive reentry. The rocket remained in a low-altitude orbit and made an unguided reentry later in the week.

Launches temporarily on hold... “Teams are reviewing data to determine root cause and corrective actions before returning to flight,” SpaceX said in a statement. A Starlink launch from Florida originally planned for this week is now on hold. SpaceX returned the Falcon 9 rocket’s payload fairing, containing the Starlink payloads, from the launch pad back to the hangar at Kennedy Space Center to wait for the next launch opportunity. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 team in Florida is now focusing on preparations for launch of the Crew-12 mission to the International Space Station, targeted for no earlier than February 11. The schedule for Crew-12 will hinge on how quickly SpaceX can complete the investigation into Monday’s upper stage malfunction. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Amazon’s new booking with SpaceX. Amazon has purchased an additional 10 Falcon 9 launches from SpaceX as part of its efforts to accelerate deployment of its broadband satellite constellation, Space News reports. The deal, which neither Amazon nor SpaceX previously announced, was disclosed in an Amazon filing with the Federal Communications Commission on January 30, seeking an extension of a July deadline to deploy half of its Amazon Leo constellation. Amazon has launched only 180 satellites of its planned 3,232-satellite constellation, rendering the July deadline unattainable. Amazon asked the FCC to extend the July deadline by two years or waive it entirely, but did not request an extension to the 2029 deadline for full deployment of the constellation.

“Near-term shortage in launch capacity”… In the filing with the FCC, Amazon said it faces a “near-term shortage of launch capacity” and is securing additional launch options “wherever available.” That effort includes working with SpaceX, whose Starlink constellation directly competes with Amazon Leo. Amazon bypassed SpaceX entirely when it made its initial orders for more than 80 Amazon Leo launches with United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, and Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. But Amazon later reserved three launches with SpaceX that flew last year and has now added 10 more SpaceX launches to its manifest. So far, Amazon has only launched satellites on ULA’s soon-to-retire Atlas V rocket and SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Amazon has not started flying on the new Vulcan, Ariane 6, or New Glenn rockets, which comprise the bulk of the constellation’s launch bookings. That could change next week with the first launch of Amazon Leo satellites on Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

China launches satellite for Algeria. Algeria’s Alsat-3B mission, an Earth observation satellite developed in collaboration with China, launched aboard a Chinese Long March 2C rocket on January 30, Connecting Africa reports. Alsat-3B is the twin of Alsat-3A, which launched from China earlier in the month. Algeria’s government signed a contract with China in 2023 covering the development and launch of the two Alsat-3 satellites. Both satellites are designed to provide high‑resolution Earth observation imagery, enhancing Algeria’s geospatial intelligence capabilities.

Belt, road, and orbit… In a joint statement, Chinese President Xi Jinping said the Algerian remote-sensing satellite project is another successful example of China-Algeria aerospace cooperation and an important demonstration of the two nations’ comprehensive strategic partnership. China has inked similar space-related partnerships to produce and launch satellites for other African nations, including Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Sudan.

Soyuz-5 launch set for March. Just a few months ago, Russia aimed to launch the first flight of the new Soyuz-5 medium-lift rocket before the end of 2025. Now, the Soyuz-5’s debut test flight is targeted for the end of March, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. Dmitry Baranov, the deputy head of Roscosmos, announced the new schedule at a scientific conference in Moscow. The mission from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan would mark the first flight of a new Russian rocket since 2014.

A reactionary rocket… Ars has reported on the Soyuz-5 project before. While the rocket will use a new overall design, the underlying technology is not all that new. The Soyuz-5, also named Irtysh, is intended to be a replacement for the Zenit rocket, a medium-lift launcher developed in the final years before the fall of the Soviet Union. The Zenit rocket’s main stages were manufactured in Ukraine, and tensions between Russia and Ukraine spelled the end of the Zenit program even before Russia invaded its neighbor in 2022. The Soyuz-5 uses a modified version of the RD-171 engine that has flown since the 1980s. This new RD-171 design uses all Russian components. The upper stage engine is based on the same design flown on Russia’s workhorse Soyuz-2 rocket.

Fueling test reveals leaks on SLS rocket. The launch of NASA’s Artemis II mission, the first flight of astronauts to the Moon in more than 53 years, will have to wait another month after a fueling test on Monday uncovered hydrogen leaks in the connection between the rocket and its launch platform at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Ars reports. The practice countdown was designed to identify problems and provide NASA an opportunity to fix them before launch. Most importantly, the test revealed NASA still has not fully resolved recurring hydrogen leaks that delayed the launch of the unpiloted Artemis I test flight by several months in 2022. Artemis I finally launched successfully after engineers revised their hydrogen loading procedures to overcome the leak.

Hardware poor… Now, the second Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is on the cusp of launching a crew for the first time. Even as it reaches maturity, the rocket is going nowhere fast. It has been more than three years since NASA discovered leaks on the first SLS rocket. The rocket alone costs more than $2 billion to build. The program is hardware poor, leaving NASA unable to build a test model that might have been used to troubleshoot and resolve the hydrogen leaks before the agency proceeded into the Artemis II launch campaign. “Every SLS rocket is a work of art, every launch campaign an adventure, every mission subject to excessive delays. It’s definitely not ideal,” Ars reported in a story examining this problem.

SpaceX, meet xAI. SpaceX has formally acquired another one of Elon Musk’s companies, xAi, Ars reports. The merging of what is arguably Musk’s most successful company, SpaceX, with the more speculative xAI venture is a risk. Founded in 2023, xAI’s main products are the generative AI chatbot Grok and the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter. The company aims to compete with OpenAI and other artificial intelligence firms. However, Grok has been controversial, including the sexualization of women and children through AI-generated images, as has Musk’s management of Twitter.

Lots of assumptions… There can be no question that the merger of SpaceX—the world’s premier spaceflight company—and the artificial intelligence firm offers potential strategic advances. With this merger, Musk plans to use SpaceX’s deep expertise in rapid launch and satellite manufacturing and management to deploy a constellation of up to 1 million orbital data centers, providing the backbone of computing power needed to support xAI’s operations. All of this is predicated on several assumptions, including that AI is not a bubble, orbital data centers are cost-competitive compared to ground-based data centers, and that compute is the essential roadblock that will unlock widespread adoption of AI in society. Speculative, indeed, but only SpaceX has a rocket that might one day be able to realistically deploy a million satellites.

Starship testing resumes. The enormous rocket we’re talking about, of course, is SpaceX’s Starship. Ground teams at Starbase, Texas, have rolled the Super Heavy booster for SpaceX’s next Starship flight to a test stand for a series of checkouts ahead of the flight, currently slated for sometime in March. This will be the first launch of SpaceX’s upgraded “Block 3” Starship, with improvements aimed at making the rocket more reliable following several setbacks with Starship Block 2 last year.

Frosty night on the border… This is the second time a Block 3 booster has made the trip to the test stand at Starbase, located just north of the US-Mexico border. Booster 18 suffered a structural failure at the test site in November, forcing SpaceX to scrap it and complete the next rocket in line, Booster 19. On Wednesday night, SpaceX put Booster 19 through cryogenic proof testing, clearing a key milestone on the path to launch. The next flight will likely follow a similar profile as previous Starship missions, with a suborbital arc carrying the ship from its South Texas launch base to a splashdown in the Indian Ocean. If successful, the test will pave the way for bigger tests to come, including an in-space refueling demo and the catch and recovery of a Starship vehicle returning from space.

Next three launches

Feb. 7: Long March 2F | Chinese spaceplane? | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China | 03: 55 UTC

Feb. 7: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-33 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 17: 05 UTC

Feb. 11: Falcon 9 | Crew-12 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 11: 01 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.

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Rocket Report: How a 5-ton satellite fell off a booster; will SpaceX and xAI merge?

rocket report, Space / 9u50fv / January 30, 2026

ESA to study Falcon 9 breakup over Poland. The European Space Agency has published a call to tender for a study examining the reentry and breakup of a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage in February last year, European Spaceflight reports. In the early hours of February 19, 2025, a Falcon 9 second stage underwent an uncontrolled atmospheric re-entry over Poland. At least four fragments of the stage survived re-entry and landed in various locations across the country. While no one was injured and no property was damaged, at least one fragment landed in a populated area.

Not just an academic study … ESA hopes to use data collected during the reentry of the Falcon 9 upper stage over Poland to help predict the risks associated with the re-entry of elongated upper stages. There are currently considerable uncertainties surrounding the physics and dynamics of destructive reentry in the very low-Earth orbit regime, below 150km. It’s not an academic study, as in 2015 there were approximately 80 orbital rocket launches. A decade on, that figure has almost quadrupled, with 317 successful orbital rocket launches occurring in 2025. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

SpaceX targets mid-March for next Starship launch. The company plans to launch Starship’s next test flight in six weeks, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said Sunday, January 25, Space.com reports. The flight will be the 12th overall for Starship but the first of the bigger, more powerful, and much-anticipated “Version 3” (V3) iteration of the vehicle.

A better engine … Starship V3 is slightly taller than V2—408.1 feet (124.4 meters) vs. 403.9 feet (123.1 m), but considerably more powerful. V3 can loft more than 100 tons of payload to low-Earth orbit, compared to about 35 tons for V2, according to Musk. The increased brawn comes courtesy of Raptor 3, a new variant of the engine that will fly for the first time on the upcoming test mission. SpaceX is hoping it proves more reliable than V2 as well.

Seeking information about Challenger artifacts. Back in 2010, Robert Pearlman of CollectSpace bought a batch of 18 space shuttle-era “Remove Before Flight” tags on eBay. It was only later that he pieced together that these tags were, in fact, removed from the external tank of STS 51-L, the ill-fated flight of space shuttle Challenger in 1986. He wrote about the experience on Ars.

How did they get to eBay? … “When the tags were first identified, contacts at NASA and Lockheed, among others, were unable to explain how they ended up on eBay and, ultimately, with me,” Pearlman said. He wants to gather more information about the provenance of the tags so that he can donate them to museums, with their full backstory.

Next three launches

January 30: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-101 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 05: 51 UTC

February 2: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-32 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 15: 17 UTC

February 3: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-103 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 22: 12 UTC

Rocket Report: How a 5-ton satellite fell off a booster; will SpaceX and xAI merge? Read More »

Rocket Report: Chinese rockets fail twice in 12 hours; Rocket Lab reports setback

australia, Commercial space, Gilmour space, isar aerospace, launch, rocket report, Science, Space / Beth Washington / January 23, 2026

Another partially reusable Chinese rocket, the Long March 12B, is nearing its first test flight.

An Archimedes engine for Rocket Lab’s Neutron rocket is test-fired at Stennis Space Center, Mississippi. Credit: Rocket Lab

Welcome to Edition 8.26 of the Rocket Report! The past week has been one of advancements and setbacks in the rocket business. NASA rolled the massive rocket for the Artemis II mission to its launch pad in Florida, while Chinese launchers suffered back-to-back failures within a span of approximately 12 hours. Rocket Lab’s march toward a debut of its new Neutron launch vehicle in the coming months may have stalled after a failure during a key qualification test. We cover all this and more in this week’s Rocket Report.

Australia invests in sovereign launch. Six months after its first orbital rocket cleared the launch tower for just 14 seconds before crashing back to Earth, Gilmour Space Technologies has secured 217 million Australian dollars ($148 million) in funding that CEO Adam Gilmour says finally gives Australia a fighting chance in the global space race, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. The funding round, led by the federal government’s National Reconstruction Fund Corporation and superannuation giant Hostplus with $75 million each, makes the Queensland company Australia’s newest unicorn—a fast-growth start-up valued at more than $1 billion—and one of the country’s most heavily backed private technology ventures.

Homegrown rocket… “We’re a rocket company that has never had access to the capital that our American competitors have,” Gilmour told the newspaper. “This is the first raise where I’ve actually raised a decent amount of capital compared to the rest of the world.” The investment reflects growing concern about Australia’s reliance on foreign launch providers—predominantly Elon Musk’s SpaceX—to put government, defense, and commercial satellites into orbit. With US launch queues stretching beyond two years and geopolitical tensions reshaping access to space infrastructure, Canberra has identified sovereign launch capability as a strategic priority. Gilmour’s first Eris rocket lifted off from the Bowen Orbital Spaceport in North Queensland on July 30 last year. It achieved 14 seconds of flight before falling back to the ground, a result Gilmour framed as a partial success in an industry where first launches routinely fail.

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Isar Aerospace postpones test flight. Isar Aerospace scrubbed a potential January 21 launch of its Spectrum rocket to address a technical fault, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. Hours before the launch window was set to open, the German company said that it was addressing “an issue with a pressurization valve.” A valve issue was one of the factors that caused a Spectrum to crash moments after liftoff on Isar’s first test flight last year. “The teams are currently assessing the next possible launch opportunities and a new target date will be announced shortly,” the company wrote in a post on its website. The Spectrum rocket, designed to haul cargoes of up to a metric ton (2,200 pounds) to low-Earth orbit, is awaiting liftoff from Andøya Spaceport in Norway.

Geopolitics at play... The second launch of Isar’s Spectrum rocket comes at a time when Europe’s space industry looks to secure the continent’s sovereignty in spaceflight. European satellites are no longer able to launch on Russian rockets, and the continent’s leaders don’t have much of an appetite to turn to US rockets amid strained trans-Atlantic relations. Europe’s satellite industry is looking for more competition for the Ariane 6 and Vega C rockets developed by ArianeGroup and Avio, and Isar Aerospace appears to be best positioned to become a new entrant in the European launch market. “I’m well aware that it would be really good for us Europeans to get this one right,” said Daniel Metzler, Isar’s co-founder and CEO.

A potential buyer for Orbex? UK-based rocket builder Orbex has signed a letter of intent to sell its business to European space logistics startup The Exploration Company, European Spaceflight reports. Orbex was founded in 2015 and is developing a small launch vehicle called Prime. The company also began work on a larger medium-lift launch vehicle called Proxima in December 2024. On Wednesday, Orbex published a brief press release stating that a letter of intent had been signed and that negotiations had begun. The company added that all details about the transaction remain confidential at this stage.

Time’s up... A statement from Orbex CEO Phil Chambers suggests that the company’s financial position factored into its decision to pursue a buyer. “Our Series D fundraising could have led us in many directions,” said Chambers. “We believe this opportunity plays to the strengths of both businesses, and we look forward to sharing more when the time is right.” The Exploration Company, headquartered near Munich, Germany, is developing a reusable space capsule to ferry cargo to low-Earth orbit and a high-thrust reusable rocket engine. It is one of the most well-financed space startups in Europe. Orbex is one of five launch startups in Europe selected by the European Space Agency last year to compete in the European Launcher Challenge and receive funding from ESA member states. But the UK company’s financial standing is in question. Orbex’s Danish subsidiary is filing for bankruptcy, and its main UK entity is overdue in filing its 2024 financial accounts. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

A bad day for Chinese rockets. China suffered a pair of launch failures January 16, seeing the loss of a classified Shijian satellite and the failed first launch of the Ceres-2 rocket, Space News reports. The first of the two failures involved the attempted launch of a Shijian military satellite aboard a Long March 3B rocket from the Xichang launch base in southwestern China. The Shijian 32 satellite was likely heading for a geostationary transfer orbit, but a failure of the Long March 3B’s third stage doomed the mission. The Long March 3B is one of China’s most-flown rockets, and this was the first failure of a Long March 3-series vehicle since 2020, ending a streak of 50 consecutive successful flights of the rocket.

And then… Less than 12 hours later, another Chinese rocket failed on its climb to orbit. This launch, using a Ceres-2 rocket, originated from the Jiuquan space center in northwestern China. It was the first flight of the Ceres-2, a larger variant of the light-class Ceres-1 rocket developed and operated by a Chinese commercial startup named Galactic Energy. Chinese officials did not disclose the payloads lost on the Ceres-2 rocket.

Neutron in neutral. Rocket Lab suffered a structural failure of the Neutron rocket’s Stage 1 tank during testing, setting back efforts to get to the inaugural flight for the partially reusable launcher, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. The mishap occurred during a hydrostatic pressure trial, the company said Wednesday. “There was no significant damage to the test structure or facilities,” Rocket Lab added. Rocket Lab last year pushed the first Neutron mission from 2025 to 2026, citing the volume of testing ahead. The US-based company said it is now analyzing what transpired to determine the impact on Neutron launch plans. Rocket Lab said it would provide an update during its next quarterly financials, due in a few weeks.

Where to go from here?… The Neutron rocket is designed to catapult Rocket Lab into more direct competition with legacy rocket companies like SpaceX and United Launch Alliance. “The next Stage 1 tank is already in production, and Neutron’s development campaign continues,” the company said. Setbacks like this one are to be expected during the development of new rockets. Rocket Lab has publicized aggressive, or aspirational, launch schedules for the first Neutron rocket, so it’s likely the company will hang onto its projection of a debut launch in 2026, at least for now. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Falcon 9 launches NRO spysats. SpaceX executed a late night Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base on January 16, carrying an undisclosed number of intelligence-gathering satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office, Spaceflight Now reports. The mission, NROL-105, hauled a payload of satellites heading to low-Earth orbit, which are believed to be Starshield, a government variant of the Starlink satellites. “Today’s mission is the twelfth overall launch of the NRO’s proliferated architecture and first of approximately a dozen NRO launches scheduled throughout 2026 consisting of proliferated and national security missions,” the NRO said in a post-launch statement.

Mysteries abound… A public accounting of the agency’s proliferated constellation suggests it now numbers nearly 200 satellites with the ability to rapidly image locations around the world. The NRO has dozens more satellites serving other functions. “Having hundreds of NRO satellites on orbit is critical to supporting our nation and its partners,” the agency said in a statement. “This growing constellation enhances mission resilience and capability through reduced revisit times, improved persistent coverage, and accelerated processing and delivery of critical data.” What was unusual about the January 16 mission is it may have only carried two satellites, well short of the 20-plus Starshield satellites launched on most previous Falcon 9 launches, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and expert tracker of global space launch activity.

Long March 12B hot-fired at Jiuquan. China’s main space contractor performed a static fire test of a new reusable Long March rocket Friday, paving the way for a test flight, Space News reports. The test-firing of the Long March 12B rocket’s first stage engines occurred on a launch pad at the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Test Zone at Jiuquan spaceport in northwestern China. The mere existence of the Long March 12B rocket was not publicly known until recently. The new rocket was developed by a subsidiary of the state-owned China Aerospace Science Technology Corporation, with the capacity to carry a payload of 20 metric tons to low-Earth orbit in expendable mode. It’s unknown if the first Long March 12B test flight will include a booster landing attempt.

Another one… The Long March 12B has a reusable first stage with landing legs, similar to the recovery architecture of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. The booster is designed to land downrange at a recovery zone in the Gobi Desert. The Long March 12B is the latest in a line of partially reusable Chinese rockets to reach the launch pad, following soon after the debut launches of the Long March 12A and Zhuque 3 rocket last month. Several more companies in China are working on their own reusable boosters. Of them all, the Long March 12B appears to be the closest to a clone of SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Like the Falcon 9, the Long March 12B will have nine kerosene-fueled first stage engines and a single kerosene-fueled upper stage engine. Chinese officials have not announced when the Long March 12B will launch.

Artemis II rolls to the launch pad. Preparations for the first human spaceflight to the Moon in more than 50 years took a big step forward last weekend with the rollout of the Artemis II rocket to its launch pad, Ars reports. The rocket reached a top speed of just 1 mph on the four-mile, 12-hour journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At the end of its nearly 10-day tour through cislunar space, the Orion capsule on top of the rocket will exceed 25,000 mph as it plunges into the atmosphere to bring its four-person crew back to Earth.

Key test ahead… “This is the start of a very long journey,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “We ended our last human exploration of the Moon on Apollo 17.” The Artemis II mission will set several notable human spaceflight records. Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen will travel farther from Earth than any human in history as they travel beyond the far side of the Moon. They won’t land. That distinction will fall to the next mission in line in NASA’s Artemis program. This will be the first time astronauts have flown on the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. The launch window opens February 6, but the exact date of Artemis II’s liftoff will be determined by the outcome of a critical fueling test of the SLS rocket scheduled for early February.

Blue Origin confirms rocket reuse plan. Blue Origin confirmed Thursday that the next launch of its New Glenn rocket will carry a large communications satellite into low-Earth orbit for AST SpaceMobile, Ars reports. The rocket will launch the next-generation Block 2 BlueBird satellite “no earlier than late February” from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. However, the update from Blue Origin appears to have buried the real news toward the end: “The mission follows the successful NG-2 mission, which included the landing of the ‘Never Tell Me The Odds’ booster. The same booster is being refurbished to power NG-3,” the company said.

Impressive strides… The second New Glenn mission launched on November 13, just 10 weeks ago. If the company makes the late-February target for the next mission—and Ars was told last week to expect the launch to slip into March—it will represent a remarkably short turnaround for an orbital booster. By way of comparison, SpaceX did not attempt to refly the first Falcon 9 booster it landed in December 2015. Instead, initial tests revealed that the vehicle’s interior had been somewhat torn up. It was scrapped and inspected closely so that engineers could learn from the wear and tear.

Next three launches

Jan. 25: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-20 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 15: 17 UTC

Jan. 26: Falcon 9 | GPS III SV09 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 04: 46 UTC

Jan. 26: Long March 7A | Unknown Payload | Wenchang Space Launch Site, China | 21: 00 UTC

Rocket Report: Chinese rockets fail twice in 12 hours; Rocket Lab reports setback Read More »

Rocket Report: Ariane 64 to debut soon; India has a Falcon 9 clone too?

launch, rocket report, Space / 9u50fv / January 17, 2026

All the news that’s fit to lift

“We are fundamentally shifting our approach to securing our munitions supply chain.”

SpaceX launched the Pandora satellite for NASA on Sunday. Credit: SpaceX

Welcome to Edition 8.25 of the Rocket Report! All eyes are on Florida this weekend as NASA rolls out the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to its launch site in Florida for the Artemis II mission. NASA has not announced a launch date yet, and this will depend in part on how well a “wet dress rehearsal” goes with fueling the rocket. However, it is likely the rocket has a no-earlier-than launch date of February 8. Our own Stephen Clark will be in Florida for the rollout on Saturday, so be sure and check back here for coverage.

MaiaSpace scores a major launch deal. The ArianeGroup subsidiary, created in 2022, has inked a major new launch contract with satellite operator Eutelsat, Le Monde reports. A significant portion of the 440 new satellites ordered by Eutelsat from Airbus to renew or expand its OneWeb constellation will be launched into orbit by the new Maia rocket. MaiaSpace previously signed two contracts: one with Exotrail for the launch of an orbital transfer, and the other for two satellites for the Toutatis mission, a defense system developed by U-Space.

A big win for the French firm … The first test launch of Maia is scheduled for the end of 2026, a year later than initially planned, at the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana. The first flights carrying OneWeb satellites are therefore likely to launch no earlier than 2027. Powered by liquid oxygen-methane propellant, Maia aims to be able to deliver up to 500 kg to low-Earth orbit when the first stage is recovered, and 1,500 kg when fully expendable.

Firefly announces Alpha upgrade plan. Firefly Aerospace said this week it was planning a “Block II” upgrade to its Alpha rocket that will “focus on enhancing reliability, streamlining producibility, and improving launch operations to further support commercial, civil, and national security mission demand.” Firefly’s upcoming Alpha Flight 7, targeted to launch in the coming weeks, will be the last flown in the current configuration and will serve as a test flight with multiple Block II subsystems in shadow mode.

Too many failures … “Firefly worked closely with customers and incorporated data and lessons learned from our first six Alpha launches and hundreds of hardware tests to make upgrades that increase reliability and manufacturability with consolidated parts, key configuration updates, and stronger structures built with automated machinery,” said Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. Speaking bluntly, reliability upgrades are needed. Of Alpha’s six launches to date, only two have been a complete success. (submitted by TFargo04)

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Another PSLV launch failure. India’s first launch of 2026 ended in failure due to an issue with the third stage of its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), Spaceflight Now reports. The mission, designated PSLV-C62, was also the second consecutive failure of this four-stage rocket, with both anomalies affecting the third stage. This time, 16 satellites were lost, including those of other nations. ISRO said it initiated a “detailed analysis” to determine the root cause of the anomaly.

Has been India’s workhorse rocket … The four-stage launch vehicle is a mixture of solid- and liquid- fueled stages. Both the first and third stages are solid-fueled, while the second and fourth stages are powered by liquid propulsion. The PSLV Rocket has flown in multiple configurations since it debuted in September 1993 and achieved 58 fully successful launches, with the payloads on those missions reaching their intended orbit.

US military invests in L3Harris rocket motors. The US government will invest $1 billion in L3Harris Technologies’ growing rocket motor business, guaranteeing a steady supply of the much-needed motors used in a wide range of ‍missiles such as Tomahawks and Patriot interceptors, CNBC reports. L3Harris said on Tuesday it ‌is planning ‌an IPO of its growing rocket motor business into a new publicly traded company backed by a $1 billion government convertible security investment. The securities will automatically convert to common equity when the company goes public later in 2026.

Shifting investment strategy … “We are fundamentally shifting our approach to securing our munitions supply chain,” said Michael Duffey, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. “By investing directly in suppliers we are building the resilient industrial ⁠base needed for the Arsenal of Freedom.” However, the government’s equity position in L3Harris could face blowback from L3Harris’ rivals, given that it creates a potentially significant conflict of interest for the US government. The Pentagon will have an ownership stake in a company that regularly bids on major defense and other government contracts.

First Ariane 64 to launch next month. Arianespace announced Thursday that it plans to launch the first variant of the Ariane 6 rocket with four solid rocket boosters on February 12 from French Guiana. The mission will also be the company’s first launch of Amazon Leo (formerly Project Kuiper) satellites. This is the first of 18 Ariane 6 launches that Arianespace sold to Amazon for the broadband communications megaconstellation.

A growing cadence … The Ariane 6 rocket has launched five times, including its debut flight in July 2024. All of the launches were a success, although the first flight failed to relight the upper stage in order to make a controlled reentry. Arianespace increased the cadence to four launches last year and will seek to try to double that this year.

Falcon 9 launches the Pandora mission. NASA’s Pandora satellite rocketed into orbit early Sunday from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, Ars reports. It hitched a ride with around 40 other small payloads aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, launching into a polar Sun-synchronous orbit before deploying at an altitude of roughly 380 miles (613 kilometers).

A satellite that can carry a tune … Pandora will augment the capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Over the next few weeks, ground controllers will put Pandora through a series of commissioning and calibration steps before turning its eyes toward deep space. From low-Earth orbit, Pandora will observe exoplanets and their stars simultaneously, allowing astronomers to correct their measurements of the planet’s atmospheric composition and structure based on the ever-changing conditions of the host star itself.

ArianeGroup seeking ideas for Ariane 6 reuse. In this week’s newsletter, we’ve already had a story about MaiaSpace and another item about the Ariane 6 rocket. So why not combine the two and also have a report about an Ariane 6 mashup with the Maia rocket? As it turns out, there’s a relatively new proposal to retrofit the existing Ariane 6 rocket design for partial reuse with Maia rockets as side boosters, Ars reports.

Sir, maia I have some cost savings? … It’s infeasible to recover the Ariane 6’s core stage for many reasons. Chief among them is that the main stage burns for more than seven minutes on an Ariane 6 flight, reaching speeds about twice as fast as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster achieves during its two-and-a-half minutes of operation during launch. Swapping out Ariane 6’s solid rocket motors for reusable liquid boosters makes some economic sense for ArianeGroup. The proposal would bring the development and production of the boosters under full control of ArianeGroup and its French subsidiary, cutting Italy’s solid rocket motor developer, Avio, out of the program. All the same, we’ll believe this when we see it.

Meet the EtherealX Razor Crest Mk-1. I learned that there is a rocket company founded in Bengaluru, India, named Ethereal Exploration Guild, or EtherealX. (Did you see what they did there?) I found this out because the company announced (via email) that it had raised an oversubscribed $20.5 million Series A round led by TDK Ventures and BIG Capital. So naturally, I went to the EtherealX website looking for more information.

Let me say, I was not disappointed … As you might expect from a company named EtherealX, its proposed rocket has nine engines, is powered by liquid oxygen and kerosene, and has a maximum capacity of 24.8 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. (Did you see what they did there?) The website does not include much information, but there is this banger of a statement: “The EtherealX Razor Crest Mk-1 will house 9 of the most powerful operational liquid rocket engines in Asia, Europe, Australia, Africa, South America, and Antarctica – Stallion.” And let’s be honest, when you’ve bested Antarctica in engine development, you know you’re cooking. Alas, what I did not see on the website was much evidence of real hardware.

NASA topples historic Saturn and shuttle infrastructure. Two historic NASA test facilities used in the development of the Saturn V and space shuttle launch vehicles have been demolished after towering over the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama since the start of the Space Age, Ars reports. The Propulsion and Structural Test Facility, which was erected in 1957—the same year the first artificial satellite entered Earth orbit—and the Dynamic Test Facility, which has stood since 1964, were brought down by a coordinated series of implosions on Saturday, January 10.

Out with the old, in with the new … Located in Marshall’s East Test Area on the US Army’s Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, the two structures were no longer in use and, according to NASA, had a backlog of $25 million in needed repairs. “This work reflects smart stewardship of taxpayer resources,” Jared Isaacman, NASA administrator, said in a statement. “Clearing outdated infrastructure allows NASA to safely modernize, streamline operations and fully leverage the infrastructure investments signed into law by President Trump to keep Marshall positioned at the forefront of aerospace innovation.”

Space Force swaps Vulcan for Falcon 9. The next Global Positioning System satellite is switching from a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket to a SpaceX Falcon 9, a spokesperson for the US Space Force Space Systems Command System Delta 80 said Tuesday, Spaceflight Now reports. SpaceX could launch the GPS III Space Vehicle 09 (SV09) within the next few weeks, as the satellite was entering the final stages of pre-flight preparations.

The trade is logical … SV09 was originally awarded to ULA as part of order-year five of the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 contract, which was announced on October 31, 2023. This isn’t the first time that the Space Force has shuffled timelines and switched launch providers for GPS missions. In May 2025, SpaceX launched the GPS III SV08 spacecraft, which was originally assigned to ULA in June 2023. In exchange, ULA was given the SV11 launch, which would have flown on a Falcon Heavy rocket. The changes have been driven largely by repeated delays in Vulcan readiness.

Next three launches

January 16: Long March 3B | Unknown payload | Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China | 16: 55 UTC

January 17: Ceres 2 | Demo flight | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China | 04: 05 UTC

January 17: Falcon 9 | NROL-105 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 06: 18 UTC

Rocket Report: Ariane 64 to debut soon; India has a Falcon 9 clone too? Read More »

Rocket Report: A new super-heavy launch site in California; 2025 year in review

Brazil, Canada, falcon 9, isar aerospace, launch, NASA, rocket report, Security, South Korea, Space, spacex, starship, united launch alliance / Shannon Garcia / January 9, 2026

SpaceX opened its 2026 launch campaign with a mission for the Italian government.

A Chinese Long March 7 rocket carrying a cargo ship for China’s Tiangong space station soars into orbit from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on July 15, 2025. Credit: Liu Guoxing/VCG via Getty Images

Welcome to Edition 8.24 of the Rocket Report! We’re back from a restorative holiday, and there’s a great deal Eric and I look forward to covering in 2026. You can get a taste of what we’re expecting this year in this feature. Other storylines are also worth watching this year that didn’t make the Top 20. Will SpaceX’s Starship begin launching Starlink satellites? Will United Launch Alliance finally get its Vulcan rocket flying at a higher cadence? Will Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket be certified by the US Space Force? I’m looking forward to learning the answers to these questions, and more. As for what has already happened in 2026, it has been a slow start on the world’s launch pads, with only a pair of SpaceX missions completed in the first week of the year. Only? Two launches in one week by any company would have been remarkable just a few years ago.

New launch records set in 2025. The number of orbital launch attempts worldwide last year surpassed the record 2024 flight rate by 25 percent, with SpaceX and China accounting for the bulk of the launch activity, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. Including near-orbital flight tests of SpaceX’s Starship-Super Heavy launch system, the number of orbital launch attempts worldwide reached 329 last year, an annual analysis of global launch and satellite activity by Jonathan’s Space Report shows. Of those 329 attempts, 321 reached orbit or marginal orbits. In addition to five Starship-Super Heavy launches, SpaceX launched 165 Falcon 9 rockets in 2025, surpassing its 2024 record of 134 Falcon 9 and two Falcon Heavy flights. No Falcon Heavy rockets flew in 2025. US providers, including Rocket Lab Electron orbital flights from its New Zealand spaceport, added another 30 orbital launches to the 2025 tally, solidifying the US as the world leader in space launch.

International launches… China, which attempted 92 orbital launches in 2025, is second, followed by Russia, with 17 launches last year, and Europe with eight. Rounding out the 2025 orbital launch manifest were five orbital launch attempts from India, four from Japan, two from South Korea, and one each from Israel, Iran, and Australia, the analysis shows. The global launch tally has been on an upward trend since 2019, but the numbers may plateau this year. SpaceX expects to launch about the same number of Falcon 9 rockets this year as it did last year as the company prepares to ramp up the pace of Starship flights.

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South Korean startup suffers launch failure. The first commercial rocket launched at Brazil’s Alcantara Space Center crashed soon after liftoff on December 22, dealing a blow to Brazilian aerospace ambitions and the South Korean satellite launch company Innospace, Reuters reports. The rocket began its vertical trajectory as planned after liftoff but fell to the ground after something went wrong 30 seconds into its flight, according to Innospace, the South Korean startup that developed the launch vehicle. The craft crashed within a pre-designated safety zone and did not harm anyone, officials said.

An unsurprising result... This was the first flight of Innospace’s nano-launcher, named Hanbit-Nano. The rocket was loaded with eight small payloads, including five deployable satellites, heading for low-Earth orbit. But rocket debuts don’t have a good track record, and Innospace’s rocket made it a bit farther than some new launch vehicles do. The rocket is designed to place up to 200 pounds (90 kilograms) of payload mass into Sun-synchronous orbit. It has a unique design, with hybrid engines consuming a mix of paraffin as the fuel and liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. Innospace said it intends to launch a second test flight in 2026. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Take two for Germany’s Isar Aerospace. Isar Aerospace is gearing up for a second launch attempt of its light-class Spectrum rocket after completing 30-second integrated static test firings for both stages late last year, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. The endeavor would be the first orbital launch for Spectrum and an effort at a clean mission after a March 30 flight ended in failure because a vent valve inadvertently opened soon after liftoff, causing a loss of control. “Rapid iteration is how you win in this domain. Being back on the pad less than nine months after our first test flight is proof that we can operate at the speed the world now demands,” said Daniel Metzler, co-founder and CEO of Isar Aerospace.

No earlier than… Airspace and maritime warning notices around the Spectrum rocket’s launch site in northern Norway suggest Isar Aerospace is targeting launch no earlier than January 17. Based near Munich, Isar Aerospace is Europe’s leading launch startup. Not only has Isar beat its competitors to the launch pad, the company has raised far more money than other European rocket firms. After its most recent fundraising round in June, Isar has raised more than 550 million euros ($640 million) from venture capital investors and government-backed funds. Now, Isar just needs to reach orbit.

A step forward for Canada’s launch ambitions. The Atlantic Spaceport Complex—a new launch facility being developed by the aerospace company NordSpace on the southern coast of Newfoundland—has won an important regulatory approval, NASASpaceflight.com reports. The provincial government of Newfoundland and Labrador “released” the spaceport from the environmental assessment process. “At this stage, the spaceport no longer requires further environmental assessment,” NordSpace said in a statement. “This release represents the single most significant regulatory milestone for NordSpace’s spaceport development to date, clearing the path for rapid execution of Canada’s first purpose-built, sovereign orbital launch complex designed and operated by an end-to-end launch services provider.”

Now, about that rocket... NordSpace began construction of the Atlantic Spaceport Complex last year and planned to launch its first suborbital rocket from the spaceport last August. But bad weather and technical problems kept NordSpace’s Taiga rocket grounded, and then the company had to wait for the Canadian government to reissue a launch license. NordSpace said it most recently delayed the suborbital launch until March in order to “continue our focus on advancing our orbital-scale technologies.” NordSpace is one of the companies likely to participate in a challenge sponsored by the Canadian government, which is committing 105 million Canadian dollars ($75 million) to develop a sovereign orbital launch capability. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

H3 rocket falters on the way to orbit. A faulty payload fairing may have doomed Japan’s latest H3 rocket mission, with the Japanese space agency now investigating if the shield separated abnormally and crippled the vehicle in flight after lifting off on December 21, the Asahi Shimbun reports. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency officials told a science ministry panel on December 23 they suspect an abnormal separation of the rocket’s payload fairing—a protective nose cone shield—caused a critical drop in pressure in the second-stage engine’s hydrogen tank. The second-stage engine lost thrust as it climbed into space, then failed to restart for a critical burn to boost Japan’s Michibiki 5 navigation satellite into a high-altitude orbit.

Growing pains… The H3 rocket is Japan’s flagship launch vehicle, having replaced the country’s H-IIA rocket after its retirement last year. The December launch was the seventh flight of an H3 rocket, and its second failure. While engineers home in on the rocket’s suspect payload fairing, several H3 launches planned for this year now face delays. Japanese officials already announced that the next H3 flight will be delayed from February. Japan’s space agency plans to launch a robotic mission to Mars on an H3 rocket in October. While there’s still time for officials to investigate and fix the issues that caused last month’s launch failure, the incident adds a question mark to the schedule for the Mars launch. (submitted by tsunam and EllPeaTea)

SpaceX opens 2026 with launch for Italy. SpaceX rang in the new year with a Falcon 9 rocket launch on January 2 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, Spaceflight Now reports. The payload was Italy’s Cosmo-SkyMed Second Generation Flight Model 3 (CSG-FM3) satellite, a radar surveillance satellite for dual civilian and military use. The Cosmo-SkyMed mission was the first Falcon 9 rocket flight in 16 days, the longest stretch without a SpaceX orbital launch in four years.

Poached from Europe… The CSG-FM3 satellite is the third of four second-generation Cosmo-SkyMed radar satellites ordered by the Italian government. The second and third satellites have now launched on SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets instead of their initial ride: Europe’s Vega C launcher. Italy switched the satellites to SpaceX after delays in making the Vega C rocket operational and Europe’s loss of access to Russian Soyuz rockets in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine. The rocket swap became a regular occurrence for European satellites in the last few years as Europe’s indigenous launch program encountered repeated delays.

Rocket deploys heaviest satellite ever launched from India. An Indian LVM3 rocket launched AST SpaceMobile’s next-generation direct-to-device BlueBird satellite December 23, kicking off the rollout of dozens of spacecraft built around the largest commercial communications antenna ever deployed in low-Earth orbit, Space News reports. At 13,450 pounds (6.1 metric tons), the BlueBird 6 satellite was the heaviest spacecraft ever launched on an Indian rocket. The LVM3 rocket released BlueBird 6 into an orbit approximately 323 miles (520 kilometers) above the Earth.

The pressure is on… BlueBird 6 is the first of AST SpaceMobile’s Block 2 satellites designed to beam Internet signals directly to smartphones. The Texas-based company is competing with SpaceX’s Starlink network in the same direct-to-cell market. Starlink has an early lead in the direct-to-device business, but AST SpaceMobile says it plans to launch between 45 and 60 satellites by the end of this year. AST’s BlueBird satellites are significantly larger than SpaceX’s Starlink platforms, with antennas unfurling in space to cover an area of 2,400 square feet (223 square meters). The competition between SpaceX and AST SpaceMobile has led to a race for spectrum access and partnerships with cell service providers.

Ars’ annual power rankings of US rocket companies. There’s been some movement near the top of our annual power rankings. It was not difficult to select the first-place company on this list. As it has every year in our rankings, SpaceX holds the top spot. Blue Origin was the biggest mover on the list, leaping from No. 4 on the list to No. 2. It was a breakthrough year for Jeff Bezos’ space company, finally shaking the notion that it was a company full of promise that could not quite deliver. Blue Origin delivered big time in 2025. On the very first launch of the massive New Glenn rocket in January, Blue Origin successfully sent a test payload into orbit. Although a landing attempt failed after New Glenn’s engines failed to re-light, it was a remarkable success. Then, in November, New Glenn sent a pair of small spacecraft on their way to Mars. This successful launch was followed by a breathtaking and inspiring landing of the rocket’s first stage on a barge.

Where’s ULA?… Rocket Lab came in at No. 3. The company had an excellent year, garnering its highest total of Electron launches and having complete mission success. Rocket Lab has now gone more than three dozen launches without a failure. Rocket Lab also continued to make progress on its medium-lift Neutron vehicle, although its debut was ultimately delayed to mid-2026, at least. United Launch Alliance slipped from No. 2 to No. 4 after launching its new Vulcan rocket just once last year, well short of the company’s goal of flying up to 10 Vulcan missions.

Rocketdyne changes hands again. If you are a student of space history or tracked the space industry before billionaires and venture capital changed it forever, you probably know the name Rocketdyne. A half-century ago, Rocketdyne manufactured almost all of the large liquid-fueled rocket engines in the United States. The Saturn V rocket that boosted astronauts toward the Moon relied on powerful engines developed by Rocketdyne, as did the Space Shuttle, the Atlas, Thor, and Delta rockets, and the US military’s earliest ballistic missiles. But Rocketdyne has lost its luster in the 21st century as it struggled to stay relevant in the emerging commercial launch industry. Now, the engine-builder is undergoing its fourth ownership change in 20 years. AE Industrial Partners, a private equity firm, announced it will purchase a controlling stake in Rocketdyne from L3Harris after less than three years of ownership, Ars reports.

Splitting up… Rocketdyne’s RS-25 engine, used on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, is not part of the deal with AE Industrial. It will remain under the exclusive ownership of L3Harris. Rocketdyne’s work on solid-fueled propulsion, ballistic missile interceptors, tactical missiles, and other military munitions will also remain under L3Harris control. The split of the company’s space and defense segments will allow L3Harris to concentrate on Pentagon programs, the company said. So, what is AE Industrial getting in its deal with L3Harris? Aside from the Rocketdyne name, the private equity firm will have a majority stake in the production of the liquid-fueled RL10 upper-stage engine used on United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket. AE Industrial’s Rocketdyne will also continue the legacy company’s work in nuclear propulsion, electric propulsion, and smaller in-space maneuvering thrusters used on satellites.

Tory Bruno has a new employer. Jeff Bezos-founded Blue Origin said on December 26 that it has hired Tory Bruno, the longtime CEO of United Launch Alliance, as president of its newly formed national security-focused unit, Reuters reports. Bruno will head the National Security Group and report to Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp, the company said in a social media post, underscoring its push to expand in US defense and intelligence launch markets. The hire brings one of the US launch industry’s most experienced executives to Blue Origin as the company works to challenge the dominance of SpaceX and win a larger share of lucrative US military and intelligence launch contracts.

11 years at ULA… The move comes days after Bruno stepped down as CEO of ULA, the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture that has long dominated US national security space launches alongside Elon Musk’s SpaceX. In 11 years at ULA, Bruno oversaw the development of the Vulcan rocket, the company’s next-generation launch vehicle designed to replace its Atlas V and Delta IV rockets and secure future Pentagon contracts. (submitted by r0twhylr)

A California spaceport has room to grow. A new orbital launch site is up for grabs at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, Spaceflight Now reports. The Department of the Air Force published a request for information from launch providers to determine the level of interest in what would become the southernmost launch complex on the Western Range. The location, which will be designated as Space Launch Complex-14 or SLC-14, is being set aside for orbital rockets in a heavy or super-heavy vertical launch class. One of the requirements listed in the RFI includes what the government calls the “highest technical maturity.” It states that for the bid from a launch provider to be taken seriously, it needs to prove that it can begin operations within approximately five years of receiving a lease for the property.

Who’s in contention?… Multiple US launch providers have rockets in the heavy to super-heavy classification either currently launching or in development. Given all the requirements and the state of play on the orbital launch front, one of the contenders would likely be SpaceX’s Starship-Super Heavy rocket. The company is slated to launch the latest iteration of the rocket, dubbed Version 3, sometime in early 2026. Blue Origin is another likely contender for the prospective launch site. Blue Origin currently has an undeveloped space at Vandenberg’s SLC-9 for its New Glenn rocket. But the company unveiled plans in November for a new super-heavy lift version called New Glenn 9×4. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Next three launches

Jan. 9: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-96 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 18: 05 UTC

Jan. 11: Falcon 9 | Twilight Mission | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 13: 19 UTC

Jan. 11: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-97 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 18: 08 UTC

Rocket Report: A new super-heavy launch site in California; 2025 year in review Read More »

Rocket Report: Russia pledges quick fix for Soyuz launch pad; Ariane 6 aims high

ariane 6, Arianespace, atlas v, china, falcon 9, launch, rocket lab, rocket report, Science, Space, spacex, starship, united launch alliance / 9u50fv / December 20, 2025

South Korean rocket startup Innospace is poised to debut a new nano-launcher.

The fifth Ariane 6 rocket climbs away from Kourou, French Guiana, with two European Galileo navigation satellites. Credit: ESA-CNES-Arianespace

Welcome to Edition 8.23 of the Rocket Report! Several new rockets made their first flights this year. Blue Origin’s New Glenn was the most notable debut, with a successful inaugural launch in January followed by an impressive second flight in November, culminating in the booster’s first landing on an offshore platform. Second on the list is China’s Zhuque-3, a partially reusable methane-fueled rocket developed by the quasi-commercial launch company LandSpace. The medium-lift Zhuque-3 successfully reached orbit on its first flight earlier this month, and its booster narrowly missed landing downrange. We could add China’s Long March 12A to the list if it flies before the end of the year. This will be the final Rocket Report of 2025, but we’ll be back in January with all the news that’s fit to lift.

Rocket Lab delivers for Space Force and NASA. Four small satellites rode a Rocket Lab Electron launch vehicle into orbit from Virginia early Thursday, beginning a government-funded technology demonstration mission to test the performance of a new spacecraft design, Ars reports. The satellites were nestled inside a cylindrical dispenser on top of the 59-foot-tall (18-meter) Electron rocket when it lifted off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. A little more than an hour later, the rocket’s upper stage released the satellites one at a time at an altitude of about 340 miles (550 kilometers). The launch was the starting gun for a proof-of-concept mission to test the viability of a new kind of satellite called DiskSats, designed by the Aerospace Corporation.

Stack ’em high… “DiskSat is a lightweight, compact, flat disc-shaped satellite designed for optimizing future rideshare launches,” the Aerospace Corporation said in a statement. The DiskSats are 39 inches (1 meter) wide, about twice the diameter of a New York-style pizza, and measure just 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) thick. Made of composite carbon fiber, each satellite carries solar cells, control avionics, reaction wheels, and an electric thruster to change and maintain altitude. The flat design allows DiskSats to be stacked one on top of the other for launch. The format also has significantly more surface area than other small satellites with comparable mass, making room for more solar cells for high-power missions or large-aperture payloads like radar imaging instruments or high-bandwidth antennas. NASA and the US Space Force cofunded the development and launch of the DiskSat demo mission.

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SpaceX warns of dangerous Chinese launch. China’s recent deployment of nine satellites occurred dangerously close to a Starlink satellite, SpaceX’s vice president of Starlink engineering said. Michael Nicolls wrote in a December 12 social media post that there was a 200-meter close approach between a satellite launched December 10 on a Chinese Kinetica-1 rocket and SpaceX’s Starlink-6079 spacecraft at 560 kilometers (348 miles) altitude, Aviation Week and Space Technology reports. “Most of the risk of operating in space comes from the lack of coordination between satellite operators—this needs to change,” Nicolls wrote.

Blaming the customer... The company in charge of the Kinetica-1 rocket, CAS Space, responded to Nicolls’ post on X saying it would “work on identifying the exact details and provide assistance.” In a follow-up post on December 13, CAS Space said the close call, if confirmed, occurred nearly 48 hours after the satellite separated from the Kinetica-1 rocket, by which time the launch mission had long concluded. “CAS Space will coordinate with satellite operators to proceed.”

A South Korean startup is ready to fly. Innospace, a South Korean space startup, will launch its independently developed commercial rocket, Hanbit-Nano, as soon as Friday, the Maeil Business Newspaper reports. The rocket will lift off from the Alcântara Space Center in Brazil. The small launcher will attempt to deliver eight small payloads, including five deployable satellites, into low-Earth orbit. The launch was delayed two days to allow time for technicians to replace components of the first stage oxidizer supply cooling system.

Hybrid propulsion… This will be the first launch of Innospace’s Hanbit-Nano rocket. The launcher has two stages and stands 71 feet (21.7 meters) tall with a diameter of 4.6 feet (1.4 meters). Hanbit-Nano is a true micro-launcher, capable of placing up to 200 pounds (90 kilograms) of payload mass into Sun-synchronous orbit. It has a unique design, with hybrid engines consuming a mix of paraffin as the fuel and liquid oxygen as the oxidizer.

Ten years since a milestone in rocketry. On December 21, 2015, SpaceX launched the Orbcomm-2 mission on an upgraded version of its Falcon 9 rocket. That night, just days before Christmas, the company successfully landed the first stage for the first time. Ars has reprinted a slightly condensed chapter from the book Reentry, authored by Senior Space Editor Eric Berger and published in 2024. The chapter begins in June 2015 with the failure of a Falcon 9 rocket during launch of a resupply mission to the International Space Station and ends with a vivid behind-the-scenes recounting of the historic first landing of a Falcon 9 booster to close out the year.

First-person account… I have my own memory of SpaceX’s first rocket landing. I was there, covering the mission for another publication, as the Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. In an abundance of caution, Air Force officials in charge of the Cape Canaveral spaceport closed large swaths of the base for the Falcon 9’s return to land. The decision shunted VIPs and media representatives to viewing locations outside the spaceport’s fence, so I joined SpaceX’s official press room at the top of a seven-floor tower near the Port Canaveral cruise terminals. The view was tremendous. We all knew to expect a sonic boom as the rocket came back to Florida, but its arrival was a jolt. The next morning, I joined SpaceX and a handful of reporters and photographers on a chartered boat to get a closer look at the Falcon 9 standing proudly after returning from space.

Roscosmos targets quick fix to Soyuz launch pad. Russian space agency Roscosmos says it expects a damaged launch pad critical to International Space Station operations to be fixed by the end of February, Aviation Week and Space Technology reports. “Launch readiness: end of February 2026,” Roscosmos said in a statement Tuesday. Russia had been scrambling to assess the extent of repairs needed to Pad 31 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan after the November 27 flight of a Soyuz-2.1a rocket damaged key elements of the infrastructure. The pad is the only one capable of supporting Russian launches to the ISS.

Best-case scenario… A quick repair to the launch pad would be the best-case scenario for Roscosmos. A service structure underneath the rocket was unsecured during the launch of a three-man crew to the ISS last month. The structure fell into the launch pad’s flame trench, leaving the complex without the service cabin technicians use to work on the Soyuz rocket before liftoff. Roscosmos said a “complete service cabin replacement kit” has arrived at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, and more than 130 staff are working in two shifts to implement the repairs. A fix by the end of February would allow Russia to resume cargo flights to the ISS in March.

Atlas V closes out an up-and-down year for ULA. United Launch Alliance aced its final launch of 2025, a predawn flight of an Atlas V rocket Tuesday carrying 27 satellites for Amazon’s recently rebranded Leo broadband Internet service, Spaceflight Now reports. The rocket flew northeast from Cape Canaveral to place the Amazon Leo satellites into low-Earth orbit. This was ULA’s fourth launch for Amazon’s satellite broadband venture, previously known as Project Kuiper. ULA closes out 2025 with six launches, one more than the company achieved last year. But ULA’s new Vulcan rocket launched just once this year, disappointingly short of the company’s goal to fly Vulcan up to 10 times.

Taking stock of Amazon Leo… This year marked the start of the deployment of Amazon’s operational satellites. There are now 180 Amazon Leo satellites in orbit after Tuesday’s launch, well short of the FCC’s requirement for Amazon to deploy half of its planned 3,232 satellites by July 31, 2026. Amazon won’t meet the deadline, and it’s likely the retail giant will ask government regulators for a waiver or extension to the deadline. Amazon’s factory is hitting its stride producing and delivering Amazon Leo satellites. The real question is launch capacity. Amazon has contracts to launch satellites on ULA’s Atlas V and Vulcan rockets, Europe’s Ariane 6, and Blue Origin’s New Glenn. Early next year, a batch of 32 Amazon Leo satellites will launch on the first flight of Europe’s uprated Ariane 64 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

A good year for Ariane 6. Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket launched four times this year after a debut test flight in 2024. The four successful missions deployed payloads for the French military, Europe’s weather satellite agency, the European Union’s Copernicus environmental monitoring network, and finally, on Wednesday, the European Galileo navigation satellite fleet, Space News reports. This is a strong showing for a new rocket flying from a new launch pad and a faster ramp-up of launch cadence than any medium- or heavy-lift rocket in recent memory. All five Ariane 6 launches to date have used the Ariane 62 configuration with two strap-on solid rocket boosters. The more powerful Ariane 64 rocket, with four strap-on motors, will make its first flight early next year.

Aiming high… This was the first launch using the Ariane 6 rocket’s ability to fly long-duration missions lasting several hours. The rocket’s cryogenic upper stage, with a restartable Vinci engine, took nearly four hours to inject two Galileo navigation satellites into an orbit more than 14,000 miles (nearly 23,000 kilometers) above the Earth. The flight profile put more stress on the Ariane 6 upper stage than any of the rocket’s previous missions, but the rocket released its payloads into an on-target orbit. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

ESA wants to do more with Ariane 6’s kick stage. The European Space Agency plans to adapt a contract awarded to ArianeGroup in 2021 for an Ariane 6 kick stage to cover its evolution into an orbital transfer vehicle, European Spaceflight reports. The original contract was for the development of the Ariane 6’s Astris kick stage, an optional addition for Ariane 6 missions to deploy payloads into multiple orbits or directly inject satellites into geostationary orbit. Last month, ESA’s member states committed approximately 100 million euros ($117 million) to refocus the Astris kick stage into a more capable Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV).

Strong support from Germany… ESA’s director of space transportation, Toni Tolker-Nielsen, said the performance of the Ariane 6 OTV will be “well beyond” that of the originally conceived Astris kick stage. The funding commitment obtained during last month’s ESA ministerial council meeting includes strong support from Germany, Tolker-Nielsen said. Under the new timeline, a protoflight mode of the OTV is expected to be ready for ground qualification by the end of 2028, with an inaugural flight following in 2029. (submitted EllPeaTea)

Another Starship clone in China. Every other week, it seems, a new Chinese launch company pops up with a rocket design and a plan to reach orbit within a few years. For a long time, the majority of these companies revealed designs that looked a lot like SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Now, Chinese companies are starting to introduce designs that appear quite similar to SpaceX’s newer, larger Starship rocket, Ars reports. The newest entry comes from a company called “Beijing Leading Rocket Technology.” This outfit took things a step further by naming its vehicle “Starship-1,” adding that the new rocket will have enhancements from AI and is billed as being a “fully reusable AI rocket.”

Starship prime… China has a long history of copying SpaceX. The country’s first class of reusable rockets, which began flying earlier this month, show strong similarities to the Falcon 9 rocket. Now, it’s Starship. The trend began with the Chinese government. In November 2024, the government announced a significant shift in the design of its super-heavy lift rocket, the Long March 9. Instead of the previous design, a fully expendable rocket with three stages and solid rocket boosters strapped to the sides, the country’s state-owned rocket maker revealed a vehicle that mimicked SpaceX’s fully reusable Starship. At least two more companies have announced plans for Starship-like rockets using SpaceX’s chopstick-style method for booster recovery. Many of these launch startups will not grow past the PowerPoint phase, of course.

Next three launches

Dec. 19: Hanbit-Nano | Spaceward | Alcântara Launch Center, Brazil | 18: 45 UTC

Dec. 20: Long March 5 | Unknown Payload | Wenchang Space Launch Site, China | 12: 30 UTC

Dec. 20: New Shepard | NS-37 crew mission | Launch Site One, Texas | 14: 00 UTC

Rocket Report: Russia pledges quick fix for Soyuz launch pad; Ariane 6 aims high Read More »

Rocket Report: Neutron’s Hungry Hippo is deemed ready, whither Orbex?

rocket report, Space / Kelly Newman / December 13, 2025

All the news that’s fit to lift

“That is the moment an IPO suddenly came into play.”

Rocket Lab has completed qualification testing of its “Hungry Hippo” payload fairing. Credit: Rocket Lab

Welcome to Edition 8.22 of the Rocket Report! The big news this week concerns the decision by SpaceX founder Elon Musk to take the company public, via IPO, sometime within the next 12 to 18 months. Musk confirmed this after Ars published a story on Wednesday evening. This understandably raises questions about whether a future SpaceX will be committed more to AI data centers in space or Mars settlement. However, one of the company’s founding employees, Tom Mueller, said this could benefit the company’s Mars plans. Clearly this is something we’ll be following closely.

Avio will build solid rocket motors in Virginia. The governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, announced Wednesday that Avio USA has selected his state to produce solid rocket motors for defense and commercial space propulsion purposes. Avio USA’s investment, which will be up to $500 million, is supported by its Italian parent Avio. The company’s factory will encompass 860,000 sq. feet.

From Italy with love … “Avio looks forward to establishing on U.S. soil a solid rocket motor production facility to contribute in strengthening the US industrial base by providing decades of experience in engineering and manufacturing,” said Avio Chief Executive Officer Giulio Ranzo. Final approvals and the site-selection announcement are expected to be completed early next year.

Orbex funding lags in European Launcher Challenge. One of the five launch companies in ESA’s European Launcher Challenge, Orbex, received far less funding than the other four at the agency’s ministerial conference after the United Kingdom deferred a decision on how to allocate most of its contribution. Unlike typical ESA programs, in which members contribute funds with the expectation of receiving contracts proportional to their investments, the launcher challenge allowed member states to choose among five “preselected challengers,” Space News reports.

Orbex not in prime position … Those companies were chosen in July based on technical and business maturity, and each could receive up to 169 million euros. They were: Isar Aerospace, MaiaSpace, Orbex, PLD Space, and Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA). Isar, MaiaSpace, PLD Space, and RFA each received at least 169 million euros, while Orbex received just 34.9 million euros. The UK left 112.3 million euros unallocated, a move that puzzled many industry observers. “We are working with multiple partners to ensure this funding delivers our requirements for assured access to space and benefits U.K. taxpayers,” a UK Space Agency spokesperson said. This was not exactly a ringing endorsement of the UK-based launch company. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

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Europe takes a tentative step toward crewed launch. The European Space Agency has published a call for tenders to develop a launch abort system for a future crewed launch capability, European Spaceflight reports. The system would be used in the event of an emergency, either on the launch pad or during the initial stages of flight.

Looking beyond ISS … The new call is part of the European agency’s post-ISS low-Earth orbit strategy. This strategy, the material explains, includes the development of an end-to-end European crewed flight solution. In addition to developing a crewed launch capability, the agency’s post-ISS strategy includes options for low-Earth orbit infrastructure. These options include partnering with a commercial space station or building a European station. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

After Russian launch incident, NASA brings Dragon launches forward. With a key Russian launch pad out of service, NASA is accelerating the launch of two Cargo Dragon spaceships in order to ensure that astronauts on board the International Space Station have all the supplies they need next year, Ars reports. According to the space agency’s internal schedule, the next Dragon supply mission, CRS-34, is moving forward one month, from June 2026 to May. And the next Dragon supply mission after this, CRS-35, has been advanced three months, from November to August.

NET April for pad repairs … A source indicated that the changing schedules are a “direct result” of a launch pad incident on Thanksgiving Day at the Russian spaceport in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The issue occurred when a Soyuz rocket launched Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, as well as NASA astronaut Christopher Williams, on an eight-month mission to the International Space Station. The rocket had no difficulties, but a large mobile platform below the rocket was not properly secured prior to the launch and crashed into the flame trench below, taking the Soyuz pad offline. Russia has told NASA it will require at least four months to repair the pad.

Rocket Lab completes Neutron fairing test. Rocket Lab announced Monday that the Neutron rocket’s innovative “Hungry Hippo” captive fairing has successfully completed qualification testing and is en route to Virginia for Neutron’s first launch. Whereas typical rockets’ fairing halves fall away during launch and are disposable or require collection at sea for reuse, Neutron’s fairing halves open to release the rocket’s second stage and mission payload before closing again to return Neutron to Earth as a single reusable vehicle.

Gobbling marbles … To qualify the Hungry Hippo fairing for Neutron’s first launch, Rocket Lab completed an intensive qualification and acceptance testing campaign that validated the structure’s expected performance during the intense aerodynamic pressure of launch and re-entry featuring full-scale tests as well as a series of sub-component tests. “Building, qualifying, and shipping Hungry Hippo is a fantastic marker of progress toward Neutron’s first launch, and I’m proud of the team for their attention to detail and pulling off this significant milestone,” said Shaun D’Mello, the company’s vice president overseeing Neutron.

Terran R flight tanks assembled. Relativity Space has gone largely silent since being taken over by former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, but the company still provides monthly updates online. On Tuesday the company published its November 2025 update and revealed that progress is being made on flight hardware for the debut launch of the large Terran R rocket. Relativity has not announced a new launch target yet.

More work to be done … “In November, the team completed all circumferential friction stir welds for the first stage tank for first flight,” the company said. “Measuring 163 feet (49.7 meters) in length, the tank is composed of eight barrel sections and three domes, joined by ten circumferential welds. The tank will now move into integration. With both the first and second stage tanks finished, focus has shifted to the interstage.”

Veteran Falcon 9 booster extends record. SpaceX achieved a couple notable milestones with its Falcon 9 rocket launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Monday, December 8, Spaceflight Now reports. The mission, dubbed Starlink 6-92, featured the use of the company’s most-flown Falcon booster, tail number B1067. On its 32nd flight, it delivered SpaceX’s 3,000th Starlink satellite of the year to low-Earth orbit.

How is your payload fairing? … The use of B1067 on this mission brings SpaceX one step closer to its current goal of certifying its Falcon boosters for up to 40 missions a piece. The ultimate number of missions a booster flies will partially depend on the types of missions for which it was used and if it is needed on an expendable flight. SpaceX is looking to achieve the same level of reuse for the payload fairings on a Falcon rocket’s upper stage, but typically only provides updates on those during the launches of customer missions for the government or from other companies.

SpaceX likely to IPO next year to fund ambitions. SpaceX is planning to raise tens of billions of dollars through an initial public offering next year, and this represents a major change in thinking from the world’s leading space company and its founder, Elon Musk. The question is, why? He has not enjoyed the public scrutiny of Tesla, and feared that shareholder desires for financial return were not consistent with his ultimate goal of settling Mars. Ars attempts to answer this question by speaking to a number of people familiar with Musk’s thinking.

The short-term answer is data centers … Abhi Tripathi, a long-time SpaceX employee, believes that once Musk realized Starlink satellites could be architected into a distributed network of data centers, the writing was on the wall. “That is the moment an IPO suddenly came into play after being unlikely for so long. Much of the AI race comes down to amassing and deploying assets that work quicker than your competition. A large war chest resulting from an IPO will greatly help his cause and disadvantage all others.” Foremost among Musk’s goals right now is to “win” the battle for artificial intelligence. Taking SpaceX public and using it to marshal an incredible amount of resources shows he is playing to win.

New Glenn targets a four-launch certification. Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket will have to complete four successful orbital flights as its pathway to certification under the US Space Force’s National Security Space Launch program, Space News reports. Gen. Philip Garrant, who leads the Space Systems Command, said Blue Origin selected the four-flight benchmark and the government agreed.

And then there were three? … “The government is supporting a four-flight certification for New Glenn,” Garrant said. The rocket has logged two successful missions so far, and Garrant said a third launch is expected “earlier in the new year than later.” If upcoming flights stay on track, he added, “I think they’re going to be in a fantastic place to become our third certified provider and compete for missions.” If certified, Blue Origin would join SpaceX and United Launch Alliance as the Space Force’s third heavy-lift launch provider. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Next three launches

December 13: Long March 6 | Unknown Payload | Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, China | 01: 05 UTC

December 14: Electron | RAISE and Shine | Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand | 03: 00 UTC

December 14: Falcon 9 | Starlink 15-12 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 05: 20 UTC

Rocket Report: Neutron’s Hungry Hippo is deemed ready, whither Orbex? Read More »

Rocket Report: Blunder at Baikonur; do launchers really need rocket engines?

isar aerospace, launch, openai, rocket report, Science, South Korea, Space, spacex, starship, stoke space, vega c / Kelly Newman / December 5, 2025

The Department of the Air Force approves a new home in Florida for SpaceX’s Starship.

South Korea’s Nuri 1 rocket is lifted vertical on its launch pad in this multi-exposure photo. Credit: Korea Aerospace Research Institute

Welcome to Edition 8.21 of the Rocket Report! We’re back after the Thanksgiving holiday with more launch news. Most of the big stories over the last couple of weeks came from abroad. Russian rockets and launch pads didn’t fare so well. China’s launch industry celebrated several key missions. SpaceX was busy, too, with seven launches over the last two weeks, six of them carrying more Starlink Internet satellites into orbit. We expect between 15 and 20 more orbital launch attempts worldwide before the end of the year.

Another Sarmat failure. A Russian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fired from an underground silo on the country’s southern steppe on November 28 on a scheduled test to deliver a dummy warhead to a remote impact zone nearly 4,000 miles away. The missile didn’t even make it 4,000 feet, Ars reports. Russia’s military has been silent on the accident, but the missile’s crash was seen and heard for miles around the Dombarovsky air base in Orenburg Oblast near the Russian-Kazakh border. A video posted by the Russian blog site MilitaryRussia.ru on Telegram and widely shared on other social media platforms showed the missile veering off course immediately after launch before cartwheeling upside down, losing power, and then crashing a short distance from the launch site.

An unenviable track record … Analysts say the circumstances of the launch suggest it was likely a test of Russia’s RS-28 Sarmat missile, a weapon designed to reach targets more than 11,000 miles (18,000 kilometers) away, making it the world’s longest-range missile. The Sarmat missile is Russia’s next-generation heavy-duty ICBM, capable of carrying a payload of up to 10 large nuclear warheads, a combination of warheads and countermeasures, or hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Simply put, the Sarmat is a doomsday weapon designed for use in an all-out nuclear war between Russia and the United States. The missile’s first full-scale test flight in 2022 apparently went well, but the program has suffered a string of consecutive failures since then, most notably a catastrophic explosion last year that destroyed the Sarmat missile’s underground silo in northern Russia.

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ESA fills its coffers for launcher challenge. The European Space Agency’s (ESA) European Launcher Challenge received a significant financial commitment from its member states during the agency’s Ministerial Council meeting last week, European Spaceflight reports. The challenge is designed to support emerging European rocket companies while giving ESA and other European satellite operators more options to compete with the continent’s sole operational launch provider, Arianespace. Through the program, ESA will purchase launch services and co-fund capacity upgrades with the winners. ESA member states committed 902 million euros, or $1.05 billion, to the program at the recent Ministerial Council meeting.

Preselecting the competitors … In July, ESA selected two German companies—Isar Aerospace and Rocket Factory Augsburg—along with Spain’s PLD Space, France’s MaiaSpace, and the UK’s Orbex to proceed with the initiative’s next phase. ESA then negotiated with the governments of each company’s home country to raise money to support the effort. Germany, with two companies on the shortlist, is unsurprisingly a large contributor to the program, committing more than 40 percent of the total budget. France contributed nearly 20 percent, Spain funded nearly 19 percent, and the UK committed nearly 16 percent. Norway paid for 3 percent of the launcher challenge’s budget. Denmark, Portugal, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic contributed smaller amounts.

Europe at the service of South Korea. South Korea’s latest Earth observation satellite was delivered into a Sun-synchronous orbit Monday afternoon following a launch onboard a Vega C rocket by Arianespace, Spaceflight Now reports. The Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite-7 (Kompsat-7) mission launched from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana. About 44 minutes after liftoff, the Kompsat-7 satellite was deployed into SSO at an altitude of 358 miles (576 kilometers). “By launching the Kompsat-7 satellite, set to significantly enhance South Korea’s Earth observation capabilities, Arianespace is proud to support an ambitious national space program,” said David Cavaillolès, CEO of Arianespace, in a statement.

Something of a rarity … The launch of Kompsat-7 is something of a rarity for Arianespace, which has dominated the international commercial launch market. It’s the first time in more than two years that a satellite for a customer outside Europe has been launched by Arianespace. The backlog for the light-class Vega C rocket is almost exclusively filled with payloads for the European Space Agency, the European Commission, or national governments in Europe. Arianespace’s larger Ariane 6 rocket has 18 launches reserved for the US-based Amazon Leo broadband network. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

South Korea’s homemade rocket flies again. South Korea’s homegrown space rocket Nuri took off from Naro Space Center on November 27 with the CAS500-3 technology demonstration and Earth observation satellite, along with 12 smaller CubeSat rideshare payloads, Yonhap News Agency reports. The 200-ton Nuri rocket debuted in 2021, when it failed to reach orbit on a test flight. Since then, the rocket has successfully reached orbit three times. This mission marked the first time for Hanwha Aerospace to oversee the entire assembly process as part of the government’s long-term plan to hand over space technologies to the private sector. The fifth and sixth launches of the Nuri rocket are planned in 2026 and 2027.

Powered by jet fuel … The Nuri rocket has three stages, each with engines burning Jet A-1 fuel and liquid oxygen. The fuel choice is unusual for rockets, with highly refined RP-1 kerosene or methane being more popular among hydrocarbon fuels. The engines are manufactured by Hanwha Aerospace. The fully assembled rocket stands about 155 feet (47.2 meters) tall and can deliver up to 3,300 pounds (1.5 metric tons) of payload into a polar Sun-synchronous orbit.

Hyundai eyes rocket engine. Meanwhile, South Korea’s space sector is looking to the future. Another company best known for making cars has started a venture in the rocket business. Hyundai Rotem, a member of Hyundai Motor Group, announced a joint program with Korean Air’s Aerospace Division (KAL-ASD) to develop a 35-ton-class reusable methane rocket engine for future launch vehicles. The effort is funded with KRW49 billion ($33 million) from the Korea Research Institute for Defense Technology Planning and Advancement (KRIT).

By the end of the decade … The government-backed program aims to develop the engine by the end of 2030. Hyundai Rotem will lead the engine’s planning and design, while Korean Air, the nation’s largest air carrier, will lead development of the engine’s turbopump. “Hyundai Rotem began developing methane engines in 1994 and has steadily advanced its methane engine technology, achieving Korea’s first successful combustion test in 2006,” Hyundai Rotem said in a statement. “Furthermore, this project is expected to secure the technological foundation for the commercialization of methane engines for reusable space launch vehicles and lay the groundwork for targeting the global space launch vehicle market.”

But who needs rocket engines? Moonshot Space, based in Israel, announced Monday that it has secured $12 million in funding to continue the development of a launch system—powered not by chemical propulsion, but electromagnetism, Payload reports. Moonshot plans to sell other aerospace and defense companies the tech as a hypersonic test platform, while at the same time building to eventually offer orbital launch services. Instead of conventional rocket engines, the system would use a series of electromagnetic coils to power a hardened capsule to hypersonic velocities. The architecture has a downside: extremely high accelerations that could damage or destroy normal satellites. Instead, Moonshot wants to use the technology to send raw materials to orbit, lowering the input costs of the budding in-space servicing, refueling, and manufacturing industries, according to Payload.

Out of the shadows … Moonshot Space emerged from stealth mode with this week’s fundraising announcement. The company’s near-term focus is on building a scaled-down electromagnetic accelerator capable of reaching Mach 6. A larger system would be required to reach orbital velocity. The company’s CEO is the former director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Science, while its chief engineer was the former chief systems engineer for David’s Sling, a critical part of Israel’s missile defense system. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

A blunder at Baikonur. A Soyuz rocket launched on November 27 carrying Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, as well as NASA astronaut Christopher Williams, for an eight-month mission to the International Space Station. The trio of astronauts arrived at the orbiting laboratory without incident. However, on the ground, there was a serious problem during the launch with the ground systems that support processing of the vehicle before liftoff at Site 31, located at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Ars reports. Roscosmos downplayed the incident, saying only, in passive voice, that “damage to several launch pad components was identified” following the launch.

Repairs needed … However, video imagery of the launch site after liftoff showed substantial damage, with a large service platform appearing to have fallen into the flame trench below the launch table. According to one source, this is a platform located beneath the rocket, where workers can access the vehicle before liftoff. It has a mass of about 20 metric tons and was apparently not secured prior to launch, and the thrust of the vehicle ejected it into the flame trench. “There is significant damage to the pad,” said this source. The damage could throw a wrench into Russia’s ability to launch crews and cargo to the International Space Station. This Soyuz launch pad at Baikonur is the only one outfitted to support such missions.

China’s LandSpace almost landed a rocket. China’s first attempt to land an orbital-class rocket may have ended in a fiery crash, but the company responsible for the mission had a lot to celebrate with the first flight of its new methane-fueled launcher, Ars reports. LandSpace, a decade-old company based in Beijing, launched its new Zhuque-3 rocket for the first time Tuesday (US time) at the Jiuquan launch site in northwestern China. The upper stage of the medium-lift rocket successfully reached orbit. This alone is a remarkable achievement for a new rocket. But LandSpace had other goals for this launch. The Zhuque-3, or ZQ-3, booster stage is architected for recovery and reuse, the first rocket in China with such a design. The booster survived reentry and was seconds away from a pinpoint landing when something went wrong during its landing burn, resulting in a high-speed crash at the landing zone in the Gobi Desert.

Let the games begin … LandSpace got closer to landing an orbital-class booster than any other company on their first try. While LandSpace prepares for a second launch, several more Chinese companies are close to debuting their own reusable rockets. The next of these new rockets, the Long March 12A, is awaiting its first liftoff later this month from another launch pad at the Jiuquan spaceport. The Long March 12A comes from one of China’s established rocket developers, the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST), part of the country’s state-owned aerospace enterprise.

China launches a lifeboat. An unpiloted Chinese spacecraft launched on November 24 (US time) and linked with the country’s Tiangong space station a few hours later, providing a lifeboat for three astronauts stuck in orbit without a safe ride home, Ars reports. A Long March 2F rocket lifted off with the Shenzhou 22 spacecraft, carrying cargo instead of a crew. The spacecraft docked with the Tiangong station nearly 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the Earth about three-and-a-half hours later. Shenzhou 22 will provide a ride home next year for three Chinese astronauts. Engineers deemed their primary lifeboat unsafe after finding a cracked window, likely from an impact with a tiny piece of space junk.

In record time … Chinese engineers worked fast to move up the launch of the Shenzhou 22, originally set to fly next year. The launch occurred just 16 days after officials decided they needed to send another spacecraft to the Tiangong station. Shenzhou 22 and its rocket were already in standby at the launch site, but teams had to fuel the spacecraft and complete assembly of the rocket, then roll the vehicle to the launch pad for final countdown preps. The rapid turnaround offers a “successful example for efficient emergency response in the international space industry,” the China Manned Space Agency said. “It vividly embodies the spirit of manned spaceflight: exceptionally hardworking, exceptionally capable, exceptionally resilient, and exceptionally dedicated.”

Another big name flirts with the launch industry. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has explored putting together funds to either acquire or partner with a rocket company, a move that would position him to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the Wall Street Journal reports. Altman reached out to at least one rocket maker, Stoke Space, in the summer, and the discussions picked up in the fall, according to people familiar with the talks. Among the proposals was for OpenAI to make a multibillion-dollar series of equity investments in the company and end up with a controlling stake. The talks are no longer active, people close to OpenAI told the Journal.

Here’s the reason … Altman has been interested in building data centers in space for some time, the Journal reports, suggesting that the insatiable demand for computing resources to power artificial-intelligence systems eventually could require so much power that the environmental consequences would make space a better option. Orbital data centers would allow companies to harness the power of the Sun to operate them. Alphabet’s Google is pursuing a similar concept in partnership with satellite operator Planet Labs. Jeff Bezos and Musk himself have also expressed interest in the idea. Outside of SpaceX and Blue Origin, Stoke Space seems to be a natural partner for such a project because it is one of the few companies developing a fully reusable rocket.

SpaceX gets green light for new Florida launch pad. SpaceX has the OK to build out what will be the primary launch hub on the Space Coast for its Starship and Super Heavy rocket, the most powerful launch vehicle in history, the Orlando Sentinel reports. The Department of the Air Force announced Monday it had approved SpaceX to move forward with the construction of a pair of launch pads at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37). A “record of decision” on the Environmental Impact Statement required under the National Environmental Policy Act for the proposed Canaveral site was posted to the Air Force’s website, marking the conclusion of what has been a nearly two-year approval process.

Get those Starships ready … SpaceX plans to build two launch towers at SLC-37 to augment the single tower under construction at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, just a few miles to the north. The three pads combined could support up to 120 launches per year. The Air Force’s final approval was expected after it released a draft Environmental Impact Statement earlier this year, suggesting the Starship pads at SLC-37 would have no significant negative impacts on local environmental, historical, social, and cultural interests. The Air Force also found SpaceX’s plans at SLC-37, formerly leased by United Launch Alliance, will have no significant impact on the company’s competitors in the launch industry. SpaceX also has two launch towers at its Starbase facility in South Texas.

Next three launches

Dec. 5: Kuaizhou 1A | Unknown Payload | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China | 09: 00 UTC

Dec. 6: Hyperbola 1 | Unknown Payload | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China | 04: 00 UTC

Dec. 6: Long March 8A | Unknown Payload | Wenchang Space Launch Site, China | 07: 50 UTC

Rocket Report: Blunder at Baikonur; do launchers really need rocket engines? Read More »

Rocket Report: SpaceX’s next-gen booster fails; Pegasus will fly again

atlas v, blue origin, china, falcon 9, long march 2f, new glenn, Northrop Grumman, pythom, rocket lab, rocket report, saab, Science, shenzhou, Space, spacex, starship, super heavy, united launch alliance / Mike M. / November 21, 2025

With the government shutdown over, the FAA has lifted its daytime launch curfew.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn booster arrives at Port Canaveral, Florida, for the first time Tuesday aboard the “Jacklyn” landing vessel. Credit: Manuel Mazzanti/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Welcome to Edition 8.20 of the Rocket Report! For the second week in a row, Blue Origin dominated the headlines with news about its New Glenn rocket. After a stunning success November 13 with the launch and landing of the second New Glenn rocket, Jeff Bezos’ space company revealed a roadmap this week showing how engineers will supercharge the vehicle with more engines. Meanwhile, in South Texas, SpaceX took a step toward the first flight of the next-generation Starship rocket. There will be no Rocket Report next week due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. We look forward to resuming delivery of all the news in space lift the first week of December.

Northrop’s Pegasus rocket wins a rare contract. A startup named Katalyst Space Technologies won a $30 million contract from NASA in August to build a robotic rescue mission for the agency’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory in low-Earth orbit. Swift, in space since 2004, is a unique instrument designed to study gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the Universe. The spacecraft lacks a propulsion system and its orbit is subject to atmospheric drag, and NASA says it is “racing against the clock” to boost Swift’s orbit and extend its lifetime before it falls back to Earth. On Wednesday, Katalyst announced it selected Northrop Grumman’s air-launched Pegasus XL rocket to send the rescue craft into orbit next year.

Make this make sense … At first glance, this might seem like a surprise. The Pegasus XL rocket hasn’t flown since 2021 and has launched just once in the last six years. The solid-fueled rocket is carried aloft under the belly of a modified airliner, then released to fire payloads of up to 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms) into low-Earth orbit. It’s an expensive rocket for its size, with Northrop charging more than $25 million per launch, according to the most recent public data available; the satellites best suited to launch on Pegasus will now find much cheaper tickets to orbit on rideshare missions using SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. There are a few reasons none of this mattered much to Katalyst. First, the rescue mission must launch into a very specific low-inclination orbit to rendezvous with the Swift observatory, so it won’t be able to join one of SpaceX’s rideshare missions. Second, Northrop Grumman has parts available for one more Pegasus XL rocket, and the company might have been willing to sell the launch at a discount to clear its inventory and retire the rocket’s expensive-to-maintain L-1011 carrier aircraft. And third, smaller rockets like Rocket Lab’s Electron or Firefly’s Alpha don’t quite have the performance to place Katalyst’s rescue mission into the required orbit. (submitted by gizmo23)

Sign Me Up!

Ursa Major rakes in more cash. Aerospace and defense startup Ursa Major Technologies landed a $600 million valuation in a new fundraising round, the latest sign that investors are willing to back companies developing new rocket technology, Bloomberg reports. Colorado-based Ursa Major closed its Series E fundraising round with investments from the venture capital firms Eclipse, Woodline Partners, Principia Growth, XN, and Alsop Louie Partners. The company also secured $50 million in debt financing. Ursa Major is best known as a supplier of liquid-fueled rocket engines and solid rocket motors to power a range of commercial and government vehicles.

Hypersonic tailwinds … Ursa Major says it is positioned to provide the US industrial base with propulsion systems faster and more affordably than legacy contractors can supply. “The company will rapidly field its throttleable, storable, liquid-fueled hypersonic and space-based defense solution, as well as scale its solid rocket motor and sustained space mobility manufacturing capacity,” Ursa Major said in a press release. Its customers include BAE Systems, which will use Ursa Major’s solid rocket motors to power tactical military-grade rockets, and Stratolaunch, which uses Ursa Major’s liquid-fueled Hadley engine for its hypersonic Talon-A spaceplane.

Rocket Lab celebrates two launches in 48 hours. Rocket Lab launched a payload for an undisclosed commercial customer Thursday, just hours after the company announced plans for the launch, Space News reports. The launch from Rocket Lab’s primary spaceport in New Zealand used the company’s Electron rocket, but officials released little more information on the mission, other than its nickname: “Follow My Speed.” An artist’s illustration on the mission patch indicated the payload might have been the next in a line of Earth-imaging satellites from the remote sensing company BlackSky, although the firm’s previous satellites have not launched with such secrecy.

Two hemispheres … Thursday’s launch from the Southern Hemisphere came just two days after Rocket Lab’s previous mission lifted off from Wallops Island, Virginia. That flight was a suborbital launch to support a hypersonic technology demonstration for the Defense Innovation Unit and the Missile Defense Agency. All told, Rocket Lab has now launched 18 Electron rockets this year with 100 percent mission success, a company record.

Spanish startup makes a big reveal. The Spanish company PLD Space released photos of a test version of its Miura 5 rocket Thursday, calling it a “decisive step forward in the orbital launcher validation campaign.” The full-scale qualification unit, called QM1, will allow engineers to complete subsystem testing under “real conditions” to ensure the rocket’s reliability before its first mission scheduled for 2026. The first stage of the qualification unit will undergo a full propellant loading test, while the second stage will undergo a destructive test in the United States to validate the rocket’s range safety destruct system. Miura 5 is designed to deliver a little more than a metric ton (2,200 pounds) of payload to low-Earth orbit.

Still a long way to go … “Presenting our first integrated Miura 5 unit is proof that our model works: vertical integration, proprietary infrastructure and a philosophy based on testing, learning, and improving,” said Raúl Torres, CEO and co-founder of PLD Space. The reveal, however, is just the first step in a qualification campaign that takes more than a year for most rocket companies. PLD Space aims to go much faster, with plans to complete a second qualification rocket by the end of December and unveil its first flight rocket in the first quarter of next year. “This unprecedented development cadence in Europe reinforces PLD Space’s position as the company that has developed an orbital launcher in the shortest time–just two years–whilst meeting the highest quality standards,” the company said in a statement. This would be a remarkable achievement, but history suggests PLD Space has a steep climb in the months ahead. (submitted by Leika and EllPeaTea)

Sweden digs deep in pursuit of sovereign launch. In an unsettled world, many nations are eager to develop homegrown rockets to place their own satellites into orbit. These up-and-coming spacefaring nations see it as a strategic imperative to break free from total reliance on space powers like Russia, China, and the United States. Still, some decisions are puzzling. This week, the Swedish aerospace and defense contractor Saab announced a $10 million investment in a company named Pythom. If you’re not familiar with this business, allow me to link back to a 2022 story published by Ars about Pythom’s questionable safety practices. The company has kept quiet since then, until the name surprisingly popped up again in a press release from Saab, a firm with a reputation that seems to be diametrically opposed to that of Pythom.

Just enough … The statement from Saab suggests its $10 million contribution to Pythom will make it the “lead investor” in the company’s recent funding round. Pythom hasn’t said anything more about this funding round, but Saab said the investment will accelerate Pythom’s “development and deployment of its launch systems,” which include an initial rocket capable of putting up to 330 pounds (150 kilograms) of payload into low-Earth orbit. $10 million may be just enough to keep Pythom afloat for a couple more years but is far less than the money Pythom would need to get serious about fielding an orbital launcher. Pythom is headquartered in California, but it has Swedish roots. It was founded by the Swedish married couple Tina and Tom Sjögren. The company has a couple dozen employees, and a handful of them are based in Sweden, according to Pythom’s website. (submitted by Leika and EllPeaTea)

China is about to launch an astronaut lifeboat. China is set to launch an uncrewed Shenzhou spacecraft to the Tiangong space station to provide the Shenzhou 21 astronauts with a means of returning home, Space News reports. The launch of China’s Shenzhou 22 mission is scheduled for Monday night, US time, aboard a Long March 2F rocket. Instead of carrying astronauts, the ship will ferry cargo to the Chinese Tiangong space station. More importantly, it will provide a safe ride home for the three astronauts living and working aboard the orbiting outpost.

How did we get here? … The Shenzhou 20 spacecraft currently docked to the Tiangong station was damaged by a suspected piece of space junk, cracking its window and rendering it unable to meet China’s safety standards for returning astronauts to Earth. The damage discovery occurred just before three outgoing crew members were supposed to ride Shenzhou 20 home earlier this month. Instead, those three astronauts departed the station and returned to Earth on the newer, undamaged Shenzhou 21 spacecraft. That left the other three crew members on Tiangong with only the damaged Shenzhou 20 spacecraft to get them home in the event of an emergency. Shenzhou 22 will replace Shenzhou 20, providing a lifeboat for the rest of the crew’s six-month stay in space. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Atlas V launches for Viasat. United Launch Alliance launched its Atlas V rocket on November 13 with a satellite for the California-based communications company Viasat, Spaceflight Now reports. The launch came a week after the mission was scrubbed due to a faulty liquid oxygen tank vent valve on the Atlas booster. ULA rolled the rocket back to the Vertical Integration Facility, replaced it with a new valve, and returned the rocket to the pad on November 12. The launch the following day was successful, with the Atlas V’s Centaur upper stage deploying the ViaSat-3 F2 spacecraft into a geosynchronous transfer orbit nearly three-and-a-half hours after liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

End of an era … This was the final launch of an Atlas V rocket with a payload heading for geosynchronous orbit. These are the kinds of missions the Atlas V was designed for more than 25 years ago, but the market has changed. All of the Atlas V’s remaining 11 missions will target low-Earth orbit carrying broadband satellites for Amazon or Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft heading for the International Space Station. The Atlas V will be retired in the coming years in favor of ULA’s new Vulcan rocket.

SpaceX launches key climate change monitor. SpaceX launched a joint NASA-European environmental research satellite early Monday, the second in an ongoing billion-dollar project to measure long-term changes in sea level, a key indicator of climate change, CBS News reports. The first satellite, known as Sentinel-6 and named in honor of NASA climate researcher Michael Freilich, was launched in November 2020. The latest spacecraft, Sentinel-6B, was launched from California atop a Falcon 9 rocket this week. Both satellites are equipped with a sophisticated cloud-penetrating radar. By timing how long it takes beams to bounce back from the ocean 830 miles (1,336 kilometers) below, the Sentinel-6 satellites can track sea levels to an accuracy of about one inch while also measuring wave height and wind speeds. The project builds on earlier missions dating back to the early 1990s that have provided an uninterrupted stream of sea level data.

FAA restrictions lifted … The Federal Aviation Administration lifted a restriction on commercial space operations this week that limited launches and reentries to the late night and early morning hours, Spaceflight Now reports. The FAA imposed a daytime curfew on commercial launches as it struggled to maintain air traffic control during the recent government shutdown. Those restrictions, which did not affect government missions, were lifted Monday. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Blue Origin’s New Glenn will grow larger. One week after the successful second launch of its large New Glenn booster, Blue Origin revealed a road map on Thursday for upgrades to the rocket, including a new variant with more main engines and a super-heavy lift capability, Ars reports. These upgrades to the rocket are “designed to increase payload performance and launch cadence, while enhancing reliability,” the company said in an update published on its website. The enhancements will be phased in over time, starting with the third launch of New Glenn, which is likely to occur during the first half of 2026.

No timelines … The most significant part of the update concerned an evolution of New Glenn that will transform the booster into a super-heavy lift launch vehicle. The first stage of this evolved vehicle will have nine BE-4 engines instead of seven, and the upper stage will have four BE-3U engines instead of two. In its update, Blue Origin refers to the new vehicle as 9×4 and the current variant as 7×2, a reference to the number of engines in each stage. “New Glenn 9×4 is designed for a subset of missions requiring additional capacity and performance,” the company said. “The vehicle carries over 70 metric tons to low-Earth orbit, over 14 metric tons direct to geosynchronous orbit, and over 20 metric tons to trans-lunar injection. Additionally, the 9×4 vehicle will feature a larger 8.7-meter fairing.” The company did not specify a timeline for the debut of the 9×4 variant. A spokesperson for the company told Ars, “We aren’t disclosing a specific timeframe today. The iterative design from our current 7×2 vehicle means we can build this rocket quickly.”

Recently landed New Glenn returns to port. Blue Origin welcomed “Never Tell Me the Odds” back to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, on Thursday, where the rocket booster launched exactly one week prior, Florida Today reports. The New Glenn’s first stage booster landed on Blue Origin’s offshore recovery barge, which returned it to Port Canaveral on Tuesday with great fanfare. Blue Origin’s founder, Jeff Bezos, rode the barge into port, posing for photos with the rocket and waving to onlookers viewing the spectacle from a nearby public pier. The rocket was lowered horizontally late Wednesday morning, as spectators watched alongside the restaurants and fishing boats at the port.

Through the gates … Officials from Blue Origin guided the 188-foot-long New Glenn booster to the Space Force station Thursday, making Blue Origin the only company besides SpaceX to return a space-flown booster through the gates. Once back at Blue Origin’s hangar, the rocket will undergo inspections and refurbishment for a second flight, perhaps early next year. “I could not be more excited to see the New Glenn launch, and Blue Origin recover that booster and bring it back,” Col. Brian Chatman, commander of Space Launch Delta 45, told Florida Today. “It’s all part of our certification process and campaign to certify more national security space launch providers, launch carriers, to get our most crucial satellites up on orbit.”

Meanwhile, down at Starbase. SpaceX rolled the first of its third-generation Super Heavy boosters out of the factory at Starbase, Texas, this week for a road trip to a nearby test site, according to NASASpaceflight.com. The booster rode SpaceX’s transporter from the factory a few miles down the road to Massey’s Test Site, where technicians prepared the rocket for cryogenic proof testing. However, during the initial phases of testing, the booster failed early on Friday morning.

Tumbling down … At the Starship launch site, ground teams are busy tearing down the launch mount at Pad 1, the departure point for all of SpaceX’s Starships to date. SpaceX will upgrade the pad for its next-generation, more powerful Super Heavy boosters, while Starship V3’s initial flights will take off from Pad 2, a few hundred meters away from Pad 1.

Next three launches

Nov. 22: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-79 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 06: 59 UTC

Nov. 23: Falcon 9 | Starlink 11-30 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 08: 00 UTC

Nov. 25: Long March 2F | Shenzhou 22 | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China | 04: 11 UTC

Rocket Report: SpaceX’s next-gen booster fails; Pegasus will fly again Read More »

Rocket Report: Blue Origin’s stunning success; vive le Baguette One!

rocket report, Space / 9u50fv / November 14, 2025

“If NASA wants to go quicker, we would move heaven and Earth.”

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket takes flight on Thursday afternoon. Credit: Blue Origin

Welcome to Edition 8.19 of the Rocket Report! Thursday was a monumental day in launch history with Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket not just taking off successfully, but with the first stage masterfully returning to the surface of the ocean, hovering near the Jacklyn drone ship, and then making a landing in the center of the barge. It was fantastic to watch and cements our new reality of reusable rockets. The future of space access is very bright indeed.

Private Chinese rocket fails. Galactic Energy’s solid-fuel Ceres-1 rocket lifted off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Sunday, carrying three satellites toward low-Earth orbit. The rocket’s first three stages performed well, according to media reports, but its fourth and final stage shut down too early, leading to the loss of all three payloads, Space.com reports.

Sincerely sorry … Those payloads were two satellites for China’s Jilin-1 commercial Earth-observation constellation, as well as a craft developed by Zhongbei University. “We offer our sincerest apologies to the mission’s customer and to everyone who supports Galactic Energy,” the Beijing-based company said in a statement. The Ceres-1 can lift 400 kg of payload to low-Earth orbit and debuted in November 2020. It flew successfully nine times in a row before suffering a failure in September 2023. The Ceres-1 bounced back from that problem, notching 11 consecutive successes before Sunday night’s setback.

Avio makes deals with major US contractors. Italian aerospace propulsion firm Avio announced agreements with US defense contractors Raytheon and Lockheed Martin this week, granting each preferred access to solid rocket motors from its planned US manufacturing plant, Space News reports. The new facility is expected to be operational by early 2028, although Avio has not yet disclosed its location.

Surging global demand for missiles … Solid rocket motors are critical components that power many of the missiles and tactical weapons systems that both contractors produce, and both firms face rapidly increasing demand driven by ongoing conflicts globally. Avio said it plans to invest approximately $460 million to increase its manufacturing capacity, with most of that capital earmarked for the new US manufacturing facility.

Sign Me Up!

Spectrum rocket starts to take shape. German launch services provider Isar Aerospace said this week that the stages for the second flight of its Spectrum rocket have arrived at its launch facility in Norway, European Spaceflight reports. While brief, the update stated that the company is “gearing up for pre-flight testing.” The update did not include an expected launch date.

A fairly rapid turnaround … The arrival of new flight hardware follows the inaugural flight of the Spectrum rocket on March 30. Less than 30 seconds after liftoff, the rocket’s flight termination system was triggered, and the vehicle splashed down in the Norwegian Sea just meters from the launch pad, exploding on impact. Following an investigation, the company identified an unintended opening of the vent valve, together with a loss of attitude control at the start of the rocket’s roll maneuver, as the cause of the failure.

Nova Scotia launch may take place this month. The first rocket launch to reach the edge of space from Canada since 1998 could happen as soon as November 18 from Spaceport Nova Scotia, spaceQ reports. The launch will be conducted by T-Minus Engineering, which is seeking to test its suborbital Barracuda hypersonic test platform. The Barracuda rocket, according to the company, “is a single-stage, solid-fuel suborbital vehicle that stands approximately 4 meters tall. Barracuda can carry payloads of up to 40 kilograms to altitudes reaching 120 kilometers.”

Seeking to go higher from Nova Scotia … The only other launch to date from Spaceport Nova Scotia was a university launch by York University in July 2023, which reached an altitude of 13.4 km. The last rocket to launch from Canada and reach space was a Magellan Aerospace Black Brant IXB suborbital research rocket with scientific payloads from the University of Calgary. The ACTIVE mission, financed by the Canadian Space Agency, was launched from the Churchill Rocket Research Range, Manitoba, on April 28, 1998. It reached an apogee of 315.6 km.

Here comes the Baguette One. German space logistics company ATMOS Space Cargo has signed a memorandum of understanding with French launch services provider HyPrSpace to carry out a demonstration mission aboard its Baguette One rocket, European Spaceflight reports. Is this the best name for a rocket ever? Probably.

Raking in the dough … Founded in 2019, HyPrSpace is developing a suborbital demonstration rocket called Baguette One, slated for launch in 2026. The rocket will serve as a technology demonstrator to validate the company’s hybrid rocket engine for its OB1 (Orbital Baguette One) rocket. The mission will be launched from a DGA Essais de Missiles (DGA Missile Testing) site in the south of France.

Neutron debut slips into 2026. During an earnings call on Monday, Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck announced that the company’s medium-lift launch vehicle, Neutron, would not launch this year, Ars reports. Although Rocket Lab had been holding onto the possibility of launching Neutron this year publicly, it has been clear for months that a slip into 2026 was inevitable. The new timeline has the company bringing Neutron to Launch Complex 2 at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia during the first quarter of next year. The first launch is scheduled to occur “thereafter,” according to the company’s plans.

Following the Rocket Lab plan … Beck said Rocket Lab would not be rushed by an arbitrary deadline. “We’ve seen what happens when others rush to the pad with an unproven product, and we just refused to do that,” he said, referring to other commercial launch companies that have not had success with their first launches. “Our aim is to make it to orbit on the first try. You won’t see us using some qualifier about us just clearing the pad, and claiming success and whatnot, and that means that we don’t want to learn something during Neutron’s first flight that could be learned on the ground during the testing phase.”

Relativity and SES expand launch agreement. The California-based launch company and Luxembourg satellite company announced Wednesday an “extended multi-year, multi-launch services agreement” using Relativity’s Terran R rocket. The companies said they are partnering for multiple launches aboard Terran R, a medium-to-heavy-lift reusable launch vehicle, that will bring the selected SES satellites to their final orbital position.

No contracts just yet … The expanded agreement includes previously unannounced SES launches. With this new agreement, Relativity’s Terran R aims to provide SES with high performance, reliability, and affordable access to space. Terran R’s first launch is planned for late 2026 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It is important to note that launch agreements are not necessarily launch contracts. However, it is a good sign for Relativity that customers are showing some confidence in the large new rocket still in development.

Indian demo mission scheduled for January 2026. The Indian space agency, ISRO, now plans to launch an uncrewed demonstration mission named Gaganyaan-1 in January 2026, News 9 reports. The mission, carrying a half-humanoid robot, will test the performance of a crewed spacecraft and service module in low-Earth orbit. It is a critical stepping stone toward the country’s first human spaceflight in 2027.

Making progress … “We are currently working on our Gaganyaan program, to take our citizens to space and bring them back safely, and lot of activities are going on,” V Narayanan, chairman of ISRO, said. “In fact, I want to tell, 8,000 tests are completed till today, almost 97 percent of tests are successful, except small setbacks, which we have fully understood. We are going to have three uncrewed missions, followed by the first crewed mission targeted in 2027.”

Blue Origin ready to help accelerate Artemis. Blue Origin stands ready to help NASA achieve its goals with regard to landing humans on the Moon as soon as possible, Ars reports. “We just want to help the US get to the Moon,” Dave Limp, CEO of the space company founded by Jeff Bezos, told Ars. “If NASA wants to go quicker, we would move heaven and Earth, pun intended, to try to get to the Moon sooner. And I think we have some good ideas.”

Modifying existing hardware … This year, it has become increasingly apparent that, should NASA stick to its present plans for the Artemis III lunar landing mission, China is on course to beat the United States back to the Moon with humans. In recognition of this, about three weeks ago, NASA acting administrator Sean Duffy said the space agency was reopening the competition for a human lander. Blue Origin has begun work on a faster architecture, involving multiple versions of its Mk. 1 cargo lander as well as a modified version of this vehicle, tentatively called Mk 1.5.

How to launch to Mars when the window is closed. The field of astrodynamics isn’t a magical discipline, but sometimes it seems like trajectory analysts can pull a solution out of a hat. That’s what it took to save NASA’s ESCAPADE mission from a lengthy delay and possible cancellation after its rocket wasn’t ready to send it toward Mars during its appointed launch window last year, Ars reports. The Mars-bound mission had been due to launch on a New Glenn rocket before the close of the last Mars window, in the fall of 2024. But the rocket was not ready.

So what happens now that the rocket is ready? … “ESCAPADE is pursuing a very unusual trajectory in getting to Mars,” said Rob Lillis, from the University of California, Berkeley and the mission’s principal investigator. “We’re launching outside the typical Hohmann transfer windows, which occur every 25 or 26 months. We are using a very flexible mission design approach where we go into a loiter orbit around Earth in order to sort of wait until Earth and Mars are lined up correctly in November of next year to go to Mars.”

Next three launches

November 14: Atlas V | Viasat-3 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 03: 04 UTC

November 15: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-85 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 03: 01 UTC

November 15: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-89 | Kennedy Space Center, Florida | 03: 01 UTC

Rocket Report: Blue Origin’s stunning success; vive le Baguette One! Read More »

Rocket Report: Canada invests in sovereign launch; India flexes rocket muscles

ariane 6, Arianespace, blue origin, Canada, Commercial space, launch, NASA, relativity space, rocket report, Science, Space, spacex, starship / Shannon Garcia / November 7, 2025

Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket gave an environmental monitoring satellite a perfect ride to space.

Rahul Goel, the CEO of Canadian launch startup NordSpace, poses with a suborbital demo rocket and members of his team in Toronto earlier this year. Credit: Andrew Francis Wallace/Toronto Star via Getty Images

Welcome to Edition 8.18 of the Rocket Report! NASA is getting a heck of a deal from Blue Origin for launching the agency’s ESCAPADE mission to Mars. Blue Origin is charging NASA about $20 million for the launch on the company’s heavy-lift New Glenn rocket. A dedicated ride on any other rocket capable of the job would undoubtedly cost more.

But there are trade-offs. First, there’s the question of risk. The New Glenn rocket is only making its second flight, and it hasn’t been certified by NASA or the US Space Force. Second, the schedule for ESCAPADE’s launch has been at the whim of Blue Origin, which has delayed the mission several times due to issues developing New Glenn. NASA’s interplanetary missions typically have a fixed launch period, and the agency pays providers like SpaceX and United Launch Alliance a premium to ensure the launch happens when it needs to happen.

New Glenn is ready, the satellites are ready, and Blue Origin has set a launch date for Sunday, November 9. The mission will depart Earth outside of the usual interplanetary launch window, so orbital dynamics wizards came up with a unique trajectory that will get the satellites to Mars in 2027.

Canadian government backs launcher development. The federal budget released by the Liberal Party-led government of Canada this week includes a raft of new defense initiatives, including 182.6 million Canadian dollars ($129.4 million) for sovereign space launch capability, SpaceQ reports. The new funding is meant to “establish a sovereign space launch capability” with funds available this fiscal year and spent over three years. How the money will be spent and on what has yet to be released. As anticipated, Canada will have a new Defense Investment Agency (DIA) to oversee defense procurement. Overall, the government outlined 81.8 billion Canadian dollars ($58 billion) over five years for the Canadian Armed Forces. The Department of National Defense will manage the government’s cash infusion for sovereign launch capability.

Kick-starting an industry … Canada joins a growing list of nations pursuing homegrown launchers as many governments see access to space as key to national security and an opportunity for economic growth. International governments don’t want to be beholden to a small number of foreign launch providers from established space powers. That’s why startups in Germany, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Australia are making a play in the launch arena, often with government support. A handful of Canadian startups, such as Maritime Launch Services, Reaction Dynamics, and NordSpace, are working on commercial satellite launchers. The Canadian government’s announcement came days after MDA Space, the largest established space company in Canada, announced its own multimillion-dollar investment in Maritime Launch Services.

Sign Me Up!

Money alone won’t solve Europe’s space access woes. Increasing tensions with Russia have prompted defense spending boosts throughout Europe that will benefit fledgling smallsat launcher companies across the continent. But Europe is still years away from meeting its own space access needs, Space News reports. Space News spoke with industry analysts from two European consulting firms. They concluded that a lack of experience, not a deficit of money, is holding European launch startups back. None of the new crop of European rocket companies have completed a successful orbital flight.

Swimming in cash … The German company Isar Aerospace has raised approximately $600 million, the most funding of any of the European launch startups. Isar is also the only one of the bunch to make an orbital launch attempt. Its Spectrum rocket failed less than 30 seconds after liftoff last March, and a second launch is expected next year. Isar has attracted more investment than Rocket Lab, Firefly Aerospace, and Astra collectively raised on the private market before each of them successfully launched a rocket into orbit. In addition to Isar, several other European companies have raised more than $100 million on the road to developing a small satellite launcher. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Successful ICBM test from Vandenberg. Air Force Global Strike Command tested an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile in the predawn hours of Wednesday, Air and Space Forces Magazine reports. The test, the latest in a series of launches that have been carried out at regular intervals for decades, came as Russian President Vladimir Putin has touted the development of two new nuclear weapons and President Donald Trump has suggested in recent days that the US might resume nuclear testing. The ICBM launched from an underground silo at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, and traveled some 4,200 miles to a test range in the Pacific Ocean after receiving launch orders from an airborne nuclear command-and-control plane.

Rehearsing for the unthinkable … The test, known as Glory Trip 254 (GT 254), provided a “comprehensive assessment” of the Minuteman III’s readiness to launch at a moment’s notice, according to the Air Force. “The data collected during the test is invaluable in ensuring the continued reliability and accuracy of the ICBM weapon system,” said Lt. Col. Karrie Wray, commander of the 576th Flight Test Squadron. For Minuteman III tests, the Air Force pulls its missiles from the fleet of some 400 operational ICBMs. This week’s test used one from F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming, and the missile was equipped with a single unarmed reentry vehicle that carried telemetry instrumentation instead of a warhead, service officials said. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

One crew launches, another may be stranded. Three astronauts launched to China’s Tiangong space station on October 31 and arrived at the outpost a few hours later, extending the station’s four-year streak of continuous crew operations. The Shenzhou 21 crew spacecraft lifted off on a Chinese Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan space center in the Gobi Desert. Shenzhou 21 is supposed to replace a three-man crew that has been on the Tiangong station since April, but China’s Manned Space Agency announced Tuesday the outgoing crew’s return craft may have been damaged by space junk, Ars reports.

Few details … Chinese officials said the Shenzhou 20 spacecraft will remain at the station while engineers investigate the potential damage. As of Thursday, China has not set a new landing date or declared whether the spacecraft is safe to return to Earth at all. “The Shenzhou 20 manned spacecraft is suspected of being impacted by small space debris,” Chinese officials wrote on social media. “Impact analysis and risk assessment are underway. To ensure the safety and health of the astronauts and the complete success of the mission, it has been decided that the Shenzhou 20 return mission, originally scheduled for November 5, will be postponed.” In the event Shenzhou 20 is unsafe to return, China could launch a rescue craft—Shenzhou 22—already on standby at the Jiuquan space center.

Falcon 9 rideshare boosts Vast ambitions. A pathfinder mission for Vast’s privately owned space station launched into orbit Sunday and promptly extended its solar panel, kicking off a shakedown cruise to prove the company’s designs can meet the demands of spaceflight, Ars reports. Vast’s Haven Demo mission lifted off just after midnight Sunday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, and rode a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket into orbit. Haven Demo was one of 18 satellites sharing a ride on SpaceX’s Bandwagon 4 mission, launching alongside a South Korean spy satellite and a small testbed for Starcloud, a startup working with Nvidia to build an orbital data center.

Subscale testing … After release from the Falcon 9, the half-ton Haven Demo spacecraft stabilized itself and extended its power-generating solar array. The satellite captured 4K video of the solar array deployment, and Vast shared the beauty shot on social media. “Haven Demo’s mission success has turned us into a proven spacecraft company,” Vast’s CEO, Max Haot, posted on X. “The next step will be to become an actual commercial space station company next year. Something no one has achieved yet.” Vast plans to launch its first human-rated habitat, named Haven-1, into low-Earth orbit in 2026. Haven Demo lacks crew accommodations but carries several systems that are “architecturally similar” to Haven-1, according to Vast. For example, Haven-1 will have 12 solar arrays, each identical to the single array on Haven Demo. The pathfinder mission uses a subset of Haven-1’s propulsion system, but with identical thrusters, valves, and tanks.

Lights out at Vostochny. One of Russia’s most important projects over the last 15 years has been the construction of the Vostochny spaceport as the country seeks to fly its rockets from native soil and modernize its launch operations. Progress has been slow as corruption clouded Vostochny’s development. Now, the primary contractor building the spaceport, the Kazan Open Stock Company (PSO Kazan), has failed to pay its bills, Ars reports. The story, first reported by the Moscow Times, says that the energy company supplying Vostochny cut off electricity to areas of the spaceport still under construction after PSO Kazan racked up $627,000 in unpaid energy charges. The electricity company did so, it said, “to protect the interests of the region’s energy system.”

A dark reputation … Officials at the government-owned spaceport said PSO Kazan would repay its debt by the end of November, but the local energy company said it intends to file a lawsuit against KSO Kazan to declare the entity bankrupt. The two operational launch pads at Vostochny are apparently not affected by the power cuts. Vostochny has been a fiasco from the start. After construction began in 2011, the project was beset by hunger strikes, claims of unpaid workers, and the theft of $126 million. Additionally, a man driving a diamond-encrusted Mercedes was arrested after embezzling $75,000. Five years ago, there was another purge of top officials after another round of corruption.

Ariane 6 delivers for Europe again. European launch services provider Arianespace has successfully launched the Sentinel 1D Earth observation satellite aboard an Ariane 62 rocket for the European Commission, European Spaceflight reports. Launched in its two-booster configuration, the Ariane 6 rocket lifted off from the Guiana Space Center in South America on Tuesday. Approximately 34 minutes after liftoff, the satellite was deployed from the rocket’s upper stage into a Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 693 kilometers (430 miles). Sentinel 1D is the newest spacecraft to join Europe’s Copernicus program, the world’s most expansive network of environmental monitoring satellites. The new satellite will extend Europe’s record of global around-the-clock radar imaging, revealing information about environmental disasters, polar ice cover, and the use of water resources.

Doubling cadence … This was the fourth flight of Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket, and its third operational launch. Arianespace plans one more Ariane 62 launch to close out the year with a pair of Galileo navigation satellites. The company aims to double its Ariane 6 launch cadence in 2026, with between six and eight missions planned, according to David Cavaillès, Arianespace’s CEO. The European launch provider will open its 2026 manifest with the first flight of the more powerful four-booster variant of the rocket. If the company does manage eight Ariane 6 flights in 2026, it will already be close to reaching the stated maximum launch cadence of between nine and 10 flights per year.

India sets its own record for payload mass. The Indian Space Research Organization on Sunday successfully launched the Indian Navy’s advanced communication satellite GSAT-7R, or CMS-03, on an LVM3 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Center, The Hindu reports. The indigenously designed and developed satellite, weighing approximately 4.4 metric tons (9,700 pounds), is the heaviest satellite ever launched by an Indian rocket and marks a major milestone in strengthening the Navy’s space-based communications and maritime domain awareness.

Going heavy … The launch Sunday was India’s fourth of 2025, a decline from the country’s high-water mark of eight orbital launches in a year in 2023. The failure in May of India’s most-flown rocket, the PSLV, has contributed to this year’s slower launch cadence. India’s larger rockets, the GSLV and LVM3, have been more active while officials grounded the PSLV for an investigation into the launch failure. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Blue Origin preps for second flight of New Glenn. The road to the second flight of Blue Origin’s heavy-lifting New Glenn rocket got a lot clearer this week. The company confirmed it is targeting Sunday, November 9, for the launch of New Glenn from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. This follows a successful test-firing of the rocket’s seven BE-4 main engines last week, Ars reports. Blue Origin, the space company owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, said the engines operated at full power for 22 seconds, generating nearly 3.9 million pounds of thrust on the launch pad.

Fully integrated … With the launch date approaching, engineers worked this week to attach the rocket’s payload shroud containing two NASA satellites set to embark on a journey to Mars. Now that the rocket is fully integrated, ground crews will roll it back to Blue Origin’s Launch Complex-36 (LC-36) for final countdown preps. The launch window on Sunday opens at 2: 45 pm EST (19: 45 UTC). Blue Origin is counting on recovering the New Glenn first stage on the next flight after missing the landing on the rocket’s inaugural mission in January. Officials plan to reuse this booster on the third New Glenn launch early next year, slated to propel Blue Origin’s first unpiloted Blue Moon lander toward the Moon.

Next three launches

Nov. 8: Falcon 9 | Starlink 10-51 | Kennedy Space Center, Florida | 08: 30 UTC

Nov. 8: Long March 11H| Unknown Payload | Haiyang Spaceport, China Coastal Waters | 21: 00 UTC

Nov. 9: New Glenn | ESCAPADE | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 19: 45 UTC

Rocket Report: Canada invests in sovereign launch; India flexes rocket muscles Read More »