Enlarge/ Landspace’s reusable rocket test vehicle lifts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Wednesday, September 11, 2024.
Welcome to Edition 7.11 of the Rocket Report! Outside of companies owned by American billionaires, the most imminent advancements in reusable rockets are coming from China’s quasi-commercial launch industry. This industry is no longer nascent. After initially relying on solid-fueled rocket motors apparently derived from Chinese military missiles, China’s privately funded launch firms are testing larger launchers, with varying degrees of success, and now performing hop tests reminiscent of SpaceX’s Grasshopper and F9R Dev1 programs more than a decade ago.
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.
Landspace hops closer to a reusable rocket. Chinese private space startup Landspace has completed a 10-kilometer (33,000-foot) vertical takeoff and vertical landing test on its Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3) reusable rocket testbed, including a mid-flight engine reignition at near supersonic conditions, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. The 18.3-meter (60-foot) vehicle took off from the Jiuquan launch base in northwestern China, ascended to 10,002 meters, and then made a vertical descent and achieved an on-target propulsive landing 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) from the launch pad. Notably, the rocket’s methane-fueled variable-thrust engine intentionally shutdown in flight, then reignited for descent, as engines would operate on future full-scale booster flybacks. The test booster used grid fins and cold gas thrusters to control itself when its main engine was dormant, according to Landspace.
“All indicators met the expected design” … Landspace hailed the test as a major milestone in the company’s road to flying its next rocket, the Zhuque-3, as soon as next year. With nine methane-fueled main engines, the Zhuque-3 will initially be able to deliver 21 metric tons (46,300 pounds) of payload into low-Earth orbit with its booster flying in expendable mode. In 2026, Landspace aims to begin recovering Zhuque-3 first-stage boosters for reuse. Landspace is one of several Chinese companies working seriously on reusable rocket designs. Another Chinese firm, Deep Blue Aerospace, says it plans a 100-kilometer (62-mile) suborbital test of a reusable booster soon, ahead of the first flight of its medium-class Nebula-1 rocket next year. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
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Isar Aerospace sets low bar for success on first launch. Daniel Metzler, CEO of German launch startup Isar Aerospace, stated that the first flight of the Spectrum rocket would be a success if it didn’t destroy the launch site, European Spaceflight reports. During an interview at the Handelsblatt innovation conference, Metzler was asked what he would consider a successful inaugural flight of Spectrum. “For me, the first flight will be a success if we don’t blow up the launch site,” explained Metzler. “That would probably be the thing that would set us back the most in terms of technology and time.” This tempering of expectations sounds remarkably similar to statements made by Elon Musk about SpaceX’s first flight of the Starship rocket last year.
In the catbird seat? … Isar Aerospace could be in a position to become the first in a new crop of European commercial launch companies to attempt its first orbital flight. Another German company, Rocket Factory Augsburg, recently gave up on a possible launch this year after the booster for its first launch caught fire and collapsed during a test at a launch site in Scotland. Isar plans to launch its two-stage Spectrum rocket, designed to carry up to 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) of payload into low-Earth orbit, from Andøya Spaceport in Norway. Isar hasn’t publicized any schedule for the first flight of Spectrum, but there are indications the publicity-shy company is testing hardware at the Norwegian spaceport. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
FAA to introduce new orbital debris rules. The Federal Aviation Administration is moving ahead with efforts to develop rules for the disposal of upper stages as another Centaur upper stage breaks apart in orbit, Space News reports. The FAA released draft regulations on the matter for public comment one year ago, and the head of the agency’s commercial spaceflight division recently said the rules are a “high priority for our organization.” The rules would direct launch operators to dispose of upper stages in one of five ways, from controlled reentries to placement in graveyard or “disposal” orbits not commonly used by operational satellites. One change the FAA might make to the draft rules is to reduce the required timeline for an uncontrolled reentry of a disposed upper stage from no more than 25 years to a shorter timeline. “We got a lot of comments that said it should be a lot less,” said Kelvin Coleman, head of the FAA’s commercial spaceflight office. “We’re taking that into consideration.”
Upper stages are a problem … Several recent breakups involving spent upper stages in orbit have highlighted the concern that dead rocket bodies could create unnecessary space junk. Last month, the upper stage from a Chinese Long March 6A disintegrated in low-Earth orbit, creating at least 300 pieces of space debris. More recently, a Centaur upper stage from a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket broke apart in a much higher orbit, resulting in more than 40 pieces of debris. This was the fourth time one of ULA’s Centaur upper stages has broken up since 2018. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Enlarge/ The second stage of the New Glenn rocket rolls to the launch pad on Tuesday.
Blue Origin
Welcome to Edition 7.10 of the Rocket Report! It has been a big week for seeing new hardware from Blue Origin. We’ve observed the second stage of New Glenn rolling out to its launch pad in Florida, and the rocket’s first stage recovery ship, Jacklyn, arriving at a nearby port. It looks like the pieces are finally coming into place for the debut launch of the massive new rocket.
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.
Vega rocket makes its final flight. The final flight of Europe’s Vega rocket lifted off Wednesday night from French Guiana, carrying an important environmental monitoring satellite for the European Union’s flagship Copernicus program, Ars reports. About an hour after liftoff, the Vega rocket’s upper stage released Sentinel-2C into an on-target orbit. Then, Sentinel-2C radioed its status to ground controllers, confirming the satellite was healthy in space. The Vega rocket will be replaced by the larger Vega-C rocket, with a more powerful booster stage and a wider payload fairing. One of the primary purposes of the Vega-C will be to launch future Copernicus satellites for Europe.
A mixed record of commercial success … “I think it was a great success,” said Giulio Ranzo, Avio’s CEO, in an interview with Ars a few hours before Wednesday night’s mission. “It was our first launcher. It was our first experience as a major player in the launcher domain.” However, in a dozen years of service, the Vega rocket never really took off in the commercial launch market. It averaged about two flights per year and primarily deployed satellites for the European Space Agency and other European government agencies, which prefer launching their payloads on European rockets.
ABL Space lays off staff. Launch vehicle developer ABL Space Systems has laid off a significant portion of its workforce, citing the need to reduce costs after the loss of a rocket in a static-fire test, Space News reports. In a post on LinkedIn on August 30, Harry O’Hanley, chief executive of ABL, said the company was laying off an unspecified number of people. The layoffs came after the company’s second RS1 rocket was lost in a fire after a static-fire test at the Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska on Kodiak Island on July 19.
Era of easy money ends … O’Hanley said in the email that the company had been working to reduce costs at the company even ahead of that test, citing changes in the market and access to capital. The company had raised several hundred million dollars, including $200 million in October 2021 and $170 million in March 2021. Hanley wrote that starting in 2023, “we cut costs and positioned the company for leaner operations with smaller teams, restrained hiring, and more conservative spending.” That was working, he said, until the static-fire incident. (submitted by brianrhurley and Ken the Bin)
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So many un-spac-tacular results. A recent feature in Space News reviewed how the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, process has gone for several new space firms. Fortunes have been decidedly mixed for the space businesses that merged with publicly traded shell companies in search of capital as COVID-19 ravaged the economy, the publication says.
Launch does not fare well … “Wildly missed revenue projections from most of the class in their eagerness to drum up investor support for their SPAC merger have not helped their reputation,” the author, Jason Rainbow, writes. The list includes four launch companies: Virgin Galactic, Virgin Orbit, Astra, and Rocket Lab. Of these, Virgin Orbit has gone bankrupt, and Astra’s results were so disastrous that it went private again. Then there’s Virgin Galactic, a company whose shares publicly trade at $7, down nearly 90 percent from its peak during the pandemic. Only Rocket Lab gets a gold star for its post-SPAC performance.
New investor suit filed against Branson over Virgin Galactic. A newly unsealed lawsuit alleges that Richard Branson exploited bogus hype about the capabilities of Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft to make $1 billion worth of illegal insider stock sales, Bloomberg Law reports. A shareholder sued Branson, saying he spent years misleading the public about the readiness of Virgin Galactic’s flagship space tourism vessel, Unity, then dumped “massive portions of his stock” across 2020 and 2021. The sales included $300 million in August 2021, shortly after Branson flew on the spaceship. Branson founded Virgin Galactic about two decades ago.
Branson says suit is meritless … “Despite the near misses, loss of life, and questionable safety record, Branson was determined to be the first billionaire in space” so he could “secure billionaire bragging rights” and try to bail out a travel business empire that lost nearly $1.9 billion during the COVID-19 pandemic, the suit says. Branson and Virgin Galactic disputed the court claims in separate statements Wednesday. Branson called the claims meritless through a spokesperson, saying he would “vigorously defend against them.” The case involves shareholder derivative claims, which are technically brought on a corporation’s behalf against its leaders or owners.
MaiaSpace working toward stage testing. French launch firm MaiaSpace has announced that it is preparing to conduct the first hot fire test of the upper stage of its Maia rocket in 2025, European Spaceflight reports. The company is developing a partially reusable two-stage rocket called Maia that will be capable of delivering payloads of up to 1,500 kilograms when launched in an expandable configuration. For both of its stages, the rocket will use Prometheus rocket engines, which are being developed by ArianeGroup under a European Space Agency contract.
Is it new space or old space? … MaiaSpace is an interesting company. It positions itself as a launch startup, but it is also a wholly owned subsidiary of ArianeGroup, which is as traditional a launch company as can be. The rocket’s first stage will essentially be the Themis reusable booster demonstrator, which is also being developed by ArianeGroup under an ESA contract. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Enlarge/ India’s Small Satellite Launch Vehicle launched for the third time this week.
ISRO
Welcome to Edition 7.08 of the Rocket Report! Lots of news as always, but what I’m most interested in is the launch of the Polaris Dawn mission. If all goes as planned, the flight will break all sorts of ground for commercial spaceflight, including the first-ever private spacewalk. Best of luck to Jared Isaacman and his crew on their adventurous mission.
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.
RFA One blows up a booster. The first stage of Rocket Factory Augsburg’s first orbital launcher was destroyed in a fireball during a test-firing Monday evening at a spaceport in Scotland, Ars reports. It’s a notable event for the European commercial space industry as the German launch startup aimed to send its first rocket into space later this year and appeared to be running ahead of several competitors in Europe’s commercial launch industry that are also developing rockets to deploy small satellites in orbit. BBC obtained video of the fiery explosion.
Now comes the hard work of an anomaly investigation … In a statement, RFA said there was “an anomaly that led to the loss of the stage” Monday evening. The company said no one was injured and reported that the launch pad had been “saved and secured.” This was the same rocket RFA planned to launch on its inaugural test flight. The hot fire test Monday was the first with all nine engines on RFA One’s first stage. “We are now working closely with SaxaVord Spaceport and the authorities to gather data and info to eventually resolve what happened,” RFA said. “We will take our time to analyze and assess the situation.” On Thursday, the cause was attributed to a turbopump fire. (submitted by SPHK_Tech, gizmo23, brianrhurley, Jay500001, and Ken the Bin)
Orbex says it’s targeting a 2025 launch, but get real. UK-based Orbex is now projecting a 2025 first launch of its small launch vehicle, the company’s chief executive told Space News recently. Phil Chambers, chief executive of the United Kingdom-based company, said the company was making progress on both its Prime small rocket and launch site at Sutherland Spaceport in northern Scotland. “We are shooting for a 2025 launch,” Chambers said but declined to be more specific about a launch date other than to say that the company wanted to avoid a launch in winter because of poor weather conditions. “But I do want it to be 2025.”
Shooting to be the first orbital launch success from the UK … There is an interesting detail in the story that caught my eye: “Vehicle subsystems are going through critical design reviews, with some flight hardware under construction.” Let’s be honest, if they’re still working through the critical design review process for subsystems, the chance of a launch in 2025 is zero, and honestly for a company founded in 2015 it should not provide much confidence that the company will ever successfully launch an orbital rocket. (submitted by EllPeaTea)
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SSLV makes its third launch. India successfully launched its third Small Satellite Launch Vehicle on Thursday, placing an Earth observation satellite into orbit and completing the solid rocket’s development process, Space News reports. The rocket carried the experimental Earth observation EOS-08 spacecraft into its intended 475-kilometer circular orbit for the Indian Space Research Organization.
Two for three … According to ISRO chairman S. Somanath, the successful completion of the SSLV’s development phase paves the way for technology transfer to Indian industry, enabling serial production and operational deployment of the SSLV. The first SSLV flight failed in August 2022 when an upper stage malfunction left its payloads stranded in a very low orbit. The second launch, in February 2023, was successful. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Indian firm plans suborbital launch. A Chennai-based startup, Space Zone India, plans to launch its Rhumi-01 suborbital rocket on Saturday from a mobile launcher. The hybrid vehicle, combining both solid and liquid rocket propellants, will carry three cubesats and 50 smaller picosats on its debut launch, the New Indian Express reports.
Seeking to recycle rockets … According to the company’s website, the Rhumi launch vehicle can reach an altitude of about 30 km. The three cubesats are designed to monitor and collect data on atmospheric conditions, including cosmic radiation intensity, UV radiation intensity, air quality, and more. The company said most of the rocket is designed to be recoverable and reused. (submitted by brianrhurley)
Sierra Space kicking the tires on ULA. Boeing and Lockheed Martin are in talks to sell their rocket-launching joint venture United Launch Alliance to Sierra Space, Reuters reports. A deal could value ULA at around $2 billion to $3 billion, sources told the publication. A potential deal would be an ambitious move for Sierra Space, spun off from Sierra Nevada in 2021 to focus on bringing to market its long-delayed Dream Chaser spaceplane. A deal with ULA could give the company a rocket, Vulcan, for uncrewed and potentially crewed launches of Dream Chaser.
A source believes the deal is unlikely … ULA has been up for sale, actively, for more than a year. Blue Origin and Cerberus Capital Management had placed bids in early 2023 for the company, but none of those offers resulted in a deal. I heard about Sierra’s interest last Friday, but the Reuters story came out before I could write something up. I will say, from the reporting I have been able to do, that the discussions between Sierra and ULA’s owners were serious and substantial. However, at this time, my best information indicates that a sale is unlikely to happen. The parents believe ULA is worth more than Sierra is willing to pay. Sierra would also need to borrow substantially to make any transaction happen. (submitted by Hacker Uno and Ken the Bin)
Enlarge/ A Falcon 9 booster returns to landing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station following a launch Thursday with two WorldView Earth observation satellites for Maxar.
Welcome to Edition 7.07 of the Rocket Report! SpaceX has not missed a beat since the Federal Aviation Administration gave the company a green light to resume Falcon 9 launches after a failure last month. In 19 days, SpaceX has launched 10 flights of the Falcon 9 rocket, taking advantage of all three of its Falcon 9 launch pads. This is a remarkable cadence in its own right, but even though it’s a small sample size, it is especially impressive right out of the gate after the rocket’s grounding.
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.
A quick turnaround for Rocket Lab. Rocket Lab launched its 52nd Electron rocket on August 11 from its private spaceport on Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand, Space News reports. The company’s light-class Electron rocket deployed a small radar imaging satellite into a mid-inclination orbit for Capella Space. This was the shortest turnaround between two Rocket Lab missions from its primary launch base in New Zealand, coming less than nine days after an Electron rocket took off from the same pad with a radar imaging satellite for the Japanese company Synspective. Capella’s Acadia 3 satellite was originally supposed to launch in July, but Capella requested a delay to perform more testing of its spacecraft. Rocket Lab swapped its place in the Electron launch sequence and launched the Synspective mission first.
Now, silence at the launch pad … Rocket Lab hailed the swap as an example of the flexibility provided by Electron, as well as the ability to deliver payloads to specific orbits that are not feasible with rideshare missions, according to Space News. For this tailored launch service, Rocket Lab charges a premium launch price over the price of launching a small payload on a SpaceX rideshare mission. However, SpaceX’s rideshare launches gobble up the lion’s share of small satellites within Rocket Lab’s addressable market. On Friday, a Falcon 9 rocket is slated to launch 116 small payloads into polar orbit. Rocket Lab, meanwhile, projects just one more launch before the end of September and expects to perform 15 to 18 Electron launches this year, a record for the company but well short of the 22 it forecasted earlier in the year. Rocket Lab says customer readiness is the reason it will be far short of projections.
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Defense contractors teaming up on solid rockets. Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics are joining forces to kickstart solid rocket motor production, announcing a strategic teaming agreement today that could see new motors roll off the line as early as 2025, Breaking Defense reports. The new agreement could position a third vendor to enter into the ailing solid rocket motor industrial base, which currently only includes L3Harris subsidiary Aerojet Rocketdyne and Northrop Grumman in the United States. Both companies have struggled to meet demands from weapons makers like Lockheed and RTX, which are in desperate need of solid rocket motors for products such as Javelin or the PAC-3 missiles used by the Patriot missile defense system.
Pressure from startups … Demand for solid rocket motors has skyrocketed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as the United States and its partners sought to backfill stocks of weapons like Javelin and Stinger, as well as provide motors to meet growing needs in the space domain. Although General Dynamics has kept its interest in the solid rocket motor market quiet until now, several defense tech startups, such as Ursa Major Technologies, Anduril, and X-Bow Systems, have announced plans to enter the market. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Going polar with crew. SpaceX will fly the first human spaceflight over the Earth’s poles, possibly before the end of this year, Ars reports. The private Crew Dragon mission will be led by a Chinese-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur named Chun Wang, and he will be joined by a polar explorer, a roboticist, and a filmmaker whom he has befriended in recent years. The “Fram2” mission, named after the Norwegian research ship Fram, will launch into a polar corridor from SpaceX’s launch facilities in Florida and fly directly over the north and south poles. The three- to five-day mission is being timed to fly over Antarctica near the summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, to afford maximum lighting.
Wang’s inclination is Wang’s prerogative … Wang told Ars he wanted to try something new, and flying a polar mission aligned with his interests in cold places on Earth. He’s paying the way on a commercial basis, and SpaceX in recent years has demonstrated it can launch satellites into polar orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida, something no one had done in more than 50 years. The highest-inclination flight ever by a human spacecraft was the Soviet Vostok 6 mission in 1963 when Valentina Tereshkova’s spacecraft reached 65.1 degrees. Now, Fram2 will fly repeatedly and directly over the poles.
Enlarge/ Rocket Lab says it fired up the Archimedes engine at full thrust this week.
Rocket Lab
Welcome to Edition 7.06 of the Rocket Report! There has been a lot of drama over the last week involving NASA, the crew of Starliner on board the International Space Station, and the launch of the Crew-9 mission on a Falcon 9 rocket. NASA is now down to a binary choice: Fly Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams home on Starliner, or send two astronauts to orbit on Crew-9, and return Wilmore and Williams next February on that spacecraft. We should know NASA’s final decision next week.
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.
Firefly inks another big Alpha contract. Firefly Aerospace said Wednesday that it has signed a multi-launch agreement with L3Harris Technologies for up to 20 launches on Firefly’s Alpha rocket, including two to four missions per year from 2027 to 2031, depending on customer needs. The new agreement is in addition to Firefly’s existing multi-launch agreement with L3Harris for three Alpha missions in 2026. What is not clear is exactly what satellites L3Harris wants to launch.
Putting skins on the wall … “Firefly continues to see growing demand for Alpha’s responsive small-lift services, and we’re committed to providing a dedicated launch option that takes our customers directly to their preferred orbits,” said Peter Schumacher, Interim CEO at Firefly Aerospace. This represents another significant win for the Alpha rocket, which can lift about 1 metric ton to low-Earth orbit. Under terms of a separate agreement announced in June, Lockheed purchased 15 launches from Firefly, with an option for 10 more, through the year 2029. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)
Electron pushing launch cadence. Rocket Lab announced Wednesday that it has scheduled the launch for its 52nd Electron mission, which will deploy a single satellite for American space tech company Capella Space. The mission is scheduled to launch during a 14-day window that opens on August 11 from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula.
Getting to ten much faster … Should this launch take place at the opening of this window, this Electron flight would occur just eight days after the most recent Electron mission on August 3. This upcoming mission for Capella will be Rocket Lab’s tenth mission for 2024, equaling the company’s annual launch record set in 2023. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
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PLD Space to start work on launch site. PLD Space plans to start building launch facilities for its Miura 5 rocket in October from the Diamant site at Guiana Space Centre, cofounder and Chief Business Development Officer Raúl Verdú said this week, Space News reports. Diamant has been dormant for decades after once being used for the French rocket of the same name, and “in the area where we are there is nothing,” Verdú said, “we have to do everything from scratch.”
Lots of things to build … PLD Space, Germany’s Isar Aerospace and a handful of other small European launchers are working with France’s CNES space agency to convert the site into a multi-use facility. In June, the Spanish company announced a 10 million euro ($11 million) investment plan for 15,765 square meters of space at Diamant, divided between a launch zone and a preparation area comprising an integration hangar, clean room, control center, commercial and work offices. CNES is providing common infrastructure such as roads and electricity networks. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Japanese firm raises $21 million. Interstellar Technologies announced a new fundraising round that brings its total capital and government funding to $117 million, Payload reports. After building and launching a suborbital rocket called Momo, the company is building its first orbital rocket, dubbed ZERO, with a goal of flying in 2025. This rocket is intended to carry 800 kg of payload to low-Earth orbit, and be cheaper than Rocket Lab’s Electron, COO Keiji Atsuta said.
Big help from Japan … Interstellar’s latest round was led by Japanese VC fund SBI and NTT Docomo, the country’s leading mobile firm. Previously, it received a large amount of funding, $96 million, from the Japanese government. “The Japanese government has explicitly expressed its support for private rockets due to the growing importance of the space industry, and being selected for this support program has significantly accelerated our business,” Interstellar CEO Takahiro Inagawa said. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Cross-border deal benefits Nova Scotia spaceport. The Canadian government says it has completed negotiations with the United States on an agreement that would allow the use of US space launch technology, expertise, and data for space launches in Canada, the AP reports. Maritime Launch Services, the company developing Canada’s first commercial spaceport in northeastern Nova Scotia, called the agreement a major step forward for the industry.
US rockets could launch from Canada … Ottawa has said it hopes to position Canada as future leader in commercial space launches. The country has geographical advantages, including a vast, sparsely populated territory and high-inclination orbits. The agreement, which is yet to be signed, will establish the legal and technical safeguards needed while ensuring the proper handling of sensitive technology, the government said in a news release. (submitted by JoeyS-IVB)
Welcome to Edition 7.05 of the Rocket Report! The Federal Aviation Administration grounded SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket for 15 days after a rare failure of its upper stage earlier this month. The FAA gave the green light for Falcon 9 to return to flight July 25, and within a couple of days, SpaceX successfully launched three missions from three launch pads. There’s a lot on Falcon 9’s to-do list, so we expect SpaceX to quickly return to form with several flights per week.
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.
Big delay for a reusable rocket testbed. The French space agency, CNES, has revealed that the inaugural test flight of its Callisto reusable rocket demonstrator will not take place until late 2025 or early 2026, European Spaceflight reports. CNES unveiled an updated website for the Callisto rocket program earlier this month, showing the test rocket has been delayed from a debut launch later this year to until late 2025 or early 2026. The Callisto rocket is designed to test techniques and technologies required for reusable rockets, such as vertical takeoff and vertical landing, with suborbital flights from the Guiana Space Center in South America.
Cooperative action … Callisto, which stands for Cooperative Action Leading to Launcher Innovation in Stage Toss-back Operations, is a joint project between CNES, German space agency DLR, and JAXA, the Japanese space agency. It will stand 14 meters (46 feet) tall and weigh about 4 metric tons (8,800 pounds), with an engine supplied by Japan. Callisto is one of several test projects in Europe aiming to pave the way for a future reusable rocket. (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)
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Small step for Themis. Another European project established to demonstrate reusable rocket tech is making slow progress toward a first flight. The Themis project, funded by the European Space Agency, is similar in purpose to the Callisto testbed discussed above. This week, the German aerospace manufacturing company MT Aerospace announced it has begun testing a demonstrator of the landing legs that will be used aboard the Themis reusable booster, European Spaceflight reports. The landing legs for Themis are made of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic composites, and the initial test demonstrated good deployment and showed it would withstand the impact energy of landing.
Also delayed … Like Callisto, Themis is facing delays in getting to the launch pad. ArianeGroup, the ESA-selected Themis prime contractor, had been expected to conduct an initial hop test of the demonstrator before the end of 2024. However, officials have announced the initial hop tests won’t happen until sometime next year. The Themis booster is intended to eventually become the first stage booster for an orbital-class partially reusable rocket being developed by MaiaSpace, a subsidiary of ArianeGroup. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Falcon 9 is flying again. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket returned to flight on July 27, barely two weeks after an upper stage failure ended a streak of more than 300 consecutive successful launches, Ars reports. By some measures this was an extremely routine mission—it was, after all, SpaceX’s 73rd launch of this calendar year. And like many other Falcon 9 launches this year, the “Starlink 10-9” mission carried 23 of the broadband Internet satellites into orbit. However, after a rare failure earlier this month, this particular Falcon 9 rocket was making a return-to-flight for the company and attempting to get the world’s most active booster back into service.
Best part is no part … The Falcon 9 successfully deployed its payload of Starlink satellites about an hour after lifting off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Later in the weekend, SpaceX launched two more Starlink missions on Falcon 9 rockets from Florida and California, notching three flights in less than 28 hours. The launch failure on the previous Falcon 9 launch was caused by a liquid oxygen leak on the upper stage, which led to a “hard start” on the upper stage engine when it attempted to reignite in flight. Engineers and technicians were quickly able to pinpoint the cause of the leak, a crack in a “sense line” for a pressure sensor attached to the vehicle’s liquid oxygen system.
Atlas V’s NSSL era is over. United Launch Alliance delivered a classified US military payload to orbit Tuesday for the last time with an Atlas V rocket, ending the Pentagon’s use of Russian rocket engines as national security missions transition to all-American launchers, Ars reports. This was the 101st launch of an Atlas V rocket since its debut in 2002, and the 58th and final Atlas V mission with a US national security payload since 2007. The Atlas V is powered by an RD-180 main engine made in Russia, and with a little prodding from SpaceX (via a lawsuit) and Congress, the Pentagon started making moves to end its reliance on the RD-180 a decade ago.
Other options available … The RD-180 never failed on a National Security Space Launch (NSSL) mission using the Atlas V rocket, but its use became politically untenable after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, which predated Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine eight years later. SpaceX began launching US military missions in 2018, and ULA debuted its new Vulcan rocket in January. Assuming a successful second test flight of Vulcan in September, ULA’s next-generation rocket has a good shot at launching its first national security mission by the end of the year. The Space Force’s policy is to maintain at least two independent launch vehicles capable of flying military payloads into orbit. Vulcan and SpaceX’s Falcon rocket family fulfill that requirement, so the military no longer needs the Atlas V. However, 15 more Atlas V rockets remain in ULA’s inventory for future commercial flights.
Crackdown at the Cape. While this week’s landmark launch of the Atlas V rocket is worthy of celebration, there’s a new ULA policy that deserves ridicule, Ars reports. Many of the spectacular photos of rocket launches shared on social media come from independent photographers, who often make little to no money working for an established media organization. Instead, they rely on sales of prints to recoup at least some of their expenses for gas, food, and camera equipment needed to capture these images, which often serve as free publicity for launch providers like ULA. Last month, ULA announced it will no longer permit these photographers to set up remote cameras at their launch pads if they sell their images independently. This new policy was in place for the Atlas V launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Tuesday morning.
But why? … “ULA will periodically confirm editorial publication for media participating in remote camera placement,” ULA stated in an email distributed to photographers last month. “If publication does not occur, or photos are sold outside of editorial purposes, privileges to place remote cameras may be revoked.” To the photographers who spend many hours preparing their equipment, waiting to set up and remove cameras, and persevering through scrubs and more, it seemed like a harsh judgment. And nobody knows why it happened. ULA has offered no public comment about the new policy, and the company did not respond to questions from Ars about the agreement.
Astroscale achieves a first in orbit. There are more than 2,000 mostly intact dead rockets circling the Earth, but until this year, no one ever launched a satellite to go see what one looked like after many years of tumbling around the planet, Ars reports. A Japanese company named Astroscale launched a small satellite in February to chase down the derelict upper stage from a Japanese H-IIA rocket. Astroscale’s ADRAS-J spacecraft arrived near the H-IIA upper stage in April, and the company announced this week that its satellite has now completed two 360-degree fly-arounds of the rocket. This is the first time a satellite has maneuvered around an actual piece of space junk, and it offers an unprecedented snapshot of how an abandoned rocket holds up to 15 years in the harsh environment of space.
Prepping for the future … Astroscale’s ADRAS-J mission is partially funded by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Astroscale and JAXA also have a contract for a follow-up mission named ADRAS-J2, which will attempt to link up with the same H-IIA rocket and steer it on a trajectory to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. This would be the first demonstration of active debris removal, a concept pursued by Astroscale and other companies to help clear space junk out of low-Earth orbit.
An update on Ariane 6. The European Space Agency has released its first update on the results from the first flight of the Ariane 6 rocket since its launch July 9. Europe’s new flagship rocket had a mostly successful inaugural test flight. Its first stage, solid rocket boosters, and upper stage performed as expected for the first phase of the flight, delivering eight small satellites into an on-target orbit. The launch pad at the Guiana Space Center in South America also held up to the violent environment of launch, ESA said.
Still investigating … However, the final phase of the mission didn’t go according to plan. The upper stage’s Vinci engine was supposed to reignite for a third time on the test flight to deorbit the rocket, which would have released two small reentry capsules on technology demonstration missions to test heat shield technologies. This didn’t happen. An Auxiliary Propulsion Unit, which is a small engine to provide additional bursts of thrust and pressurize the upper stage’s propellant tanks, shut down shortly after startup ahead of the third burn of the primary Vinci engine. “This meant the Vinci engine’s third boost could not take place,” ESA said. “Analysis of the APU’s behavior is ongoing and further information will be made available as soon as possible, while the next task force update is expected in September.” (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Room to grow at Starbase. SpaceX has since launched Starship four times from its launch site in South Texas, known as Starbase, and is planning a fifth launch within the next two months, Ars reports. However, as it continues to test Starship and make plans for regular flights, SpaceX will need a higher flight rate. This is especially true as the company is unlikely to activate additional launch pads for Starship in Florida until at least 2026. To that end, SpaceX has asked the FAA for permission for up to 25 flights a year from South Texas, as well as the capability to land both the Starship upper stage and Super Heavy booster stage back at the launch site.
The answer is probably yes … On Monday, the FAA signaled that it is inclined to grant this request. The agency released a draft assessment indicating that its extensive 2022 analysis of Starship launch activities on the environment, wildlife, local communities, and more was sufficient to account for SpaceX’s proposal for more launches. There is more to do for this conclusion to become official, including public meetings and a public comment period this month.
SpaceX eyes Australia. SpaceX is in talks with US and Australian officials to land and recover one of its Starship rockets off Australia’s coast, a possible first step toward a bigger presence for Elon Musk’s company in the region as the two countries bolster security ties, Reuters reports. At the end of SpaceX’s fourth Starship test flight in June, the rocket made a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean hundreds of miles off the northwest coast of Australia. The discussions now underway are focused on the possibility of towing a future Starship vehicle from its splashdown point in the ocean to a port in Australia, where SpaceX engineers could inspect it and learn more about how it performed.
Eventually, it’ll come back to land … On the next Starship flight, currently planned for no earlier than late August, SpaceX plans to attempt to recover Starship’s giant Super Heavy booster using catch arms on the launch pad tower in Texas. On Sunday, Elon Musk told SpaceX and Tesla enthusiasts at an event called the “X Takeover” that it will take a few more flights for engineers to get comfortable returning the Starship itself to a landing onshore. “We want to be really confident that the ship heat shield is super robust and lands at the exact right location,” he said. “So before we try to bring the ship back to the launch site, we probably want to have at least three successful landings of the ship [at sea].” (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Next three launches
August 2: Electron | “Owl for One, One for Owl” | Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand | 16: 39 UTC
August 3: Falcon 9 | NG-21 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 15: 28 UTC
August 4: Falcon 9 | Starlink 11-1 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 07: 00 UTC
Enlarge/ The core stage for NASA’s second Space Launch System rocket rolls aboard a barge that will take it from New Orleans to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Welcome to Edition 7.03 of the Rocket Report! One week ago, SpaceX suffered a rare failure of its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. In fact, it was the first time the latest version of the Falcon 9, known as the Block 5, has ever failed on its prime mission after nearly 300 launches. The world’s launch pads have been silent since the grounding of the Falcon 9 fleet after last week’s failure. This isn’t surprising, but it’s noteworthy. After all, the Falcon 9 has flown more this year than all of the world’s other rockets combined and is fundamental to much of what the world does in space.
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.
Astra finally goes private, again. A long-simmering deal for Astra’s founders to take the company private has been finalized, the company announced Thursday, capping the rocket launch company’s descent from blank-check darling to delisting in three years, Bloomberg reports. The launch company’s valuation peaked at $3.9 billion in 2021, the year it went public, and was worth about $12.2 million at the end of March, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Astra’s chief executive officer, Chris Kemp, and chief technology officer, Adam London, founded the company in 2016 with the goal of essentially commoditizing launch services for small satellites. But Astra’s rockets failed to deliver and fell short of orbit five times in seven tries.
Spiraling … Astra’s stock price tanked after the spate of launch failures, drying up its funding spigot as Kemp tried to pivot toward a slightly larger, more reliable rocket. Astra acquired a company named Apollo Fusion in 2021, entering a new business segment to produce electric thrusters for small satellites. But Astra’s launch business faltered, and last November Kemp and London submitted an offer to retake ownership of the company. Astra announced the closure of the take-private deal Thursday, with Kemp and London acquiring the company’s outstanding shares for 50 cents per share in cash, below the stock’s final listing price of 53 cents. “We will now focus all of our attention on a successful launch of Rocket 4, delivering satellite engines to our customers, and building a company of consequence,” Kemp said. (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)
Firefly chief leaves company. Launch startup Firefly Aerospace parted ways with CEO Bill Weber, Payload reports. The announcement of Weber’s departure late Wednesday came two days after Payload reported Firefly was investigating claims of an alleged inappropriate relationship between him and a female employee. “Firefly Aerospace’s Board of Directors announced that Bill Weber is no longer serving as CEO of the company, effective immediately,” the company said in a statement Wednesday night. Peter Schumacher takes over as interim CEO while Firefly searches for a new permanent chief executive. Schumacher was an interim CEO at Firefly before Weber’s hiring in 2022.
Two days and gone … Payload published the first report of Weber’s alleged improper relationship with a female employee Monday. Two days later, Weber was gone. Payload reported an executive brought his concerns about the alleged relationship to Firefly’s board and resigned because he lost confidence in leadership at the company. Citing four current and former employees, Payload reported Firefly’s culture became “chaotic” since Weber took the helm in 2022 after its acquisition by AE Industrial Partners. The Texas-based company achieved some success during Weber’s tenure, with four orbital launches of its Alpha rocket, although two of the flights ended up in lower-than-planned orbits. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
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Themis hop tests delayed to next year. The initial hop tests of the European Themis reusable booster, developed by ArianeGroup and funded by ESA, won’t start until next year, European Spaceflight reports. The Swedish Space Corporation, which operates the space center in Sweden where Themis will initially fly, confirmed the schedule change. Once ArianeGroup moves on to higher altitude flights, the testing will be moved to the Guiana Space Center. ESA awarded the first development contract for the Themis booster in 2019, and the first hop tests were then scheduled for 2022. Themis’ hops will be similar to SpaceX’s Grasshopper rocket, which performed a series of up-and-down atmospheric test flights before SpaceX started recovering and reusing Falcon 9 boosters.
Fate of Themis … The Themis booster is powered by the methane-fueled Prometheus engine, also funded by ESA. A large European reusable rocket is unlikely to fly until the 2030s, but a subsidiary of ArianeGroup named MaiaSpace is developing a smaller partially reusable two-stage rocket slated to debut as soon as next year. The Maia rocket will use a modified Themis booster as its first stage. “As a result, for MaiaSpace, the continued and rapid development of the Themis program is essential to ensure it can hit its projected target of an inaugural flight of Maia in 2025,” European Spaceflight reports. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Enlarge/ The Ariane 6 rocket takes flight for the first time on July 9, 2024.
ESA – S. Corvaja
Welcome to Edition 7.02 of the Rocket Report! The highlight of this week was the hugely successful debut of Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket. They will address the upper stage issue, I am sure. Given Europe’s commitment to zero debris, stranding the second stage is not great. But for a debut launch of a large new vehicle, this was really promising.
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.
Chinese launch company suffers another setback. Chinese commercial rocket firm iSpace suffered a launch failure late Wednesday in a fresh setback for the company, Space News reports. The four-stage Hyperbola-1 solid rocket lifted off from Jiuquan spaceport in the Gobi Desert at 7: 40 pm ET (23: 40 UTC) on Wednesday. Beijing-based iSpace later issued a release stating that the rocket’s fourth stage suffered an anomaly. The statement did not reveal the name nor nature of the payloads lost on the flight.
Early troubles are perhaps to be expected … Beijing Interstellar Glory Space Technology Ltd., or iSpace, made history in 2019 as the first privately funded Chinese company to reach orbit, with the solid-fueled Hyperbola-1. However the rocket suffered three consecutive failures following that feat. The company recovered with two successful flights in 2023 before the latest failure. The loss could add to reliability concerns over China’s commercial launch industry as it follows Space Pioneer’s recent catastrophic static-fire explosion. (submitted by EllPeaTea)
Feds backtrack on former Firefly investor. A long, messy affair between US regulators and a Ukrainian businessman named Max Polyakov seems to have finally been resolved, Ars reports. On Tuesday, Polyakov’s venture capital firm Noosphere Venture Partners announced that the US government has released him and his related companies from all conditions imposed upon them in the run-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This decision comes more than two years after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and the US Air Force forced Polyakov to sell his majority stake in the Texas-based launch company Firefly.
Not a spy … This rocket company was founded in 2014 by an engineer named Tom Markusic, who ran into financial difficulty as he sought to develop the Alpha rocket. Markusic had to briefly halt Firefly’s operations before Polyakov, a colorful and controversial Ukrainian businessman, swooped in and provided a substantial infusion of cash into the company. “The US government quite happily allowed Polyakov to pump $200 million into Firefly only to decide he was a potential spy just as the company’s first rocket was ready to launch,” Ashlee Vance, a US journalist who chronicled Polyakov’s rise, told Ars. It turns out, Polyakov wasn’t a spy.
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Pentagon ICBM costs soar. The price tag for the Pentagon’s next-generation nuclear-tipped Sentinel ICBMs has ballooned by 81 percent in less than four years, The Register reports. This triggered a mandatory congressional review. On Monday, the Department of Defense released the results of this review, with Under-secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante saying the Sentinel missile program met established criteria for being allowed to continue after his “comprehensive, unbiased review of the program.”
Trust us, the military says … The Sentinel project is the DoD’s attempt to replace its aging fleet of ground-based nuclear-armed Minuteman III missiles (first deployed in 1970) with new hardware. When it passed its Milestone B decision (authorization to enter the engineering and manufacturing phase) in September 2020, the cost was a fraction of the $141 billion the Pentagon now estimates Sentinel will cost, LaPlante said. To give that some perspective, the proposed annual budget for the Department of Defense for its fiscal 2025 is nearly $850 billion. (submitted by EllPeaTea)
Enlarge/ Four kerosene-fueled Reaver engines power Firefly’s Alpha rocket off the pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.
Welcome to Edition 7.01 of the Rocket Report! We’re compiling this week’s report a day later than usual due to the Independence Day holiday. Ars is beginning its seventh year publishing this weekly roundup of rocket news, and there’s a lot of it this week despite the holiday here in the United States. Worldwide, there were 122 launches that flew into Earth orbit or beyond in the first half of 2024, up from 91 in the same period last year.
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.
Firefly launches its fifth Alpha flight. Firefly Aerospace placed eight CubeSats into orbit on a mission funded by NASA on the first flight of the company’s Alpha rocket since an upper stage malfunction more than half a year ago, Space News reports. The two-stage Alpha rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California late Wednesday, two days after an issue with ground equipment aborted liftoff just before engine ignition. The eight CubeSats come from NASA centers and universities for a range of educational, research, and technology demonstration missions. This was the fifth flight of Firefly’s Alpha rocket, capable of placing about a metric ton of payload into low-Earth orbit.
Anomaly resolution … This was the fifth flight of an Alpha rocket since 2021 and the fourth Alpha flight to achieve orbit. But the last Alpha launch in December failed to place its Lockheed Martin payload into the proper orbit due to a problem during the relighting of its second-stage engine. On this week’s launch, Alpha deployed its NASA-sponsored payloads after a single burn of the second stage, then completed a successful restart of the engine for a plane change maneuver. Engineers traced the problem on the last Alpha flight to a software error. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Two companies added to DoD’s launch pool. Blue Origin and Stoke Space Technologies — neither of which has yet reached orbit — have been approved by the US Space Force to compete for future launches of small payloads, Breaking Defense reports. Blue Origin and Stoke Space join a roster of launch companies eligible to compete for launch task orders the Space Force puts up for bid through the Orbital Services Program-4 (OSP-4) contract. Under this contract, Space Systems Command buys launch services for payloads 400 pounds (180 kilograms) or greater, enabling launch from 12 to 24 months of the award of a task order. The OSP-4 contract has an “emphasis on small orbital launch capabilities and launch solutions for Tactically Responsive Space mission needs,” said Lt. Col. Steve Hendershot, chief of Space Systems Command’s small launch and targets division.
An even dozen … Blue Origin aims to launch its orbital-class New Glenn rocket for the first time as soon as late September, while Stoke Space aims to fly its Nova rocket on an orbital test flight next year. The addition of these two companies means there are 12 providers eligible to bid on OSP-4 task orders. The other companies are ABL Space Systems, Aevum, Astra, Firefly Aerospace, Northrop Grumman, Relativity Space, Rocket Lab, SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and X-Bow. (submitted by Ken the Bin and brianrhurley)
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Italian startup test-fires small rocket. Italian rocket builder Sidereus Space Dynamics has completed the first integrated system test of its EOS rocket, European Spaceflight reports. This test occurred Sunday, culminating in a firing of the rocket’s kerosene/liquid oxygen MR-5 main engine for approximately 11 seconds. The EOS rocket is a novel design, utilizing a single-stage-to-orbit architecture, with the reusable booster returning to Earth from orbit for recovery under a parafoil. The rocket stands less than 14 feet (4.2 meters) tall and will be capable of delivering about 29 pounds (13 kilograms) of payload to low-Earth orbit.
A lean operation … After it completes integrated testing on the ground, the company will conduct the first low-altitude EOS test flights. Founded in 2019, Sidereus has raised 6.6 million euros ($7.1 million) to fund the development of the EOS rocket. While this is a fraction of the funding other European launch startups like Isar Aerospace, MaiaSpace, and Orbex have attracted, the Sidereus’s CEO, Mattia Barbarossa, has previously stated that the company intends to “reshape spaceflight in a fraction of the time and with limited resources.” (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)
Enlarge/ SpaceX’s 10th Falcon Heavy rocket climbs into orbit with a new US government weather satellite.
Welcome to Edition 6.50 of the Rocket Report! SpaceX launched its 10th Falcon Heavy rocket this week with the GOES-U weather satellite for NOAA, and this one was a beauty. The late afternoon timing of the launch and atmospheric conditions made for great photography. Falcon Heavy has become a trusted rocket for the US government, and its next flight in October will deploy NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft on the way to explore one of Jupiter’s enigmatic icy moons.
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.
Sir Peter Beck dishes on launch business. Ars spoke with the recently knighted Peter Beck, founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, on where his scrappy company fits in a global launch marketplace dominated by SpaceX. Rocket Lab racked up the third-most number of orbital launches by any US launch company (it’s headquartered in California but primarily assembles and launches rockets in New Zealand). SpaceX’s rideshare launch business with the Falcon 9 rocket is putting immense pressure on small launch companies like Rocket Lab. However, Beck argues his Electron rocket is a bespoke solution for customers desiring to put their satellite in a specific place at a specific time, a luxury they can’t count on with a SpaceX rideshare.
Ruthlessly efficient … A word that Beck returned to throughout his interview with Ars was “ruthless.” He said Rocket Lab’s success is a result of the company being “ruthlessly efficient and not making mistakes.” At one time, Rocket Lab was up against Virgin Orbit in the small launch business, and Virgin Orbit had access to capital through billionaire Richard Branson. Now, SpaceX is the 800-pound gorilla in the market. “We have a saying here at Rocket Lab that we have no money, so we have to think. We’ve never been in a position to outspend our competitors. We just have to out-think them. We have to be lean and mean.”
Firefly reveals plans for new launch sites. Firefly Aerospace plans to use the state of Virginia-owned launch pad at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility for East Coast launches of its Alpha small-satellite rocket, Aviation Week reports. The company plans to use Pad 0A for US military and other missions, particularly those requiring tight turnaround between procurement and launch. This is the same launch pad previously used by Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket, and it’s the soon-to-be home of the Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV) jointly developed by Northrop and Firefly. The launch pad will be configured for Alpha launches beginning in 2025, according to Firefly, which previously planned to develop an Alpha launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Now, Alpha and MLV rockets will fly from the same site on the East Coast, while Alpha will continue launching from the West Coast at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.
Hello, Sweden… A few days after the announcement for launches from Virginia, Firefly unveiled a collaborative agreement with Swedish Space Corporation to launch Alpha rockets from the Esrange Space Center in Sweden as soon as 2026. Esrange has been the departure point for numerous suborbital and sounding rocket for nearly 50 years, but the spaceport is being upgraded for orbital satellite launches. A South Korean startup named Perigee Aerospace announced in May it signed an agreement to be the first user of Esrange’s orbital launch capability. Firefly is the second company to make plans to launch satellites from the remote site in northern Sweden. (submitted by Ken the Bin and brianrhurley)
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China hops closer to reusable rockets. The Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST), part of China’s apparatus of state-owned aerospace companies, has conducted the country’s highest altitude launch and landing test so far as several teams chase reusable rocket capabilities, Space News reports. A 3.8-meter-diameter (9.2-foot) test article powered by three methane liquid-oxygen engines lifted off from the Gobi Desert on June 23 and soared to an altitude of about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) before setting down successfully for a vertical propulsive touchdown on landing legs at a nearby landing area. SAST will follow up with a 70-kilometer (43.5-mile) suborbital test using grid fins for better control. A first orbital flight of the new reusable rocket is planned for 2025.
Lots of players … If you don’t exclusively follow China’s launch sector, you should be forgiven for being unable to list all the companies working on new reusable rockets. Late last year, a Chinese startup named iSpace flew a hopper rocket testbed to an altitude of several hundred meters as part of a development program for the company’s upcoming partially reusable Hyperbola 2 rocket. A company named Space Pioneer plans to launch its medium-class Tianlong 3 rocket for the first time later this year. Tianlong 3 looks remarkably like SpaceX’s Falcon 9, and its first stage will eventually be made reusable. China recently test-fired engines for the government’s new Long March 10, a partially reusable rocket planned to become China’s next-generation crew launch vehicle. These are just a few of the reusable rocket programs in China. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Spanish launch startup invests in Kourou. PLD Space says it is ready to start construction at a disused launch complex at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana. The Spanish launch startup announced this week a 10 million euro ($10.7 million) investment in the launch complex for its Miura 5 rocket, with preparations of the site set to begin “after the summer.” The launch pad was previously used by the French Diamant rocket in the 1970s and is located several miles away from the launch pads used by the European Ariane 6 and Vega rockets. PLD Space is on track to become the first fully commercial company to launch from the spaceport in South America.
Free access to space … Also this week, PLD Space announced a new program to offer space aboard the first two flights of its Miura 5 rocket for free, European Spaceflight reports. The two-stage Miura 5 rocket will be capable of delivering about a half-ton of payload mass into a Sun-synchronous orbit. PLD Space will offer free launch services aboard the first two Miura 5 flights, which are expected to take place in late 2025 and early 2026. The application process will close on July 30, and winning proposals will be announced on November 30. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)
Enlarge/ An up-close view of LEAP 71’s autonomously designed keralox rocket engine.
LEAP 71
Welcome to Edition 6.49 of the Rocket Report! I want to open this week’s report with a hearty congratulations to Rocket Lab for the company’s 50th launch since Electron’s debut in 2017. This is a fine achievement for a company founded in New Zealand, a country with virtually no space program.
As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets and a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Electron celebrates its 50th. On Thursday, Rocket Lab launched its 50th Electron mission, “No Time Toulouse.” The mission successfully deployed five Internet-of-Things satellites for the French company Kinéis. This is a nice milestone for the company founded by Peter Beck in New Zealand. With this mission, Rocket Lab becomes the fastest company to go from one launch to 50 launches of a privately developed rocket, surpassing even SpaceX. The company’s first Electron mission came about seven years ago.
A rare feat… “The launch industry is not an easy or forgiving one. Making it to your first launch is not a given, so reaching 50 Electron launches is an enormous achievement and a rare feat in the history of spaceflight,” Beck said. Ars will have more about this feat, the past, and the future of Rocket Lab in a forthcoming article based on a recent interview with Beck.
Isar raises $70 million more. Germany-based small launch vehicle developer Isar Aerospace has raised more than 65 million euros ($70 million) in an extension of an earlier funding round, Space News reports. The company said Thursday that its “extended” Series C round was now valued at 220 million euros, bringing its total fundraising to date to 400 million euros. This is more than any other launch startup in Europe. It’s an impressive total.
Lighting up the spectrum... Among the participants in the latest round is the NATO Innovation Fund, a new venture fund backed by 24 of NATO’s 32 member states. The company said the additional funding will go toward efforts to scale up production of its Spectrum small launch vehicle. Isar is advancing toward stage testing of the Spectrum rocket, which is intended to carry 1 metric ton to low-Earth orbit. The vehicle’s debut launch may occur next year. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)
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Rocket Lab inks big Electron contract. The launch company said this week it has signed the largest Electron deal in its history with the Japanese Earth observation company Synspective. The Japanese firm agreed to purchase an additional 10 launches on Electron. Rocket Lab has been the sole launch provider for Synspective since 2020, successfully launching four missions for the company to date. (This announcement explains why, when I interviewed Rocket Lab chief Peter Beck this week, he was in Japan.)
A positive experience on Electron… In addition to the 10 new dedicated launches signed this week, another two launches for Synspective have already been booked and are scheduled to fly this year from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. The launches in the new deal will take place from 2025 to 2027. “This agreement gives us a solid foundation and confidence, as Rocket Lab is an innovative launch provider,” said Motoyuki Arai, the founder and chief executive of Synspective. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Matthew Brown to be taken down? The US Securities and Exchange Commission has sued a self-proclaimed venture capitalist, Matthew Brown, for making a “bogus offer” to acquire Virgin Orbit in the weeks before the launch company went bankrupt. According to the lawsuit filed Monday and reported by Bloomberg, Matthew Brown “made false and misleading statements and omissions about his investment experience and funds available to make such an offer.” The SEC asserted that Brown sent Virgin Orbit a fabricated screenshot of his company’s bank account, claiming it held $182 million when, in reality, it had a balance of less than $1.
Brown intends to fight the allegations… “The SEC’s complaint is filled with egregious errors, fabrications, and biased allegations that undeniably favor the culprit, Virgin Orbit’s Management,” a statement from a representative for Brown and his companies said. Brown’s intervention came in the final days before Virgin Orbit declared bankruptcy, as the small launch company sought to find a buyer to preserve its LauncherOne rocket. Dan Hart, the former chief executive officer of Virgin Orbit, told the publication that the Brown bid was “an unneeded distraction” when the leadership team was “trying to find a path forward for the company.” Ultimately, no such path could be found.
Autonomously designed engine is fired up. A Dubai-based company, LEAP 71, says it has developed a “Large Computational Engineering Model” that can autonomously design rocket engines. To that end, LEAP 71 co-founder Lin Kayser said the company’s engineering model autonomously designed a small rocket engine in two weeks. Then the kerosene-liquid oxygen engine was 3D printed in copper and test fired. With 1,124 pounds of thrust, the engine generated 20,000 horsepower and completed all of its tests, including a long-duration burn, the company said.
Putting the rapid in rapid iteration… “Each new design iteration takes only about 15 minutes and is ready to print again,” Kayser told Ars in an email. “The idea is to reduce engineering time and maximize testing iterations. Most rocket startups are still stuck in the long process of reengineering when they get their test results; we hope to eliminate that.” Notably, the company also claims this is the first liquid-fueled rocket engine to be developed in the United Arab Emirates.
Enlarge/ A sea-borne variant of the commercial Ceres 1 rocket lifts off near the coast of Rizhao, a city of 3 million in China’s Shandong province.
Welcome to Edition 6.46 of the Rocket Report! It looks like we will be covering the crew test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft and the fourth test flight of SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket over the next week. All of this is happening as SpaceX keeps up its cadence of flying multiple Starlink missions per week. The real stars are the Ars copy editors helping make sure our stories don’t use the wrong names.
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.
Another North Korean launch failure. North Korea’s latest attempt to launch a rocket with a military reconnaissance satellite ended in failure due to the midair explosion of the rocket during the first-stage flight this week, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reports. Video captured by the Japanese news organization NHK appears to show the North Korean rocket disappearing in a fireball shortly after liftoff Monday night from a launch pad on the country’s northwest coast. North Korean officials acknowledged the launch failure and said the rocket was carrying a small reconnaissance satellite named Malligyong-1-1.
Russia’s role? … Experts initially thought the pending North Korean launch, which was known ahead of time from international airspace warning notices, would use the same Chŏllima 1 rocket used on three flights last year. But North Korean statements following the launch Monday indicated the rocket used a new propulsion system burning a petroleum-based fuel, presumably kerosene, with liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. The Chŏllima 1 rocket design used a toxic mixture of hypergolic hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide as propellants. If North Korea’s statement is true, this would be a notable leap in the country’s rocket technology and begs the question of whether Russia played a significant role in the launch. Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged more Russian support for North Korea’s rocket program in a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. (submitted by Ken the Bin and Jay500001)
Rocket Lab deploys small NASA climate satellite. Rocket Lab is in the midst of back-to-back launches for NASA, carrying identical climate research satellites into different orbits to study heat loss to space in Earth’s polar regions. The Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment (PREFIRE) satellites are each about the size of a shoebox, and NASA says data from PREFIRE will improve computer models that researchers use to predict how Earth’s ice, seas, and weather will change in a warming world. “The difference between the amount of heat Earth absorbs at the tropics and that radiated out from the Arctic and Antarctic is a key influence on the planet’s temperature, helping to drive dynamic systems of climate and weather,” NASA said in a statement.
Twice in a week… NASA selected Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle to deliver the two PREFIRE satellites into orbit on two dedicated rides rather than launching at a lower cost on a rideshare mission. This is because scientists want the satellites flying at the proper alignment to ensure they fly over the poles several hours apart, providing the data needed to measure how the rate at which heat radiates from the polar regions changes over time. The first PREFIRE launch occurred on May 25, and the next one is slated for May 31. Both launches will take off from Rocket Lab’s base in New Zealand. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
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A rocket launch comes to Rizhao. China has diversified its launch sector over the last decade to include new families of small satellite launchers and new spaceports. One of these relatively new small rockets, the solid-fueled Ceres 1, took off Wednesday from a floating launch pad positioned about 2 miles (3 km) off the coast of Rizhao, a city of roughly 3 million people in China’s Shandong province. The Ceres 1 rocket, developed by a quasi-commercial company called Galactic Energy, has previously flown from land-based launch pads and a sea-borne platform, but this mission originated from a location remarkably close to shore, with the skyline of a major metropolitan area as a backdrop.
Range safety … There’s no obvious orbital mechanics reason to position the rocket’s floating launch platform so near a major Chinese city, other than perhaps to gain a logistical advantage by launching close to port. The Ceres 1 rocket has a fairly good reliability record—11 successes in 12 flights—but for safety reasons, there’s no Western spaceport that would allow members of the public (not to mention a few million) to get so close to a rocket launch. For decades, Chinese rockets have routinely dropped rocket boosters containing toxic propellant on farms and villages downrange from the country’s inland spaceports.
