Space – Page 2

Tuesday Telescope: After spacewalking, an astronaut strikes lightning

daily telescope, Space, tuesday telescope / DJ Henderson / May 6, 2025

Welcome to the Tuesday Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light—a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We’ll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we’ll take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder.

Most astronauts these days are fairly anonymous, and chances are you have never heard of Nichole Ayers. And that’s OK.

But sometimes it’s worth pausing for a moment to reflect on just how accomplished these people are. Ayers, 36, flew the supersonic F-22 stealth aircraft in the international war against the Islamic State and rose to become a major in the US Air Force before being selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021. Oh, yeah, she also completed a master’s degree in computational and applied mathematics at Rice University.

For her first spaceflight, Ayers launched on the Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station in March. This flight got a fair amount of media attention, but that was largely because the arrival of Crew-10 allowed the Crew Dragon spacecraft to which Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were assigned to return home. Since then, Ayers has spent 50 days in space, astronauting. This included a spacewalk last week, her first, alongside veteran astronaut Anne McClain.

As they returned to the airlock, the Earth below started to put on a lightning show, and Ayers took note, mesmerized. A day later, she picked up a camera and captured some additional lightning strikes, saying, “I am so amazed by the view we have up here of our Earth’s weather systems.” I’ve chosen my favorite of these photos for today’s post.

Source: Nichole Ayers/NASA

Do you want to submit a photo for the Daily Telescope? Reach out and say hello.

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SpaceX pushed “sniper” theory with the feds far more than is publicly known

Features, Space / Beth Washington / May 5, 2025

“It came out of nowhere, and it was really violent.”

The Amos 6 satellite is lost atop a Falcon 9 rocket. Credit: USLaunchReport

The rocket was there. And then it decidedly was not.

Shortly after sunrise on a late summer morning nearly nine years ago at SpaceX’s sole operational launch pad, engineers neared the end of a static fire test. These were still early days for their operation of a Falcon 9 rocket that used super-chilled liquid propellants, and engineers pressed to see how quickly they could complete fueling. This was because the liquid oxygen and kerosene fuel warmed quickly in Florida’s sultry air, and cold propellants were essential to maximizing the rocket’s performance.

On this morning, September 1, 2016, everything proceeded more or less nominally up until eight minutes before the ignition of the rocket’s nine Merlin engines. It was a stable point in the countdown, so no one expected what happened next.

“I saw the first explosion,” John Muratore, launch director for the mission, told me. “It came out of nowhere, and it was really violent. I swear, that explosion must have taken an hour. It felt like an hour. But it was only a few seconds. The second stage exploded in this huge ball of fire, and then the payload kind of teetered on top of the transporter erector. And then it took a swan dive off the top rails, dove down, and hit the ground. And then it exploded.”

The dramatic loss of the Falcon 9 rocket and its Amos-6 satellite, captured on video by a commercial photographer, came at a pivotal moment for SpaceX and the broader commercial space industry. It was SpaceX’s second rocket failure in a little more than a year, and it occurred as NASA was betting heavily on the company to carry its astronauts to orbit. SpaceX was not the behemoth it is today, a company valued at $350 billion. It remained vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the launch industry. This violent failure shook everyone, from the engineers in Florida to satellite launch customers to the suits at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC.

As part of my book on the Falcon 9 and Dragon years at SpaceX, Reentry, I reported deeply on the loss of the Amos-6 mission. In the weeks afterward, the greatest mystery was what had precipitated the accident. It was understood that a pressurized helium tank inside the upper stage had ruptured. But why? No major parts on the rocket were moving at the time of the failure. It was, for all intents and purposes, akin to an automobile idling in a driveway with half a tank of gasoline. And then it exploded.

This failure gave rise to one of the oddest—but also strangely compelling—stories of the 2010s in spaceflight. And we’re still learning new things today.

The “sniper” theory

The lack of a concrete explanation for the failure led SpaceX engineers to pursue hundreds of theories. One was the possibility that an outside “sniper” had shot the rocket. This theory appealed to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who was asleep at his home in California when the rocket exploded. Within hours of hearing about the failure, Musk gravitated toward the simple answer of a projectile being shot through the rocket.

This is not as crazy as it sounds, and other engineers at SpaceX aside from Musk entertained the possibility, as some circumstantial evidence to support the notion of an outside actor existed. Most notably, the first rupture in the rocket occurred about 200 feet above the ground, on the side of the vehicle facing the southwest. In this direction, about one mile away, lay a building leased by SpaceX’s main competitor in launch, United Launch Alliance. A separate video indicated a flash on the roof of this building, now known as the Spaceflight Processing Operations Center. The timing of this flash matched the interval it would take a projectile to travel from the building to the rocket.

A sniper on the roof of a competitor’s building—forget the Right Stuff, this was the stuff of a Mission: Impossible or James Bond movie.

At Musk’s direction, SpaceX worked this theory both internally and externally. Within the company, engineers and technicians actually took pressurized tanks that stored helium—one of these had burst, leading to the explosion—and shot at them in Texas to determine whether they would explode and what the result looked like. Externally, they sent the site director for their Florida operations, Ricky Lim, to inquire whether he might visit the roof of the United Launch Alliance building.

SpaceX pursued the sniper theory for more than a month. A few SpaceX employees told me that they did not stop this line of inquiry until the Federal Aviation Administration sent the company a letter definitively saying that there was no gunman involved. It would be interesting to see this letter, so I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the FAA in the spring of 2023. Because the federal FOIA process moves slowly, I did not expect to receive a response in time for the book. But it was worth a try anyway.

No reply came in 2023 or early 2024, when the final version of my book was due to my editor. Reentry was published last September, and still nothing. However, last week, to my great surprise and delight, I got a response from the FAA. It was the very letter I requested, sent from the FAA to Tim Hughes, the general counsel of SpaceX, on October 13, 2016. And yes, the letter says there was no gunman involved.

However, there were other things I did not know—namely, that the FBI had also investigated the incident.

The ULA rivalry

One of the most compelling elements of this story is that it involves SpaceX’s heated rival, United Launch Alliance. For a long time, ULA had the upper hand, but in recent years, it has taken a dramatic turn. Now we know that David would grow up and slay Goliath: Between the final rocket ULA launched last year (the Vulcan test flight on October 4) and the first rocket the company launched this year (Atlas V, April 28), SpaceX launched 90 rockets.

Ninety.

But it was a different story in the summer of 2016 in the months leading up to the Amos 6 failure. Back then, ULA was launching about 15 rockets a year, compared to SpaceX’s five. And ULA was launching all of the important science missions for NASA and the critical spy satellites for the US military. They were the big dog, SpaceX the pup.

In the early days of the Falcon 9 rocket, some ULA employees would drive to where SpaceX was working on the first booster and jeer at their efforts. And rivalry played out not just on the launch pad but in courtrooms and on Capitol Hill. After ULA won an $11 billion block buy contract from the US Air Force to launch high-value military payloads into the early 2020s, Musk sued in April 2014. He alleged that the contract had been awarded without a fair competition and said the Falcon 9 rocket could launch the missions at a substantially lower price. Taxpayers, he argued, were being taken for a ride.

Eventually, SpaceX and the Air Force resolved their claims. The Air Force agreed to open some of its previously awarded national security missions to competitive bids. Over time, SpaceX has overtaken ULA even in this arena. During the most recent round of awards, SpaceX won 60 percent of the contracts compared to ULA’s 40 percent.

So when SpaceX raised the possibility of a ULA sniper, it came at an incendiary moment in the rivalry, when SpaceX was finally putting forth a very serious challenge to ULA’s dominance and monopoly.

It is no surprise, therefore, that ULA told SpaceX’s Ricky Lim to get lost when he wanted to see the roof of their building in Florida.

“Hair-on-fire stuff”

NASA officials were also deeply concerned by the loss of the Falcon 9 rocket in September 2016.

The space agency spent much of the 2010s working with SpaceX and Boeing to develop, test, and fly spacecraft that could fly humans into space. These were difficult years for the space agency, which had to rely on Russia to get its astronauts into space. NASA also had a challenging time balancing costs with astronaut safety. Then rockets started blowing up.

Consider this sequence from mid-2015 to mid-2016. In June 2015, the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a cargo version of the Dragon spacecraft into orbit exploded. Less than two weeks later, NASA named four astronauts to its “commercial crew” cadre from which the initial pilots of Dragon and Starliner spacecraft would be selected. Finally, a little more than a year after this, a second Falcon 9 rocket upper stage detonated.

Video of CRS-7 launch and failure.

Even as it was losing Falcon 9 rockets, SpaceX revealed that it intended to upend NASA’s long-standing practice of fueling a rocket and then, when the vehicle reached a stable condition, putting crew on board. Rather, SpaceX said it would put the astronauts on board before fueling. This process became known as “load and go.”

NASA’s safety community went nuts.

“When SpaceX came to us and said we want to load the crew first and then the propellant, mushroom clouds went off in our safety community,” Phil McAlister, the head of NASA’s commercial programs, told me for Reentry. “I mean, hair-on-fire stuff. It was just conventional wisdom that you load the propellant first and get it thermally stable. Fueling is a very dynamic operation. The vehicle is popping and hissing. The safety community was adamantly against this.”

Amos-6 compounded these concerns. That’s because the rocket was not shot by a sniper. After months of painful investigation and analysis, engineers determined the rocket was lost due to the propellant-loading process. In their goal of rapidly fueling the Falcon 9 rocket, the SpaceX teams had filled the pressurized helium tanks too quickly, heating the aluminum liner and causing it to buckle. In their haste to load super-chilled propellant onto the Falcon 9, SpaceX had found its speed limit.

At NASA, it was not difficult to visualize astronauts in a Dragon capsule sitting atop an exploding rocket during propellant loading rather than a commercial satellite.

Enter the FBI

We should stop and appreciate the crucible that SpaceX engineers and technicians endured in the fall of 2016. They were simultaneously attempting to tease out the physics of a fiendishly complex failure; prove to NASA their exploding rocket was safe; convince safety officials that even though they had just blown up their rocket by fueling it too quickly, load-and-go was feasible for astronaut missions; increase the cadence of Falcon 9 missions to catch and surpass ULA; and, oh yes, gently explain to the boss that a sniper had not shot their rocket.

So there had to be some relief when, on October 13, Hughes received that letter from Dr. Michael C. Romanowski, director of Commercial Space Integration at the FAA.

According to this letter (see a copy here), three weeks after the launch pad explosion, SpaceX submitted “video and audio” along with its analysis of the failure to the FAA. “SpaceX suggested that in the company’s view, this information and data could be indicative of sabotage or criminal activity associated with the on-pad explosion of SpaceX’s Falcon 9,” the letter states.

This is notable because it suggests that Musk directed SpaceX to elevate the “sniper” theory to the point that the FAA should take it seriously. But there was more. According to the letter, SpaceX reported the same data and analysis to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Florida.

After this, the Tampa Field Office of the FBI and its Criminal Investigative Division in Washington, DC, looked into the matter. And what did they find? Nothing, apparently.

“The FBI has informed us that based upon a thorough and coordinated review by the appropriate Federal criminal and security investigative authorities, there were no indications to suggest that sabotage or any other criminal activity played a role in the September 1 Falcon 9 explosion,” Romanowski wrote. “As a result, the FAA considers this matter closed.”

The failure of the Amos-6 mission would turn out to be a low point for SpaceX. For a few weeks, there were non-trivial questions about the company’s financial viability. But soon, SpaceX would come roaring back. In 2017, the Falcon 9 rocket launched a record 18 times, surpassing ULA for the first time. The gap would only widen. Last year, SpaceX launched 137 rockets to ULA’s five.

With Amos-6, therefore, SpaceX lost the battle. But it would eventually win the war—without anyone firing a shot.

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.

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We finally know a little more about Amazon’s super-secret satellites

Amazon, atlas v, broadband, Internet, kuiper, launch, Science, Space, united launch alliance / Kelly Newman / May 3, 2025

“Elon thinks we can do the job with cheaper and simpler satellites, sooner,” a source told Reuters at the time of Badyal’s dismissal. Earlier in 2018, SpaceX launched a pair of prototype cube-shaped Internet satellites for demonstrations in orbit. Then, less than a year after firing Badyal, Musk’s company launched the first full stack of Starlink satellites, debuting the now-standard flat-panel design.

In a post Friday on LinkedIn, Badyal wrote the Kuiper satellites have had “an entirely nominal start” to their mission. “We’re just over 72 hours into our first full-scale Kuiper mission, and the adrenaline is still high.”

The Starlink and Kuiper constellations use laser inter-satellite links to relay Internet signals from node-to-node across their networks. Starlink broadcasts consumer broadband in Ku-band frequencies, while Kuiper will use Ka-band.

Ultimately, SpaceX’s simplified Starlink deployment architecture has fewer parts and eliminates the need for a carrier structure. This allows SpaceX to devote a higher share of the rocket’s mass and volume capacity to the Starlink satellites themselves, replacing dead weight with revenue-earning capability. The dispenser architecture used by Amazon is a more conventional design, and gives satellite engineers more flexibility in designing their spacecraft. It also allows satellites to spread out faster in orbit.

Others involved in the broadband megaconstellation rush have copied SpaceX’s architecture.

China’s Qianfan, or Thousand Sails, satellites have a “standardized and modular” flat-panel design that “meets the needs of stacking multiple satellites with one rocket,” according to the company managing the constellation. While Chinese officials haven’t released any photos of the satellites, which could eventually number more than 14,000, this sounds a lot like the design of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites.

Another piece of information released by United Launch Alliance helps us arrive at an estimate of the mass of each Kuiper satellite. The collection of 27 satellites that launched earlier this week added up to be the heaviest payload ever flown on ULA’s Atlas V rocket. ULA said the total payload the Atlas V delivered to orbit was about 34,000 pounds, equivalent to roughly 15.4 metric tons.

It wasn’t clear whether this number accounted for the satellite dispenser, which likely weighed somewhere in the range of 1,000 to 2,000 pounds at launch. This would put the mass of each Kuiper satellite somewhere between 1,185 and 1,259 pounds (537 and 571 kilograms).

This is not far off the estimated mass of SpaceX’s most recent iteration of Starlink satellites, a version known as V2 Mini Optimized. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket has launched up to 28 of these flat-packed satellites on a single launch.

We finally know a little more about Amazon’s super-secret satellites Read More »

White House budget seeks to end SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway programs

budget, Gateway, orion, sls, Space / Kelly Newman / May 2, 2025

Several sources in the space community, therefore, believe it is indeed plausible that SLS and Orion will be phased out over the next five years in favor of far less expensive commercial rockets and spacecraft. NASA will thus be asked to beat China to the Moon with the legacy systems and then identify more affordable options for future missions to the Moon.

Mars ambitions

One area that will see increased spending under the Trump administration’s proposed budget is human space exploration.

“By allocating over $7 billion for lunar exploration and introducing $1 billion in new investments for Mars-focused programs, the Budget ensures that America’s human space exploration efforts remain unparalleled, innovative, and efficient,” the document states.

Under the Trump administration, NASA will seek to reach both the Moon and Mars. The goal, stated in the document, is to refocus NASA “on beating China to the Moon and putting the first human on Mars.” Unfortunately, there is no information on what these “Mars-focused programs” will be. Some of this new funding would almost certainly go to SpaceX. The company, founded by Trump ally Elon Musk, explicitly focuses on establishing human settlements on Mars.

Although lunar and Mars exploration receive increases, the budget seeks to reduce the agency’s commitment to the International Space Station, while still flying it until 2030. “The Budget reduces the space station’s crew size and onboard research,” the document states. “Crew and cargo flights to the station would be significantly reduced. The station’s reduced research capacity would be focused on efforts critical to the Moon and Mars exploration programs.”

It is likely that Congress will oppose some of these changes, particularly the cuts to science programs and the reduction in activity on the International Space Station. But that story will play out in the coming months as the laborious budget process unfolds.

White House budget seeks to end SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway programs Read More »

Eric Schmidt apparently bought Relativity Space to put data centers in orbit

eric schmidt, Google, relativity space, Space / DJ Henderson / May 2, 2025

“This probably helps explain why Schmidt bought Relativity Space,” I commented on the social media site X after Schmidt’s remarks. A day later, Schmidt replied with a single word, “Yes.”

There are relatively few US launch companies that either have large rockets or are developing them. The options for a would-be space entrepreneur who wants to control their own access to space are limited. SpaceX and Blue Origin are already owned by billionaires who have total decision-making authority. United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket is expensive, and its existing manifest is long already. Rocket Lab’s Neutron vehicle is coming soon, but it may not be large enough for Schmidt’s ambitions.

That leaves Relativity Space, which may be within a couple of years of flying the partially reusable Terran R rocket. If fully realized, Terran R would be a beastly launch vehicle capable of launching 33.5 metric tons to low-Earth orbit in expendable mode—more than a fully upgraded Vulcan Centaur—and 23.5 tons with a reusable first stage. If you were a billionaire seeking to put large data centers into space and wanted control of launch, Relativity is probably the only game in town.

As Ars has previously reported, there are some considerable flaws with Relativity’s approach to developing Terran R. However, these problems can be fixed with additional money, and Schmidt has brought that to the company over the last half-year.

Big problems, big ideas

Schmidt does not possess the wealth of an Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. His personal fortune is roughly $20 billion, so approximately an order of magnitude less. This explains why, according to financial industry sources, Schmidt is presently seeking additional partners to bankroll a revitalized Relativity.

Solving launch is just one of the challenges this idea faces, of course. How big would these data centers be? Where would they go within an increasingly cluttered low-Earth orbit? Could space-based solar power meet their energy needs? Can all of this heat be radiated away efficiently in space? Economically, would any of this make sense?

These are not simple questions. But Schmidt is correct that the current trajectory of power and environmental demands created by AI data centers is unsustainable. It is good that someone is thinking big about solving big problems.

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

asteroid, electric propulsion, jet propulsion laboratory, Maxar, NASA, planetary science, psyche, Science, solar system, Space / Mike M. / May 1, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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After convincing senators he supports Artemis, Isaacman nomination advances

isaacman, NASA, Space / DJ Henderson / April 30, 2025

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

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

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

Committing to Artemis

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

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

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

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

A rocket launch Monday night may finally jump-start Amazon’s answer to Starlink

Amazon, atlas v, broadband, cape canaveral, Commercial space, project kuiper, Science, Space, united launch alliance / Mike M. / April 29, 2025

“This launch marks the first step toward the future of our partnership and increased launch cadence,” Bruno said. “We have been steadily modifying our launch facilities in Cape Canaveral to support the capacity for future Project Kuiper missions in a manner that will ultimately benefit both our commercial and government customers as we endeavor to save lives, explore the universe, and connect the world.”

The Atlas V rocket was powered by a Russian-made RD-180 main engine and five strap-on solid rocket boosters. Credit: United Launch Alliance

Amazon ground controllers in Redmond, Washington, are overseeing the operation of the first 27 Kuiper satellites. Engineers there will test each satellite’s ability to independently maneuver and communicate with mission control. So far, this appears to be going well.

The next step will involve activating the satellites’ electric propulsion systems to gradually climb to their assigned orbit of 392 miles (630 kilometers).

“While the satellites complete the orbit-raising process, we will look ahead to our ultimate mission objective: providing end-to-end network connectivity,” Amazon said in a press release. “This involves sending data from the Internet, through our ground infrastructure, up to the satellites, and down to customer terminal antennas, and then repeating the journey in the other direction.”

A moveable deadline

While most of the rockets Amazon will use for the Kuiper network have only recently entered service, that’s not true of the Atlas V. Delays in spacecraft manufacturing at Amazon’s factory near Seattle kept the first Kuiper satellites on the ground until now.

An Amazon spokesperson told Ars that the company is already shipping Kuiper satellites for the next launch on an Atlas V rocket. Sources suggest that mission could lift off in June.

Amazon released this image of Kuiper user terminals in 2023. Credit: Amazon

Amazon and its launch suppliers need to get moving. Kuiper officials face a July 2026 deadline from the Federal Communications Commission to deploy half of the fleet’s 3,236 satellites to maintain network authorization. This is not going to happen. It would require an average of nearly one launch per week, starting now.

The time limit is movable, and the FCC has extended network authorization deadlines before. Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman of the FCC, has argued for a more “market-friendly regulatory environment” in a chapter he authored for the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, widely seen as a blueprint for the Trump administration’s strategies.

But Carr is a close ally of Elon Musk, owner of Kuiper’s primary competitor, Starlink.

Amazon is not selling subscriptions for Kuiper service yet, and the company has said its initial focus will be on testing Kuiper connectivity with “enterprise customers” before moving on to consumer broadband. Apart from challenging Starlink, Kuiper will also compete in some market segments with Eutelsat OneWeb, the London-based operator of the only other active Internet megaconstellation.

OneWeb’s more than 600 satellites provide service to businesses, governments, schools, and hospitals rather than direct service to individual consumers.

A rocket launch Monday night may finally jump-start Amazon’s answer to Starlink Read More »

Tuesday Telescope: Yes, you can see stars in space, and they’re spectacular

daily telescope, Space, tuesday telescope / Shannon Garcia / April 29, 2025

NASA Astronaut Don Pettit returned to Earth 10 days ago, landing in Kazakhstan. During his latest mission, his third long-duration on the International Space Station, Pettit brought his brand of wonderment to the assignment.

During his time in microgravity, Pettit, an inveterate tinkerer, said he likes to spend his free time either doing experiments in microgravity he cannot do on Earth or taking images to bring the experience back home. At a news conference Monday, Pettit was asked why he took so many images—670,000!—during his most recent stay on the space station.

“When I’m looking out the window, just enjoying the view, it’s like, ‘Oh, wow, a meteor. Look at that. Man, there’s a flash there. What’s that? Oh, look at that volcano going off. Okay, where’s my camera? I gotta record that.’ And part of this drive for me is when your mission is over, it’s photographs and memories. When you want to share the experience with people, you can share the memories through verbal communication, like we’re doing now, but the photographs are just another dimension of sharing what it’s like. It’s an experience where most people on Earth right now can’t share, and I can try to give them a glimpse through my imagery.”

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Weapons of war are launching from Cape Canaveral for the first time since 1988

cape canaveral, hypersonic missile, leidos, Lockheed Martin, military space, national security, Pentagon, Space, us army / Beth Washington / April 26, 2025

Unlike a recent hypersonic missile test, officials didn’t immediately confirm Friday’s flight was a success.

File photo of a previous launch of the Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, on December 12, 2024. Credit: Department of Defense

The US military launched a long-range hypersonic missile Friday morning from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on a test flight that, if successful, could pave the way for the weapon’s operational deployment later this year.

The Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon fired out of a canister on a road-mobile trailer shortly after sunrise on Florida’s Space Coast, then headed east over the Atlantic Ocean propelled by a solid-fueled rocket booster. Local residents shared images of the launch on social media.

Designed for conventional munitions, the new missile is poised to become the first ground-based hypersonic weapon fielded by the US military. Russia has used hypersonic missiles in combat against Ukraine. China has “the world’s leading hypersonic missile arsenal,” according to a recent Pentagon report on Chinese military power. After a successful test flight from Cape Canaveral last year, the long-range hypersonic weapon (LRHW)—officially named “Dark Eagle” by the Army earlier this week—will give the United States the ability to strike targets with little or no warning.

The Dark Eagle missile rapidly gained speed and altitude after launch Friday morning, then soon disappeared from the view of onlookers at Cape Canaveral. Warning notices advising pilots and mariners to steer clear of the test area indicated the missile and its hypersonic glide vehicle were supposed to splash down in the mid-Atlantic Ocean hundreds of miles north and northeast of Puerto Rico.

Success not guaranteed

A US defense official did not answer questions from Ars about the outcome of the test flight Friday.

“A combined team of government, academic, and industry partners conducted a test on behalf of the Department of Defense from a test site at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station,” the official said. “We are currently evaluating the results of the test.”

Liftoff of the LRHW Dark Eagle this morning 🚀 https://t.co/lCJhUXxT84 pic.twitter.com/YJXXuSxmJK

— Jerry Pike (@JerryPikePhoto) April 25, 2025

This missile launch and a similar one in December are the first tests of land-based offensive weapons at Cape Canaveral since 1988, when the military last tested Pershing ballistic missiles there. The launch range in Florida continues to support offshore tests of submarine-launched Trident missiles, and now is a center for hypersonic missile testing.

The Pentagon has a long-standing policy of not publicizing hypersonic missile tests before they happen, except for safety notices for civilian airplanes and ships downrange. But the Defense Department declared the previous Dark Eagle test flight a success within a few hours of the launch, and did not do so this time.

Hypersonic missiles offer several advantages over conventional ballistic missiles. These new kinds of weapons are more maneuverable and dimmer than other missiles, so they are more difficult for an aerial defense system to detect, track, and destroy. They are designed to evade an adversary’s missile warning sensors. These sensors were originally activated to detect larger, brighter incoming ballistic missiles, which have a predictable trajectory toward their targets after boosting themselves out of the atmosphere and into space.

A hypersonic weapon is different. It can skim through the upper atmosphere at blistering speeds, producing a much dimmer heat signature that is difficult to see with an infrared sensor on a conventional missile warning satellite. At these altitudes, the glide vehicle can take advantage of aerodynamic forces for maneuvers. This is why the Pentagon’s Space Development Agency is spending billions of dollars to deploy a network of missile tracking satellites in low-Earth orbit, putting hundreds of sophisticated sensors closer to the flight path of hypersonic weapons.

Dark Eagle is designed to fly at speeds exceeding Mach 5, or 3,800 mph, with a reported range of 1,725 miles (2,775 kilometers), sufficient to reach Taiwan from Guam, or NATO’s borders with Russia from Western Europe. The US military says it has no plans to outfit its hypersonic weapons with nuclear warheads.

In a statement on Thursday, the Department of Defense said the weapon’s official name pays tribute to the eagle, known for its speed, stealth, and agility. Dark Eagle offers a similar mix of attributes: velocity, accuracy, maneuverability, survivability, and versatility, the Pentagon said.

“The word ‘dark’ embodies the LRHW’s ability to dis-integrate adversary capabilities,” the statement said. “Hypersonic weapons will complicate adversaries’ decision calculus, strengthening deterrence,” said Patrick Mason, senior official performing the duties of the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics, and technology

A US Army soldier lifts the hydraulic launching system on the new long-range hypersonic weapon (LRHW) during Operation Thunderbolt Strike at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, on March 3, 2023. Credit: Spc. Chandler Coats, US Army

Dark Eagle is the land-based component of the Pentagon’s effort to field hypersonic missiles for combat. The Navy will use the same system on its ships to provide a sea-launched version of the hypersonic weapon called Conventional Prompt Strike, which will be placed on destroyers and submarines.

The Army and Navy programs will use an identical two-stage missile, which will jettison after depleting its rocket motors, freeing a hypersonic glide vehicle to steer toward its target. The entire rocket and glide vehicle are collectively called an “All Up Round.”

“The use of a common hypersonic missile and joint test opportunities allow the services to pursue a more aggressive timeline for delivery and to realize cost savings,” the Defense Department said in a statement.

A long road to get here

The Congressional Budget Office reported in 2023 that purchasing 300 intermediate-range hypersonic missiles would cost $41 million per missile. Dynetics, a subsidiary of the defense contractor Leidos, is responsible for developing the Common Hypersonic Glide Body for the Army’s Dark Eagle and the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike programs. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor charged with integrating the entire weapon system.

The military canceled an air-launched hypersonic weapon program in 2023 after it ran into problems during testing.

The Pentagon said Army commanders will use Dark Eagle to “engage adversary high-payoff and time-sensitive targets.” The hypersonic weapon could be used against an adversary’s mobile missile forces if US officials determine they are preparing for launch, or it could strike well-defended targets out of reach of other weapons in the US arsenal. Once in the field, the missile’s use will fall under the authority of US Strategic Command, with the direction of the president and the secretary of defense.

Defense News, an industry trade publication, reported in February that the Army aimed to deliver the first Dark Eagle missiles to a combat unit before October 1, pending final decisions by the Pentagon’s new leadership under the Trump administration.

This illustration from the Government Accountability Office compares the trajectory of a ballistic missile with those of a hypersonic glide vehicle and a hypersonic cruise missile. Credit: GAO

Dark Eagle suffered multiple test failures in 2021 and 2022, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. Military crews aborted several attempts to launch the missile from Cape Canaveral in 2023 due to a problem with the weapon’s launcher. The program achieved two successes last year with test flights from Hawaii and Florida.

The December launch from Cape Canaveral was an important milestone. “This test builds on several flight tests in which the Common Hypersonic Glide Body achieved hypersonic speed at target distances and demonstrates that we can put this capability in the hands of the warfighter,” said Christine Wormuth, then-secretary of the army, in a Pentagon statement announcing the result of the test flight.

The Dark Eagle readiness tests build on more than a decade of experimental hypersonic flights by multiple US defense agencies. Hypersonic flight is an unforgiving environment, where the outer skin of glide vehicles must withstand temperatures of 3,000° Fahrenheit. It’s impossible to re-create such an extreme environment through modeling or tests on the ground.

While the Army and Navy hope to soon deploy the first US hypersonic missile for use in combat, the military continues pursuing more advanced hypersonic technology. In January, the Pentagon awarded a contract worth up to $1.45 billion to Kratos Defense & Security Solutions for the Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed (MACH-TB) program.

Kratos partners with other companies, like Leidos, Rocket Lab, Firefly Aerospace, and Stratolaunch, to test hypersonic technologies in their operating environment. The program aims for a rapid cadence of suborbital test flights, some of which have already launched with Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket. With these experiments, engineers can see how individual components and technologies work in flight before using them on real weapons.

The Biden administration requested $6.9 billion for the Pentagon’s hypersonic research programs in fiscal year 2025, up from $4.7 billion in 2023. The Trump administration’s budget request for fiscal year 2026 is scheduled for release next month.

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.

Weapons of war are launching from Cape Canaveral for the first time since 1988 Read More »

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

Arianespace, astra, blue origin, china, human spaceflight, launch, NASA, rocket report, Science, Space, spacex, united launch alliance / Shannon Garcia / April 25, 2025

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

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

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

As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next three launches

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

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

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

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

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

blue origin, launch, NASA, Space, spacex, united launch alliance / DJ Henderson / April 25, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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