Space

rivals-object-to-spacex’s-starship-plans-in-florida—who’s-interfering-with-whom?

Rivals object to SpaceX’s Starship plans in Florida—who’s interfering with whom?

cape canaveral space force station, Kennedy Space Center, launch, military space, NASA, new glenn, Space, spacex, starship, united launch alliance, US Space Force / /

“We’re going to continue to treat any LOX-methane vehicle with 100 percent TNT blast equivalency.”

Artist’s illustration of Starships stacked on two launch pads at the Space Force’s Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Credit: SpaceX

The commander of the military unit responsible for running the Cape Canaveral spaceport in Florida expects SpaceX to begin launching Starship rockets there next year.

Launch companies with facilities near SpaceX’s Starship pads are not pleased. SpaceX’s two chief rivals, Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance, complained last year that SpaceX’s proposal of launching as many as 120 Starships per year from Florida’s Space Coast could force them to routinely clear personnel from their launch pads for safety reasons.

This isn’t the first time Blue Origin and ULA have tried to throw up roadblocks in front of SpaceX. The companies sought to prevent NASA from leasing a disused launch pad to SpaceX in 2013, but they lost the fight.

Col. Brian Chatman, commander of a Space Force unit called Space Launch Delta 45, confirmed to reporters on Friday that Starship launches will sometimes restrict SpaceX’s neighbors from accessing their launch pads—at least in the beginning. Space Launch Delta 45, formerly known as the 45th Space Wing, operates the Eastern Range, which oversees launch safety from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA’s nearby Kennedy Space Center.

Chatman’s unit is responsible for ensuring all personnel remain outside of danger areas during testing and launch operations. The range’s responsibility extends to public safety outside the gates of the spaceport.

“There is no better time to be here on the Space Coast than where we are at today,” Chatman said. “We are breaking records on the launch manifest. We are getting capability on orbit that is essential to national security, and we’re doing that at a time of strategic challenge.”

SpaceX is well along in constructing a Starship launch site on NASA property at Kennedy Space Center within the confines of Launch Complex-39A, where SpaceX also launches its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. The company wants to build another Starship launch site on Space Force property a few miles to the south.

“Early to mid-next year is when we anticipate Starship coming out here to be able to launch,” Chatman said. “We’ll have the range ready to support at that time.”

Enter the Goliath

Starship and its Super Heavy booster combine to form the largest rocket ever built. Its newest version stands more than 400 feet (120 meters) tall with more than 11 million pounds (5,000 metric tons) of combustible methane and liquid oxygen propellants. That will be replaced by a taller rocket, perhaps as soon as 2027, with about 20 percent more propellant onboard.

While there’s also risk with Starships and Super Heavy boosters returning to Cape Canaveral from space, safety officials worry about what would happen if a Starship and Super Heavy booster detonated with their propellant tanks full. The concern is the same for all rockets, which is why officials evacuate predetermined keep-out zones around launch pads that are fueled up for flight.

But the keep-out zones around SpaceX’s Starship launch pads will extend farther than those around the other launch sites at Cape Canaveral. First, Starship is simply much bigger and uses more propellant than any other rocket. Second, Starship’s engines consume methane fuel in combination with liquid oxygen, a blend commonly known as LOX/methane or methalox.

And finally, Starship lacks the track record of older rockets like the Falcon 9, adding a degree of conservatism to the Space Force’s risk calculations. Other launch pads will inevitably fall within the footprint of Starship’s range safety keep-out zones, also known as blast danger areas, or BDAs.

SpaceX’s Starship and Super Heavy booster lift off from Starbase, Texas, in March 2025. Credit: SpaceX

The danger area will be larger for an actual launch, but workers will still need to clear areas closer to Starship launch pads during static fire tests, when the rocket fires its engines while remaining on the ground. This is what prompted ULA and Blue Origin to lodge their protests.

“They understand neighboring operations,” Chatman said in a media roundtable on Friday. “They understand that we will allow the maximum efficiency possible to facilitate their operations, but there will be times that we’re not going to let them go to their launch complex because it’s neighboring a hazardous activity.”

The good news for these other companies is that Eastern Range’s keep-out zones will almost certainly get smaller by the time SpaceX gets anywhere close to 120 Starship launches per year. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is currently launching at a similar cadence. The blast danger areas for those launches are small and short-lived because the Space Force’s confidence in the Falcon 9’s safety is “extremely high,” Chatman said.

“From a blast damage assessment perspective, specific to the Falcon 9, we know what that keep-out area is,” Chatman said. “It’s the new combination of new fuels—LOX/methane—which is kind of a game-changer as we look at some of the heavy vehicles that are coming to launch. We just don’t have the analysis on those to be able to say, ‘Hey, from a testing perspective, how small can we reduce the BDA and be safe?’”

Methane has become a popular fuel choice, supplanting refined kerosene, liquid hydrogen, or solid fuels commonly used on previous generations of rockets. Methane leaves behind less soot than kerosene, easing engine reusability, and it’s simpler to handle than liquid hydrogen.

Aside from Starship, Blue Origin’s New Glenn and ULA’s Vulcan rockets use liquified natural gas, a fuel very similar to methane. Both rockets are smaller than Starship, but Blue Origin last week unveiled the design of a souped-up New Glenn rocket that will nearly match Starship’s scale.

A few years ago, NASA, the Space Force, and the Federal Aviation Administration decided to look into the explosive potential of methalox rockets. There had been countless tests of explosions of gaseous methane, but data on detonations of liquid methane and liquid oxygen was scarce at the time—just a couple of tests at less than 10 metric tons, according to NASA. So, the government’s default position was to assume an explosion would be equivalent to the energy released by the same amount of TNT. This assumption drives the large keep-out zones the Space Force has drawn around SpaceX’s future Starship launch pads, one of which is seen in the map below.

This map from a Space Force environmental impact statement shows potential restricted access zones around SpaceX’s proposed Starship launch site at Space Launch Complex-37. The restricted zones cover launch pads operated by United Launch Alliance, Relativity Space, and Stoke Space. Credit: SpaceX

Spending millions to blow stuff up

Chatman said the Space Force is prepared to update its blast danger areas once its government partners, SpaceX, and Blue Origin complete testing and analyze their results. Over dozens of tests, engineers are examining how methane and liquid oxygen react to different kinds of accidents, such as impact velocity, pressure, and mass ratio, or how much propellant is in the mix.

“That is ongoing currently,” Chatman said. “[We are] working in close partnership with SpaceX and Blue Origin on the LOX/methane combination and the explicit equivalency to identify how much we can … reduce that blast radius. Those discussions are happening, have been happening the last couple years, and are looking to culminate here in ’26.

“Until we get that data from the testing that is ongoing and the analysis that needs to occur, we’re going to continue to treat any LOX-methane vehicle with 100 percent TNT blast equivalency, and have a maximized keep-out zone, simply from a public safety perspective,” Chatman said.

The data so far shows promising results. “We do expect that BDA to shrink,” he said. “We expect that to shrink based on some of the initial testing that has been done and the initial data reviews that have been done.”

That’s imperative, not just for Starship’s neighbors at the Cape Canaveral spaceport, but for SpaceX itself. The company forecasts a future in which it will launch Starships more often than the Falcon 9, requiring near-continuous operations at multiple launch pads.

Chatman mentioned one future scenario in which SpaceX might want to launch Starships in close proximity to one another from neighboring pads.

“At that point in the future, I do anticipate the blast damage assessments to shrink down based on the testing that will have been accomplished and dataset will have been reviewed, [and] that we’ll be in a comfortable set to be able to facilitate all launch operations. But until we have that data, until I’m comfortable with what that data shows, with regards to reducing the BDA, keep-out zone, we’re going to continue with the 100 percent TNT equivalency just from a public safety perspective.”

SpaceX has performed explosive LOX/methane tests, including the one seen here, at its development facility in McGregor, Texas. Credit: SpaceX

The Commercial Space Federation, a lobbying group, submitted written testimony to Congress in 2023 arguing the government should be using “existing industry data” to inform its understanding of the explosive potential of methane and liquid oxygen. That data, the federation said, suggests the government should set its TNT blast equivalency to no greater than 25 percent, a change that would greatly reduce the size of keep-out zones around launch pads. The organization’s members include prominent methane users SpaceX, Blue Origin, Relativity Space, and Stoke Space, all of which have launch sites at Cape Canaveral.

The government’s methalox testing plans were expected to cost at least $80 million, according to the Commercial Space Federation.

The concern among engineers is that liquid oxygen and methane are highly miscible, meaning they mix together easily, raising the risk of a “condensed phase detonation” with “significantly higher overpressures” than rockets with liquid hydrogen or kerosene fuels. Small-scale mixtures of liquid oxygen and liquified natural gas have “shown a broad detonable range with yields greater than that of TNT,” NASA wrote in 2023.

SpaceX released some basic results of its own methalox detonation tests in September, before the government draws its own conclusions on the matter. The company said it conducted “extensive testing” to refine blast danger areas to “be commensurate with the physics of new launch systems.”

Like the Commercial Space Federation, SpaceX said government officials are relying on “highly conservative approaches to establishing blast danger areas, simply because they lack the data to make refined, accurate clear zones. In the absence of data, clear areas of LOX/methane rockets have defaulted to very large zones that could be disruptive to operations.”

More like an airport

SpaceX said it has conducted sub-scale methalox detonation tests “in close collaboration with NASA,” while also gathering data from full-scale Starship tests in Starbase, Texas, including information from test flights and from recent ground test failures. SpaceX controls much of the land around its South Texas facility, so there’s little interruption to third parties when Starships launch from there.

“With this data, SpaceX has been able to establish a scientifically robust, physics-based yield calculation that will help ‘fill the gap’ in scientific knowledge regarding LOX/methane rockets,” SpaceX said.

The company did not disclose the yield calculation, but it shared maps showing its proposed clear areas around the future Starship launch sites at Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center. They are significantly smaller than the clear areas originally envisioned by the Space Force and NASA, but SpaceX says it uses “actual test data on explosive yield and include a conservative factor of safety.”

The proposed clear distances will have no effect on any other operational launch site or on traffic on the primary north-south road crossing the spaceport, the company said. “SpaceX looks forward to having an open, honest, and reasonable discussion based on science and data regarding spaceport operations with industry colleagues.”

SpaceX will have that opportunity next month. The Space Force and NASA are convening a “reverse industry day” in mid-December during which launch companies will bring their ideas for the future of the Cape Canaveral spaceport to the government. The spaceport has hosted 101 space launches so far this year, an annual record dominated by SpaceX’s rapid-fire Falcon 9 launch cadence.

Chatman anticipates about the same number—perhaps 100 to 115 launches—from Florida’s Space Coast next year, and some forecasts show 300 to 350 launches per year by 2035. The numbers could go down before they rise again. “As we bring on larger lift capabilities like Starship and follow-on large launch capabilities out here to the Eastern Range, that will reduce the total number of launches, because we can get more mass to orbit with heavier lift vehicles,” Chatman said.

Blue Origin’s first recovered New Glenn booster returned to the company’s launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, last week after a successful launch and landing. Credit: Blue Origin

Launch companies have some work to do to make those numbers become real. Space Force officials have identified their own potential bottlenecks, including a shortage of facilities for preparing satellites for launch and the flow of commodities like propellants and high-pressure gases into the spaceport.

Concerns as mundane as traffic jams are now enough of a factor to consider using automated scanners at vehicle inspection points and potentially adding a dedicated lane for slow-moving transporters carrying rocket boosters from one place to another across the launch base, according to Chatman. This is becoming more important as SpaceX, and now Blue Origin, routinely shuttle their reusable rockets from place to place.

Space Force officials largely attribute the steep climb in launch rates at Cape Canaveral to the launch industry’s embrace of automated self-destruct mechanisms. These pyrotechnic devices have largely replaced manual flight termination systems, which require ground support from a larger team of range safety engineers, including radar operators and flight control officers with the authority to send a destruct command to the rocket if it flies off course. Now, that is all done autonomously on most US launch vehicles.

The Space Force mandated that launch companies using military spaceports switch to autonomous safety systems by October 1 2025, but military officials issued waivers for human-in-the-loop destruct devices to continue flying on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket, NASA’s Space Launch System, and the US Navy’s ballistic missile fleet. That means those launches will be more labor-intensive for the Space Force, but the Atlas V is nearing retirement, and the SLS and the Navy only occasionally appear on the Cape Canaveral launch schedule.

Listing image: SpaceX

Photo of Stephen Clark

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

Rivals object to SpaceX’s Starship plans in Florida—who’s interfering with whom? Read More »

it’s-official:-boeing’s-next-flight-of-starliner-will-be-allowed-to-carry-cargo-only

It’s official: Boeing’s next flight of Starliner will be allowed to carry cargo only

Boeing, dragon, NASA, Space, space.starliner / /

The US space agency ended months of speculation about the next flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, confirming Monday that the vehicle will carry only cargo to the International Space Station.

NASA and Boeing are now targeting no earlier than April 2026 to fly the uncrewed Starliner-1 mission, the space agency said. Launching by next April will require completion of rigorous test, certification, and mission readiness activities, NASA added in a statement.

“NASA and Boeing are continuing to rigorously test the Starliner propulsion system in preparation for two potential flights next year,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, in a statement.

Reducing crewed missions

NASA also said it has reached an agreement with Boeing to modify the Commercial Crew contract, signed in 2014, that called for six crewed flights to the space station following certification of the spacecraft. Now the plan is to fly Starliner-1 carrying cargo, and then up to three additional missions before the space station is retired.

“This modification allows NASA and Boeing to focus on safely certifying the system in 2026, execute Starliner’s first crew rotation when ready, and align our ongoing flight planning for future Starliner missions based on station’s operational needs through 2030,” Stich said.

SpaceX and Boeing were both awarded contracts in 2014 to develop crewed spacecraft and fly six operational missions to the space station. SpaceX, with its Crew Dragon vehicle, flew a successful crew test flight in mid-2020 and its first operational mission before the end of that year. Most recently, the Crew-11 mission launched in August, with Crew-12 presently scheduled for February 15.

It’s official: Boeing’s next flight of Starliner will be allowed to carry cargo only Read More »

rocket-lab-chief-opens-up-about-neutron-delays,-new-glenn’s-success,-and-nasa-science

Rocket Lab chief opens up about Neutron delays, New Glenn’s success, and NASA science

pete beck, rocket lab, Space / /

“In the end of the day, NASA has to capture the public’s imagination.”

Peter Beck, founder and chief executive officer of Rocket Lab, during TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco on October 28, 2024. Credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The company that pioneered small launch has had a big year.

Rocket Lab broke its annual launch record with the Electron booster—17 successful missions this year, and counting—and is close to bringing its much larger Neutron rocket to the launch pad.

The company also expanded its in-space business, including playing a key role in supporting the landing of Firefly’s Blue Ghost mission on the Moon and building two small satellites just launched to Mars.

Overall, it has been quite a ride for the company founded nearly two decades ago in New Zealand by Peter Beck. A new book about the company’s origins and aspirations, The Launch of Rocket Lab, tells the story of the company’s rise in words and grand images.

Ars recently spoke with Beck about Rocket Lab’s past, present, and future. This interview has been edited lightly for clarity.

Ars: In reading through the book and considering the history of Rocket Lab, I’m continually amazed that a handful of engineers in the country with no space program, no space heritage, built the world’s second most accomplished commercial launch company. What do you attribute that success to?

Peter Beck: It’s hard to know. But there’s a few elements within Rocket Lab that have always remained steadfast, no matter what we do or how big we get. And I think a lot of space companies have tried to see how much they can get away with. And it turns out, in this industry, you just can’t get away with taking very many shortcuts at all. So I think that’s part of it. The attitude of our organization is like, nothing’s too big, nothing’s too hard. We just make it happen. The team works extremely hard. If you drive past the Rocket Lab car park on a Sunday, it looks just like the SpaceX car park on a Sunday. And, you know, the team is very mission-driven. They’re always fighting for a goal, which I think is important. And then, above anything, I just think we can never outspend Elon (Musk) and Jeff (Bezos). We have to out-hustle. And that’s just the reality. The Rocket Lab hustle comes down to just not accepting no as an answer. If a barrier comes up a lot of space companies, or a lot of companies in general, whether its regulatory or technical, it’s easy to submit to the problem, rather than just continue to attack it.

Ars: Electron keeps going. In fact, you’ve just flown a record 17th mission this year, and you continue to sign large deals. How has Electron survived the era of rideshare missions on the Falcon 9?

Beck: We’ve always had the thesis that there is a need for a dedicated small launch. You can put as many Bandwagons and as many Transporters as you want, and you can reduce the price to unsustainably low levels as long as you want. It doesn’t make any difference to us, because it’s a totally different product. As folks are building out constellations, it’s no use just getting dumped out in one orbit. So a lot of Electrons these days are just building out constellations for folks where they have optimized for a specific altitude and inclination and so forth. And we can hit those every time. And if you amortize the cost of launch over the actual lifetime of that constellation and the service that it can provide, it’s cheap, and it’s something rideshares can never deliver.

Ars: It’s surprising to me that after so many years and so many startups, there really isn’t a viable competitor in Electron’s class anywhere in the world.

Beck: It’s pretty hard to build a small rocket. I call it the pressure transducer equilibrium. A pressure transducer on a little rocket is a meaningful amount of mass. A pressure transducer on Neutron is totally irrelevant. Just throw 10 at them, and who cares? But on Electron, if you throw 10 pressure transducers at a problem, then you know, you’ve added a kilo. That’s a meaningful portion of the lift capacity of the vehicle. And there’s no super-magic store where you can go and buy a pressure transducer that scales with the size of the rocket. So you end up with a bunch of stuff that just doesn’t scale, that contributes meaningful mass to the vehicle. If you look at Electron’s payload performance, it’s really high for the size of that rocket. So that’s really hard to do because in an instance where you would throw 10 pressure transducers at a problem, we can only afford to throw one at Electron, but we still want the same redundancy and the same reliability and all of those kinds of things. So that just drives really, really difficult engineering solutions.

And then from a financial standpoint, it’s got a sticker price of $8.5 million, let’s call it. Your flight safety team doesn’t care if it’s a big rocket or a little rocket. Your range team doesn’t care if they’re opening a 12-inch valve or a 2-inch valve. All those teams just have to become ruthlessly efficient at doing that work. So if you go to a big rocket, you might have a flight safety team of 20 people. You come here, it has to be like three. So you have to find ways of really streamlining all those processes. And every little person and dollar and gram has to be ringed out.

Rocket Lab launches an Electron booster with a previously flown engine on Thursday.

Credit: Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab launches an Electron booster with a previously flown engine on Thursday. Credit: Rocket Lab

Ars: What’s going on with the Electron reuse program? My sense is that you’ve kind of learned what you needed to know and are moving on.

Beck: Yeah, that’s pretty much it. It was a hugely valuable learning tool, but if you look at an Electron recovery, we might recover sort of a million dollars worth of stage one booster. And of course, the more we make, the cheaper they get, because we’re continuing to scale so that it’s ever decreasing that return. Quite frankly, and honestly, it’s just like, do we have reusability and recovery teams working on something that returns a million dollars every time it flies? Or, do we have them working on Neutron, where it’s tens of millions of dollars every time you fly? So it’s just about, you know, directing the resource for the biggest bang for the buck.

Ars: I listened to your recent earnings call where you discussed Neutron’s development and delay into 2026. What are the biggest issues you face in getting Neutron over the finish line?

Beck: It would be actually easier if there was an issue, because then I could just say something blew up, or this is a problem. But there’s no real issues. It’s just that we’re not going to put something on the pad that doesn’t meet kind of the standard that’s made us successful. Say something might pass the qualification test, but if we see something in a strain gauge on the back of the panel, or something that we don’t understand, we just don’t move on. We’re not going to move on unless we understand every little element of what’s going on. Maybe I’m on some kind of spectrum for details, but that’s what’s kept us successful. It’s just a bigger rocket, and it’s got more unique features like hungry hippo (the payload fairing opening mechanism) and giant carbon structures. So, you know, it’s not like anything has shit the bed. It’s just a big machine, and there’s some new stuff, and we want to make sure we don’t lose the magic of what we created. A little bit of time now can save a huge amount of heartbreak later on.

Ars: Toward the end of the book, you say that Rocket Lab is best positioned to compete with SpaceX in medium-lift launch, and break up the Falcon 9 monopoly. What is your sense of the competitive landscape going forward? We just saw a New Glenn launch and land, and that was really impressive—

Beck: Bloody impressive. Jeff (Bezos) laid down a new bar. That was incredible. People forget that he’s been working on it for 22 years, but even so, that was impressive.

Ars: Yes, it’s been a journey for them. Anyway, there’s also Vulcan, but that’s only flown one time this year, so they’ve got a ways to go. Then Stoke and Relativity are working at it. What’s your view of your competition going forward?

Beck: I hate comparing it to aviation, but I call medium-class lifters the Boeing 737 of the industry. Then you got your A380s, which are your Starships and your New Glenns. And then you’ve got your Electrons, which are your private jets. And you know, if you look at the aviation sector, nobody comes in and just brings an airplane in and wipes everybody out, because there’s different needs and different missions. And just like there’s a 737 there’s an A320 and that’s kind of what Neutron is intending to be. We had a tremendous pull from our customers, both government and commercial, for alternatives to what’s out there.

The other thing to remember is, for our own aspirations, we need a high-cadence, reusable, low-cost, multi-ton lift capability. I think I’ve been clear that I think the large space companies of the future are going to be a little bit blurry. Are they a space company, or are they something else? But there’s one thing that is absolutely sure, that if you have multi-ton access to orbit in a reusable, low-cost way, it’s going to be very, very difficult to compete with if you’re someone who doesn’t have that capability. And if you look at our friends at SpaceX, yeah, Starlinks are great satellites and all the rest of it. But what really enabled Starlink was the Falcon 9. Launch is a difficult business. It’s kind of lumpy and deeply complex, but at the end of the day, it is the access to orbit. And, you know, having multi-ton access to orbit is just critical. If you’re thinking that you want to try and build one of the biggest space companies in the world, then you just have to have that.

Ars: Rocket Lab has expressed interest in Mars recently, both the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter and a Mars Sample Return mission. As Jared Isaacman and NASA think about commercial exploration of Mars, what would you tell them about what Rocket Lab could bring to the table?

Beck: I’m a great believer that government should do things for which it makes no sense for commercial entities to do, and commercial should do the things that it makes no sense for governments to do. Consider Mars Sample Return, we looked at that, and the plan was $11 billion and 20 years? It’s just, come on. It was crazy. And I don’t want to take the shine off. It is a deeply technical, deeply difficult mission to do. But it can be done, and it can be done commercially, and it can be done at a fraction of the price. So let industry have at it.

And look, Eric, I love planetary science, right? I love exploring the planets, and I think that if you have a space company that’s capable of doing it, it’s almost your duty for the knowledge of the species to go and do those sorts of things. Now, we’re a publicly traded company, so we have to make margin along the way. We’ve proven we can do that. Look at ESCAPADE. All up, it was like $50 million cost, launched, and on its way to Mars. I mean, that’s the sort of thing we need to be doing, right? That’s great bang for your buck. And you know, as you mentioned, we’re pushing hard on the MTO. The reality is that if you’re going to do anything on Mars, whether it’s scientific or human, you’ve got to have the comms there. It’s just basic infrastructure you’ve got to have there first. It’s all very well to do all the sexy stuff and put some humans in a can and send them off to Mars. That’s great. But everybody expects the communication just to be there, and you’ve got to put the foundations in first. So we think that’s a really important mission, and something that we can do, and something we can contribute to the first humans landing on Mars.

Rocket Lab’s Neutron rocket is shown in this rendering delivering a stack of satellites into orbit.

Credit: Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab’s Neutron rocket is shown in this rendering delivering a stack of satellites into orbit. Credit: Rocket Lab

Ars: You mentioned ESCAPADE. How’s your relationship with Jeff Bezos? I heard there was some tension last year because Rocket Lab was being asked to prepare the satellite for launch, even when it was clear New Glenn was not going to make the Mars window.

Beck: I know you want me to say yes, there is, but the honest truth is absolutely zero. I know David (Limp, Blue Origin’s CEO) super well. We’re great friends. Jeff and I were texting backwards and forwards during the launch. There’s just honestly none. And you know that they gave us a great ride. They were bang on the numbers. It was awesome. Yeah, sure, it would have been great to get there early. But it’s a rocket program, right? Nobody can show me a rocket program that turned up exactly on time. And yep, it may have been obvious that it might not have been able to launch on the first (window), but we knew there’s always other ways. Worst-case scenario, we have to go into storage for a little bit. These missions are years and years long. So what’s a little bit longer?

Ars: Speaking of low-cost science missions, I know Isaacman is interested in commercial planetary missions. Lots of $4 billion planetary missions just aren’t sustainable. If NASA commits to commercial development of satellite buses and spacecraft like it did to commercial cargo and crew, what could planetary exploration look like a decade from now?

Beck: I think that’d be tremendously exciting. One of the reasons why we did CAPSTONE was to prove that you can go to the Moon for $10 million. Now, we lost a lot of money on that mission, so that ultimately didn’t prove to be true. But it wasn’t crazy amounts, and we still got there miles cheaper than anybody else could have ever got there. And ESCAPADE, we have good margins on, and it’s just a true success, right? Touch wood to date, like we’ve got a long way to go, but success in the fact that the spacecraft were built, delivered, launched, and commissioned.

This is the thing. Take your billion-dollar mission. How many $50 million missions, or $100 million missions, could you do? Imagine the amount of science you can do. I think part of the reason why the public gets jaded with some of these science missions is because they happen once a decade, and they’ve got billions of dollars of price tags attached to them. It’s kind of transitorily exciting when they happen, but they’re so far apart. In the end of the day, NASA has to capture the public’s imagination, because the public are funding it. So it has to seem relevant, relevant to mum and dad at home. And you know, when mum and dad are home and it’s tough, and then they just hear billions of dollars and, you know, years of overrun and all the rest of it, how can they feel good about that? Whereas, if they can spend much less and deliver it on time and have a constant stream of really interesting missions in science, I think that it’s great for public justification. I think it’s great for planetary science, because obviously you’re iterating on your results, and it’s great for the whole community to just have a string of missions. And also, I think it’s great for US space supremacy to be blasting around the Solar System all the time, rather than just now and again.

Ars: Ok Pete, it’s November 18. How confident should we be in a Neutron launch next year? 50/50?

Beck: Hopefully better than 50/50. That would be a definite fail. We’re taking the time to get it right. I always caveat anything, Eric, that it’s a rocket program, and we’ve got some big tests in front of us. But to date, if you look at the program, it’s been super smooth; like we haven’t exploded tanks, we haven’t exploded engines. We haven’t had any major failure, especially when we’re pushing some new boundaries and some new technology. So I think it’s going really, really smoothly, and as long as it continues to go smoothly, then I think we’re in good shape.

Photo of Eric Berger

Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston.

Rocket Lab chief opens up about Neutron delays, New Glenn’s success, and NASA science Read More »

rocket-report:-spacex’s-next-gen-booster-fails;-pegasus-will-fly-again

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s and Stephen Clark’s reporting on all things space is to sign up for our newsletter. We’ll collect their stories and deliver them straight to your inbox.

Sign Me Up!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next three launches

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

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

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

Photo of Stephen Clark

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

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

newest-starship-booster-is-significantly-damaged-during-testing-early-friday

Newest Starship booster is significantly damaged during testing early Friday

booster, explostion, Space, spacex, Starbase, starship / /

Friday morning’s failure was less energetic than an explosion of a Starship upper stage during testing at Massey’s in June. That incident caused widespread damage at the test site and a complete loss of the vehicle. The Booster 18 problem on Friday appeared to cause less damage to test infrastructure, and no Raptor engines had yet been installed on the vehicle.

Nevertheless, this is the point in the rocket development program at which SpaceX sought to be accelerating with development of Starship and reaching a healthy flight cadence in 2026. Many of the company’s near-term goals rely on getting Starship flying regularly and reliably.

A full view of super heavy booster 18’s catastrophic damage during testing tonight. Very significant damage to the entire LOX tank section.

11/21/25 pic.twitter.com/Kw8XeZ2qXW

— Starship Gazer (@StarshipGazer) November 21, 2025

With this upgraded vehicle, SpaceX wants to demonstrate booster landing and reuse, an upper stage tower catch next year, the beginning of operational Starlink deployment missions, and a test campaign for NASA’s Artemis Program. To keep this Moon landing program on track, it is critical that SpaceX and NASA conduct an on-orbit refueling test of Starship, which nominally was slated for the second half of 2026.

On this timeline, the company was aiming to conduct a crewed lunar landing for NASA during the second half of 2028. From an outside perspective, before this most recent failure, that timeline already seemed to be fairly optimistic.

One of the core attributes of SpaceX is that it diagnoses failure quickly, addresses problems, and gets back to flying as rapidly as possible. No doubt its engineers are already poring over the data captured Friday morning and quite possibly have already diagnosed the problem. The company is resilient, and it has ample resources.

Nevertheless, this is also a maturing program. The Starship vehicle launched for the first time in 2023, and its first stage made a successful flight two years ago. Losing the first stage of the newest generation of the vehicle, during the initial phases of testing, can only be viewed as a significant setback for a program with so much promise and so much to accomplish so soon.

Newest Starship booster is significantly damaged during testing early Friday Read More »

stoke-space-goes-for-broke-to-solve-the-only-launch-problem-that-“moves-the-needle”

Stoke Space goes for broke to solve the only launch problem that “moves the needle”

andy lapsa, cape canaveral, Features, nova rocket, Space, stoke space / /

“Does the world really need a 151st rocket company?”

Stoke Space’s full-flow staged combustion is tested in Central Washington in 2024. Credit: Stoke Space

Stoke Space’s full-flow staged combustion is tested in Central Washington in 2024. Credit: Stoke Space

LAUNCH COMPLEX 14, Cape Canaveral, Fla.—The platform atop the hulking steel tower offered a sweeping view of Florida’s rich, sandy coastline and brilliant blue waves beyond. Yet as captivating as the vista might be for an aspiring rocket magnate like Andy Lapsa, it also had to be a little intimidating.

To his right, at Launch Complex 13 next door, a recently returned Falcon 9 booster stood on a landing pad. SpaceX has landed more than 500 large orbital rockets. And next to SpaceX sprawled the launch site operated by Blue Origin. Its massive New Glenn rocket is also reusable, and founder Jeff Bezos has invested tens of billions of dollars into the venture.

Looking to the left, Lapsa saw a graveyard of sorts for commercial startups. Launch Complex 15 was leased to a promising startup, ABL Space, two years ago. After two failed launches, ABL Space pivoted away from commercial launch. Just beyond lies Launch Complex 16, where Relativity Space aims to launch from. The company has already burned through $4 billion in its efforts to reach orbit. Had billionaire Eric Schmidt not stepped in earlier this year, Relativity would have gone bankrupt.

Andy Lapsa may be a brainy rocket scientist, but he is not a billionaire. Far from it.

“When you start a company like this, you have no idea how far you’re going to be able to make it, you know?” he admitted.

Lapsa and another aerospace engineer, Tom Feldman, founded Stoke Space a little more than five years ago. Both had worked the better part of a decade at Blue Origin and decided they wanted to make their mark on the industry. It was not an easy choice to start a rocket company at a time when there were dozens of other entrants in the field.

Andy Lapsa speaks at the Space Economy Summit in November 2025.

Credit: The Economist Group

Andy Lapsa speaks at the Space Economy Summit in November 2025. Credit: The Economist Group

“It was a huge question in my head: Does the world really need a 151st rocket company?” he said. “And in order for me to say yes to that question, I had to very systematically go through all the other players, thinking about the economics of launch, about the business plan, about the evolution of these companies over time. It was very non-intuitive to me to start another launch company.”

So why did he do it?

I traveled to Florida in November to answer this question and to see if the world’s 151st rocket company had any chance of success.

Launch Complex 14

It takes a long time to build a launch site. Probably longer than you might think.

Lapsa and Feldman spent much of 2020 working on the basic design of a rocket that would eventually be named Nova and deciding whether they could build a business around it. In December of that year, they closed their seed round of funding, raising $9.1 million. After this, finding somewhere to launch from became a priority.

They zeroed in on Cape Canaveral because it’s where the majority of US launch companies and customers are, as well as the talent to assemble and launch rockets. They learned in 2021 that the US Space Force was planning to lease an old pad, Space Launch Complex 14, to a commercial company. This was not just a good location to launch from; it was truly a historic location—John Glenn launched into orbit from here in 1962 aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft. It was retired in 1967 and designated a National Historic Landmark.

But in recent years, the Space Force has sought to support the flourishing US commercial space industry, and it has offered Launch Complex 14. After the competition opened in 2021, Stoke Space won the lease a year later. Then began the long and arduous process of conducting an Environmental Assessment. It took nearly two years, and it was not until October 20, 2024, that Stoke was allowed to break ground.

None of the structures on the site were usable, and aside from the historic blockhouse dating to the Mercury program, everything else had to be demolished and cleared before work could begin.

As we walked the large ring encompassing the site, Lapsa explained that all of the tanks and major hardware needed to support a Nova launch were now on site. There is a large launch tower, as well as a launch mount upon which the rocket will be stood up. The company has mostly turned toward integrating all of the ground infrastructure and wiring up the site. A nearby building to assemble rockets and process payloads is well underway.

Lapsa seemed mostly relieved. “A year ago, this was my biggest concern,” he said.

He need not have worried. A few months before the company completed its environmental permitting, a tall, lanky, thickly bearded engineer named Jonathan Lund hired on. A Stanford graduate who got his start with the US Army Corps of Engineers, Lund worked at SpaceX during the second half of the 2010s, helping to lead the reconstruction of one launch pad, the crew tower project at Launch Complex 39A, and a pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base. He also worked on multiple landing sites for the Falcon 9 rocket. Lund arrived to lead the development of Stoke’s site.

This is Lund’s fifth launch pad. Each one presents different challenges. In Florida, for example, the water table lies only a few feet below the ground. But for most rockets, including Nova, a large trench must be dug to allow flames from the rocket engines to be carried away from the vehicle at ignition and liftoff. As we stood in this massive flame diverter, there were a few indications of water seeping in.

Still, the company recently completed a major milestone by testing the water suppression system, which dampens the energy of a rocket at liftoff to protect the launch pad. Essentially, the plume from the rocket’s engines flows downward where it meets a sheet of water, turning it into steam. This creates an insulating barrier of sorts.

Water suppression test at LC-14 complete. ✅ Flowed the diverter and rain birds in a “launch like” scenario. pic.twitter.com/rs1lEloPul

— Stoke Space (@stoke_space) October 21, 2025

The water comes from large pipes running down the flame diverter, each of which has hundreds of holes not unlike a garden sprinkler hose. Lund said the pipes and the frame they rest on were built near where we stood.

“We fabricated these pieces on site, at the north end of the flame trench,” Lund explained. “Then we built this frame in Cocoa Beach and shipped it in four different sections and assembled it on site. Then we set the frame on the ramp, put together this surface (with the pipes), and then Egyptian-style we slide it down the ramp right into position. We used some old-school methods, but simple sometimes works best. Nothing fancy.”

At this point, Lapsa interrupted. “I was pretty nervous,” he said. “The way you’re describing this sounded good on a PowerPoint. But I wasn’t sure it actually would work.”

But it did.

Waiting on Nova

So if the pad is rounding into shape, how’s that rocket coming?

It sounds like Stoke Space is doing the right things. Earlier this year, the company shipped a full-scale version of its second stage to its test site at Moses Lake in central Washington. There, it underwent qualification testing, during which the vehicle is loaded with cryogenic fuels on multiple occasions, pressurized, and put through other exercises. Lapsa said that testing went well.

The company also built a stubby version of its first stage. The tanks and domes had full-size diameters, but the stage was not its full height. That vehicle also underwent qualification testing and passed.

The company has begun building flight hardware for the first Nova rocket. The vehicle’s software is maturing. Work is well underway on the development of an automated flight termination system. “Having a team that’s been through this cycle many times, it’s something we started putting attention on very early,” Lapsa said. “It’s on a good path as well.”

And yet the final, frenetic months leading to a debut launch are crunch time for any rocket company: first assembly of the full vehicle, first time test-firing it all. Things will inevitably go wrong. The question is how bad will the problems be?

For as long as I’ve known Lapsa, he has been cagey about launch dates for Stoke. This is smart because in reality, no one knows. And seasoned industry people (and journalists) know that projected launch dates for new rockets are squishy. The most precise thing Lapsa will say is that Stoke is targeting “next year” for Nova’s debut.

The company has a customer for the first flight. If all goes well, its first mission will sail to the asteroid belt. Asteroid mining startup AstroForge has signed on for Nova 1.

Stoke Space isn’t shooting for the Moon. It’s shooting for something 1 million times farther.

Too good to believe it’s true?

Stoke Space is far from the first company to start with grand ambitions. And when rocket startups think too big, it can be their undoing.

A little more than a decade ago, Firefly Space Systems in Texas based the design of its Alpha rocket on an aerospike engine, a technology that had never been flown to space before. Although this was theoretically a more efficient engine design, it also brought more technical risk and proved a bridge too far. By 2017, the company was bankrupt. When Ukrainian investor Max Polyakov rescued Firefly later that year, he demanded that Alpha have a more conventional rocket engine design.

Around the same time that Firefly struggled with its aerospike engine, another launch company, Relativity Space, announced its intent to 3D-print the entirety of its rockets. The company finally launched its Terran 1 rocket after eight years. But it struggled with additively manufacturing rockets. Relativity was on the brink of bankruptcy before a former Google executive, Eric Schmidt, stepped in to rescue the company financially. Relativity is now focused on a traditionally manufactured rocket, the Terran R.

Stoke Space’s Hopper 2 takes to the skies in September 2023 in Moses Lake, Washington.

Credit: Stoke Space

Stoke Space’s Hopper 2 takes to the skies in September 2023 in Moses Lake, Washington. Credit: Stoke Space

So what to make of Stoke Space, which has an utterly novel design for its second stage? The stage is powered by a ring of 24 thrusters, an engine collectively named Andromeda. Stoke has also eschewed a tile-based heat shield to protect the vehicle during atmospheric reentry in favor of a regeneratively cooled design.

In this, there are echoes of Firefly, Relativity, and other companies with grand plans that had to be abandoned in favor of simpler designs to avoid financial ruin. After all, it’s hard enough to reach orbit with a conventional rocket.

But the company has already done a lot of testing of this design. Its first iteration of Andromeda even completed a hop test back in 2023.

“Andromeda is wildly new,” Lapsa said. “But the question of can it work, in my opinion, is a resounding yes.”

The engineering team had all manner of questions when designing Andromeda several years ago. How will all of those thrusters and their plumbing interact with one another? Will there be feedback? Is the heat shield idea practical?

“Those are the kind of unknowns that we knew we were walking into from an engineering perspective,” Lapsa said. “We knew there should be an answer in there, but we didn’t know exactly what it would be. It’s very hard to model all that stuff in the transient. So you just had to get after it, and do it, and we were able to do that. So can it work? Absolutely yes. Will it work out of the box? That’s a different question.”

First stage, too

Stoke’s ambitions did not stop with the upper stage. Early on, Lapsa, Feldman, and the small engineering team also decided to develop a full-flow staged combustion engine. This, Lapsa acknowledges, was a “risky” decision for the company. But it was a necessary one, he believes.

Full-flow staged combustion engines had been tested before this decade but were never flown. From an engineering standpoint, they are significantly more complex than a traditional staged combustion engine in that the oxidizer and propellant—which began as cryogenic liquids—arrive in the combustion chamber in a fully gaseous state. This interaction between two gases is more efficient and produces less wear and tear on turbines within the engine.

“You want to get the highest efficiency you can without driving the turbine temperature to a place where you have a short lifetime,” Lapsa said. “Full-flow is the right answer for that. If you do anything else, it’s a distraction.”

Stoke Space successfully tests its advanced full-flow staged combustion rocket engine, designed to power the Nova launch vehicle’s first stage.

Credit: Stoke Space

Stoke Space successfully tests its advanced full-flow staged combustion rocket engine, designed to power the Nova launch vehicle’s first stage. Credit: Stoke Space

It was also massively unproven. When Stoke Space was founded in 2020, no full-flow staged combustion engine had ever gotten close to space. SpaceX was developing the Raptor engine using the technology, but it would not make its first “spaceflight” until the spring of 2023 on the Super Heavy rocket that powers Starship. Multiple Raptors failed shortly after ignition.

But for a company choosing full reusability of its rocket, as SpaceX sought to do with Starship, there ultimately is no choice.

“Anything you build for full and rapid reuse needs to find margin somewhere in the system,” Lapsa said. “And really that’s fuel efficiency. It makes fuel efficiency a very strong, very important driver.”

In June 2024, Stoke Space announced it had just completed a successful hot fire test of its full-flow, staged combustion engine for Nova’s first stage. The propulsion team had, Lapsa said at the time, “worked tirelessly” to reach that point.

Not just another launch company?

Stoke Space got to the party late. After SpaceX’s success with the first Falcon 9 in 2010, a wave of new entrants entered the field over the next decade. They were drawing down billions in venture capital funding, and some were starting to go public at huge valuations as special purpose acquisition companies. But by 2020, the market seemed saturated. The gold rush for new launch companies was nearing the cops-arrive-to-bust-up-the-festivities stage.

Every new company seemed to have its own spin on how to conquer low-Earth orbit.

“There were a lot of other business plans being proposed and tried,” Lapsa said. “There were low-cost, mass-produced disposable rockets. There were rockets under the wings of aircraft. There were rocket engine companies that were going to sell to 150 launch companies. All of those ideas raised big money and deserve to be considered. The question is, which one is the winner in the end?”

And that’s the question he was trying to answer in his own mind. He was in his 30s. He had a family. And he was looking to commit his best years, professionally, to solving a major launch problem.

“What’s the thing that fundamentally moves the needle on what’s out there already today?” he said. “The only thing, in my opinion, is rapid reuse. And once you get it, the economics are so powerful that nothing else matters. That’s the thing I couldn’t get out of my head. That’s the only problem I wanted to work on, and so we started a company in order to work on it.”

Stoke was one of many launch companies five years ago. But in the years since, the field has narrowed considerably. Some promising companies, such as Virgin Orbit and ABL Space, launched a few times and folded. Others never made it to the launch pad. Today, by my count, there are fewer than 10 serious commercial launch companies in the United States, Stoke among them. The capital markets seem convinced. In October, Stoke announced a massive $510 million Series D funding round. That was a lot of money in a challenging time to raise launch firm funding.

So Stoke has the money it needs. It has a team of sharp engineers and capable technicians. It has a launch pad and qualified hardware. That’s all good because this is the point in the journey for a launch startup where things start to get very, very difficult.

Photo of Eric Berger

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.

Stoke Space goes for broke to solve the only launch problem that “moves the needle” Read More »

blue-origin-revealed-some-massively-cool-plans-for-its-new-glenn-rocket

Blue Origin revealed some massively cool plans for its New Glenn rocket

blue origin, new glenn, Space, super heavy lift rocket / /

One week after the successful second launch of its large New Glenn booster, Blue Origin revealed a roadmap on Thursday for upgrades to the rocket, including a new variant with more main engines and a super-heavy lift capability.

These upgrades to the rocket are “designed to increase payload performance and launch cadence, while enhancing reliability,” the company said in an update published on its website. The enhancements will be phased in over time, starting with the third launch of New Glenn, which is likely to occur during the first half of 2026.

A bigger beast

The most significant part of the update concerned an evolution of New Glenn that will transform the booster into a super-heavy lift launch vehicle. The first stage of this evolved vehicle will have nine BE-4 engines instead of seven, and the upper stage four BE-4 engines instead of two. In its update, Blue Origin refers to the new vehicle as 9×4 and the current variant as 7×2, a reference to the number of engines in each stage.

“New Glenn 9×4 is designed for a subset of missions requiring additional capacity and performance,” the company said. “The vehicle carries over 70 metric tons to low-Earth orbit, over 14 metric tons direct to geosynchronous orbit, and over 20 metric tons to trans-lunar injection. Additionally, the 9×4 vehicle will feature a larger 8.7-meter fairing.”

The company did not specify a timeline for the debut of the 9×4 variant. A spokesperson for the company told Ars, “We aren’t disclosing a specific timeframe today. The iterative design from our current 7×2 vehicle means we can build this rocket quickly.”

A comparison of New Glenn 7×2, the Saturn V, and New Glenn 7.4 rockets.

Credit: Blue Origin

A comparison of New Glenn 7×2, the Saturn V, and New Glenn 7.4 rockets. Credit: Blue Origin

One source familiar with the company’s plans said the internal timeline would allow for the 9×4 variant of New Glenn to take flight as early as 2027.

Such a booster would be a notable vehicle, with a lift capacity nearly on par with NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. However, it would have a fully reusable first stage with a larger payload fairing and would likely cost less than one-tenth the estimated $2.2 billion cost of NASA’s super-heavy rocket.

Blue Origin revealed some massively cool plans for its New Glenn rocket Read More »

attack,-defend,-pursue—the-space-force’s-new-naming-scheme-foretells-new-era

Attack, defend, pursue—the Space Force’s new naming scheme foretells new era

Defense Department, military space, Space, Spaceflight, spy satellites, US Military, US Space Force / /

A little more than a century ago, the US Army Air Service came up with a scheme for naming the military’s multiplying fleet of airplanes.

The 1924 aircraft designation code produced memorable names like the B-17, A-26, B-29, and P-51—B for bomber, A for attack, and P for pursuit—during World War II. The military later changed the prefix for pursuit aircraft to F for fighter, leading to recognizable modern names like the F-15 and F-16.

Now, the newest branch of the military is carving its own path with a new document outlining how the Space Force, which can trace its lineage back to the Army Air Service, will name and designate its “weapon systems” on the ground and in orbit. Ars obtained a copy of the document, first written in 2023 and amended in 2024.

The changes could ultimately lead to the retirement, or at least the de-emphasis, of bulky bureaucratic acronyms. You might think of it as similar to how the Pentagon’s Joint Strike Fighter program evolved into the F-35 Lightning II.

The memorandum outlining the Space Force’s new nomenclature was signed in 2023 by then-Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton, who was the branch’s chief strategy and resource officer at the time. Bratton is now a four-star general serving as vice chief of space operations, the No. 2 uniformed position in the Space Force.

The document, titled Space Force Instruction 16-403, covers “Space Force weapon system naming and designations.” It provides guidance for creating new designators. The Space Force says compliance with the instruction is mandatory for new programs, but it does not require an update for existing satellites.

“All new weapon systems developed after the effective date of this instruction will require a designator,” the memorandum says. The new names will have letters identifying each system’s purpose and orbital regime, followed by numbers or letters describing its design number and design series.

Shawn Bratton, then a two-star general, gives remarks as the featured speaker for the 38th Space Symposium Satellite Forum Breakfast in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on April 19, 2023. Credit: US Space Force/Ethan Johnson

John Shaw, a retired Space Force lieutenant-general, was part of internal discussions about revamping the military satellite naming scheme several years ago.

“We were looking at this in 2018, before we had a Space Force, and trying to fit it into the Air Force nomenclature,” Shaw told Ars. “And it sort of hit a dead end because the Air Force just wasn’t set up well for this. You really needed to start over. That wasn’t going to happen very easily. Now that we have a Space Force, we can start over… I’m glad to see that it’s becoming reality.”

Attack, defend, pursue—the Space Force’s new naming scheme foretells new era Read More »

the-twin-probes-just-launched-toward-mars-have-an-easter-egg-on-board

The twin probes just launched toward Mars have an Easter egg on board

atmosphere loss, bald eagle, Berkeley, blue origin, easter eggs, escapade, Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, hybrid magnetosphere, kiwi, Mars, NASA, new glenn, ng-2, plaques, plates, rocket lab, Space, Space exploration, space history, Space Sciences Laboratory, space weather, University of California / /

The mission aims to aid our understanding of Mars’ climate history and what was behind the loss of its conditions that once supported liquid water, potential oceans, and possibly life on the surface.

Plaques and partner patches

In addition to the kiwi-adorned plates, Rocket Lab also installed two more plaques on the twin ESCAPADE spacecraft.

“There are also two name plates (one in blue and one in gold) on each spacecraft listing Rocket Lab team members who’ve contributed to the mission, making it possible to get to Mars,” said McLaurin.

Mounted on the solar panels, the plaques use shading to also display the Latin initials (NSHO) of the Rocket Lab motto and form the company’s logo. Despite their diminutive size, each plate appears to include more than 200 names, including founder, president, and CEO Peter Beck.

Montage of photos and graphics illustrating the blue and gold metal plates attached a spacecraft

Additional plates in blue and gold display the names of the Rocket Lab team members behind the ESCAPADE spacecraft. Credit: UCB-SSL via collectSPACE.com

UC Berkeley adopted its colors in 1873. According to the school’s website, “blue for the California sky and ocean and for the Yale graduates who helped establish the university, gold for the ‘Golden State.’”

ESCAPADE also has its own set of colors, or rather, colorful patches.

The main mission logo depicts the twin spacecraft in orbit around Mars with the names of the primary partners listed along its border, including UCB-SSL (University of California, Berkeley-Space Science Laboratory); RL (Rocket Lab); ERAU (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, which designed and built the langmuir probe, one of the mission’s science instruments); AdvSp (Advanced Space, which oversaw mission design and trajectory optimization); and NASA-GSFC (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center).

Rocket Lab also designed an insignia, which renders the two spacecraft in blue and gold, as well as shows their trajectory in the same colors and includes the company’s motto.

Lastly, Blue Origin’s New Glenn-2 (NG-2) patch features the launch vehicle and the two ESCAPADE satellites, using hues of orange to represent Mars.

Graphic montage of mission patches

Three mission patches represent the Mars ESCAPADE mission and its partners. Credit: NASA/Rocket Lab/Blue Origin/collectSPACE.com

The twin probes just launched toward Mars have an Easter egg on board Read More »

three-astronauts-are-stuck-on-china’s-space-station-without-a-safe-ride-home

Three astronauts are stuck on China’s space station without a safe ride home

china, chinese space station, human spaceflight, Science, shenzhou, shenzhou 20, shenzhou 21, Space, tiangong / /

This view shows a Shenzhou spacecraft departing the Tiangong space station in 2023. Credit: China Manned Space Agency

Swapping spacecraft in low-Earth orbit

With their original spacecraft deemed unsafe, Chen and his crewmates instead rode back to Earth on the newer Shenzhou 21 craft that launched and arrived at the Tiangong station October 31. The three astronauts who launched on Shenzhou 21—Zhang Lu, Wu Fei, and Zhang Hongzhang—remain aboard the nearly 100-metric ton space station with only the damaged Shenzhou 20 craft available to bring them home.

China’s line of Shenzhou spaceships not only provide transportation to and from low-Earth orbit, they also serve as lifeboats to evacuate astronauts from the Chinese space station in the event of an in-flight emergency, such as major failures or a medical crisis. They serve the same role as Russian Soyuz and SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicles flying to and from the International Space Station.

Another Shenzhou spacecraft, Shenzhou 22, “will be launched at a later date,” the China Manned Space Agency said in a statement. Shenzhou 20 will remain in orbit to “continue relevant experiments.” The Tiangong lab is designed to support crews of six for only short periods of time, with longer stays of three astronauts.

Officials have not disclosed when Shenzhou 22 might launch, but Chinese officials typically have a Long March rocket and Shenzhou spacecraft on standby for rapid launch if required. Instead of astronauts, Shenzhou 22 will ferry fresh food and equipment to sustain the three-man crew on the Tiangong station.

China’s state-run Xinhua news agency called Friday’s homecoming “the first successful implementation of an alternative return procedure in the country’s space station program history.”

The shuffling return schedules and damaged spacecraft at the Tiangong station offer a reminder of the risks of space junk, especially tiny debris fragments that elude detection from tracking telescopes and radars. A minuscule piece of space debris traveling at several miles per second can pack a punch. Crews at the Tiangong outpost ventured outside the station multiple times in the last few years to install space debris shielding to protect the outpost.

Astronaut Tim Peake took this photo of a cracked window on the International Space Station in 2016. The 7-millimeter (quarter-inch) divot on the quadruple-pane window was gouged out by an impact of space debris no larger than a few thousandths of a millimeter across. The damage did not pose a risk to the station. Credit: ESA/NASA

Shortly after landing Friday, ground teams assisted the Shenzhou astronauts out of their landing module. All three appeared to be in good health and buoyant spirits after completing the longest-duration crew mission in the history of China’s space program.

“Space exploration has never been easy for humankind,” said Chen Dong, the mission commander, according to Chinese state media.

“This mission was a true test, and we are proud to have completed it successfully,” Chen said shortly after landing. “China’s space program has withstood the test, with all teams delivering outstanding performances … This experience has left us a profound impression that astronauts’ safety is really prioritized.”

Three astronauts are stuck on China’s space station without a safe ride home Read More »

blue-origin’s-new-glenn-rocket-came-back-home-after-taking-aim-at-mars

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket came back home after taking aim at Mars

blue origin, escapade, launch, NASA, new glenn, ng-2, reusable rockets, rocket lab, Science, Space / /

“Never before in history has a booster this large nailed the landing on the second try.”

Blue Origin’s 320-foot-tall (98-meter) New Glenn rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Credit: Blue Origin

The rocket company founded a quarter-century ago by billionaire Jeff Bezos made history Thursday with the pinpoint landing of an 18-story-tall rocket on a floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean.

The on-target touchdown came nine minutes after the New Glenn rocket, built and operated by Bezos’ company Blue Origin, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, at 3: 55 pm EST (20: 55 UTC). The launch was delayed from Sunday, first due to poor weather at the launch site in Florida, then by a solar storm that sent hazardous radiation toward Earth earlier this week.

“We achieved full mission success today, and I am so proud of the team,” said Dave Limp, CEO of Blue Origin. “It turns out Never Tell Me The Odds (Blue Origin’s nickname for the first stage) had perfect odds—never before in history has a booster this large nailed the landing on the second try. This is just the beginning as we rapidly scale our flight cadence and continue delivering for our customers.”

The two-stage launcher set off for space carrying two NASA science probes on a two-year journey to Mars, marking the first time any operational satellites flew on Blue Origin’s new rocket, named for the late NASA astronaut John Glenn. The New Glenn hit its marks on the climb into space, firing seven BE-4 main engines for nearly three minutes on a smooth ascent through blue skies over Florida’s Space Coast.

Seven BE-4 engines power New Glenn downrange from Florida’s Space Coast. Credit: Blue Origin

The engines consumed super-cold liquified natural gas and liquid oxygen, producing more than 3.8 million pounds of thrust at full power. The BE-4s shut down, and the first stage booster released the rocket’s second stage, with dual hydrogen-fueled BE-3U engines, to continue the mission into orbit.

The booster soared to an altitude of 79 miles (127 kilometers), then began a controlled plunge back into the atmosphere, targeting a landing on Blue Origin’s offshore recovery vessel named Jacklyn. Moments later, three of the booster’s engines reignited to slow its descent in the upper atmosphere. Then, moments before reaching the Atlantic, the rocket again lit three engines and extended its landing gear, sinking through low-level clouds before settling onto the football field-size deck of Blue Origin’s recovery platform 375 miles (600 kilometers) east of Cape Canaveral.

A pivotal moment

The moment of touchdown appeared electric at several Blue Origin facilities around the country, which had live views of cheering employees piped in to the company’s webcast of the flight. This was the first time any company besides SpaceX has propulsively landed an orbital-class rocket booster, coming nearly 10 years after SpaceX recovered its first Falcon 9 booster intact in December 2015.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn landing also came almost exactly a decade after the company landed its smaller suborbital New Shepard rocket for the first time in West Texas. Just like Thursday’s New Glenn landing, Blue Origin successfully recovered the New Shepard on its second-ever attempt.

Blue Origin’s heavy-lifter launched successfully for the first time in January. But technical problems prevented the booster from restarting its engines on descent, and the first stage crashed at sea. Engineers made “propellant management and engine bleed control improvements” to resolve the problems, and the fixes appeared to work Thursday.

The rocket recovery is a remarkable achievement for Blue Origin, which has long lagged dominant SpaceX in the commercial launch business. SpaceX has now logged 532 landings with its Falcon booster fleet. Now, with just a single recovery in the books, Blue Origin sits at second in the rankings for propulsive landings of orbit-class boosters. Bezos’ company has amassed 34 landings of the suborbital New Shepard model, which lacks the size and doesn’t reach the altitude and speed of the New Glenn booster.

Blue Origin landed a New Shepard returning from space for the first time in November 2015, a few weeks before SpaceX first recovered a Falcon 9 booster. Bezos threw shade on SpaceX with a post on Twitter, now called X, after the first Falcon 9 landing: “Welcome to the club!”

Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin’s founder and owner, wrote this message on Twitter following SpaceX’s first Falcon 9 landing on December 21, 2015. Credit: X/Jeff Bezos

Finally, after Thursday, Blue Origin officials can say they are part of the same reusable rocket club as SpaceX. Within a few days, Blue Origin’s recovery vessel is expected to return to Port Canaveral, Florida, where ground crews will offload the New Glenn booster and move it to a hangar for inspections and refurbishment.

“Today was a tremendous achievement for the New Glenn team, opening a new era for Blue Origin and the industry as we look to launch, land, repeat, again and again,” said Jordan Charles, the company’s vice president for the New Glenn program, in a statement. “We’ve made significant progress on manufacturing at rate and building ahead of need. Our primary focus remains focused on increasing our cadence and working through our manifest.”

Blue Origin plans to reuse the same booster next year for the first launch of the company’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lunar cargo lander. This mission is currently penciled in to be next on Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch schedule. Eventually, the company plans to have a fleet of reusable boosters, like SpaceX has with the Falcon 9, that can each be flown up to 25 times.

New Glenn is a core element in Blue Origin’s architecture for NASA’s Artemis lunar program. The rocket will eventually launch human-rated lunar landers to the Moon to provide astronauts with rides to and from the surface of the Moon.

The US Space Force will also examine the results of Thursday’s launch to assess New Glenn’s readiness to begin launching military satellites. The military selected Blue Origin last year to join SpaceX and United Launch Alliance as a third launch provider for the Defense Department.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn booster, 23 feet (7 meters) in diameter, on the deck of the company’s landing platform in the Atlantic Ocean.

Slow train to Mars

The mission wasn’t over with the buoyant landing in the Atlantic. New Glenn’s second stage fired its engines twice to propel itself on a course toward deep space, setting up for deployment of NASA’s two ESCAPADE satellites a little more than a half-hour after liftoff.

The identical satellites were released from their mounts on top of the rocket to begin their nearly two-year journey to Mars, where they will enter orbit to survey how the solar wind interacts with the rarefied uppermost layers of the red planet’s atmosphere. Scientists believe radiation from the Sun gradually stripped away Mars’ atmosphere, driving runaway climate change that transitioned the planet from a warm, habitable world to the global inhospitable desert seen today.

“I’m both elated and relieved to see NASA’s ESCAPADE spacecraft healthy post-launch and looking forward to the next chapter of their journey to help us understand Mars’ dynamic space weather environment,” said Rob Lillis, the mission’s principal investigator from the University of California, Berkeley.

Scientists want to understand the environment at the top of the Martian atmosphere to learn more about what drove this change. With two instrumented spacecraft, ESCAPADE will gather data from different locations around Mars, providing a series of multipoint snapshots of solar wind and atmospheric conditions. Another NASA spacecraft, named MAVEN, has collected similar data since arriving in orbit around Mars in 2014, but it is only a single observation post.

ESCAPADE, short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, was developed and launched on a budget of about $80 million, a bargain compared to all of NASA’s recent Mars missions. The spacecraft were built by Rocket Lab, and the project is managed on behalf of NASA by the University of California, Berkeley.

The two spacecraft for NASA’s ESCAPADE mission at Rocket Lab’s factory in Long Beach, California. Credit: Rocket Lab

NASA paid Blue Origin about $20 million for the launch of ESCAPADE, significantly less than it would have cost to launch it on any other dedicated rocket. The space agency accepted the risk of launching on the relatively unproven New Glenn rocket, which hasn’t yet been certified by NASA or the Space Force for the government’s marquee space missions.

The mission was supposed to launch last year, when Earth and Mars were in the right positions to enable a direct trip between the planets. But Blue Origin delayed the launch, forcing a yearlong wait until the company’s second New Glenn was ready to fly. Now, the ESCAPADE satellites, each about a half-ton in mass fully fueled, will loiter in a unique orbit more than a million miles from Earth until next November, when they will set off for the red planet. ESCAPADE will arrive at Mars in September 2027 and begin its science mission in 2028.

Rocket Lab ground controllers established communication with the ESCAPADE satellites late Thursday night.

“The ESCAPADE mission is part of our strategy to understand Mars’ past and present so we can send the first astronauts there safely,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “Understanding Martian space weather is a top priority for future missions because it helps us protect systems, robots, and most importantly, humans, in extreme environments.”

Photo of Stephen Clark

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket came back home after taking aim at Mars Read More »

rocket-report:-blue-origin’s-stunning-success;-vive-le-baguette-one!

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

rocket report, Space / /

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s and Stephen Clark’s reporting on all things space is to sign up for our newsletter. We’ll collect their stories and deliver them straight to your inbox.

Sign Me Up!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next three launches

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

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

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

Photo of Eric Berger

Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston.

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