Rocket Report: Next Starship flight to reuse booster; FAA clears New Glenn

Welcome to Edition 7.38 of the Rocket Report! SpaceX test fired a Super Heavy booster that launched in January on Thursday, in South Texas. This sets up the possibility of a reused Super Heavy rocket launching within the next several weeks, and would be an important step forward in the Starship launch program. It’s also a bold step given that there is a lot riding on this Starship launch, given that the last two have failed due to propulsion issues with the rocket’s upper stage.

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.

European commercial launch industry joins the space race. The first flight of Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket didn’t last long on Sunday, Ars reports. The booster’s nine engines switched off as the rocket cartwheeled upside-down and fell a short distance from its Arctic launch pad in Norway, ending the abbreviated test flight with a spectacular, fiery crash into the sea. However, it marked the beginning of something new in Europe as commercial startups begin launching rockets.

Learning to embrace failure … Isar Aerospace, based in Germany, was the first in a crop of new European rocket companies to attempt an orbital launch. Isar is one of a half-dozen or so European launch startups that could fly their orbital-class rockets in the next couple of years. Of this group, Isar has raised the most money, reporting more than 400 million euros ($430 million) of fundraising, primarily from venture capital sources. We are looking forward to the European launch industry heating up after a long period of development.

PLD Space signs launch agreement with D-Orbit. The Spanish launch company, PLD Space, announced an agreement this week with an Italy-based space transportation company, D-Orbit. As part of the agreement, D-Orbit’s ION orbital transfer vehicle will launch on PLD Space’s forthcoming rocket, the Miura 5. Although the announcement did not specify terms of the agreement, PLD Space said it has now filled “more than 80 percent” of the launch slots on its manifest until 2027.

Waiting on the rocket … The ION vehicle, essentially a dispenser of CubeSats, has previously flown several missions. The real question, therefore, concerns the readiness of the Miura 5 small rocket. PLD Space said it is currently ramping up serial production for the Miura 5 using technology from a prototype rocket, with the aim of starting its test flight campaign by the end of 2025. Commercial flights of Miura 5 could begin in 2026 with the objective of scaling up to 30 launches per year by 2030. We shall see about that.

China shooting for record number of launches. Early on Tuesday morning, a Long March 2D rocket lifted off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert, Space News reports. The Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, a state-owned rocket maker, announced the success of the launch, revealing the payload to be a satellite Internet technology test satellite. Tuesday’s mission was China’s 17th orbital launch of 2025, following the launch of the classified TJS-16 satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit on March 29 via a Long March 7A rocket.

Shooting for a century … This puts the country on pace to launch 68 rockets for the year. This is in line with China’s total orbital launches for each of the last three years (64, 67, and 68 launches respectively). However, Chinese space watcher Andrew Jones believes the country may attempt to go as high as 100 launches this year. This would be driven by growing commercial activity, megaconstellation projects, and new launcher development. A number of new, medium-lift and potentially reusable rockets are targeting debut flights this year, he reports.

Falcon 9 launches first crewed polar mission. Four adventurers suited up and embarked on a first-of-a-kind trip to space Monday night, becoming the first humans to fly in polar orbit aboard a SpaceX crew capsule chartered by a Chinese-born cryptocurrency billionaire, Ars reports. Chun Wang, born in China and now a citizen of Malta, paid SpaceX an undisclosed sum for the opportunity to fly to space and bring three hand-picked crewmates along with him. He named his mission Fram2 in honor of the Norwegian exploration ship Fram used for polar expeditions at the turn of the 20th century.

Rocket follows an unusual trajectory … The Falcon 9 rocket launched from Kennedy Space Center. However, instead of heading to the northeast in pursuit of the International Space Station, the Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft departed Launch Complex 39A and arced to the southeast, then turned south on a flight path hugging Florida’s east coast. The unusual trajectory aligned the Falcon 9 with a perfectly polar orbit at an inclination of 90 degrees to the equator, bringing the four-person crew directly over the North or South Pole every 45 minutes. They are the first humans to orbit over the poles.

Amazon targets April 9 for first Kuiper launch. As soon as next week, Amazon plans to send 27 of its satellites into low Earth orbit on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, Spaceflight Now reports. Launch is scheduled for Wednesday, April 9, during a three-hour window that opens at noon EDT (16: 00 UTC). “We’ve done extensive testing on the ground to prepare for this first mission, but there are some things you can only learn in flight, and this will be the first time we’ve flown our final satellite design and the first time we’ve deployed so many satellites at once,” said Rajeev Badyal, vice president of Project Kuiper.

Heaviest mission launched by an Atlas … This will be the first mission by United Launch Alliance of this year, and the company’s first in nearly half a year. But officials say that will change soon. In a February interview with Gary Wentz, ULA vice president of Government and Commercial Programs, said that the upcoming launch for Amazon, dubbed Kuiper 1 by ULA and Kuiper Atlas 1 (KA-01) by Amazon, was the first of many planned for the year. “We have quite a few Kuiper Atlases planned this year, as well as Kuiper Vulcans,” Wentz said. Atlas can carry 27 Kuiper satellites, and Vulcans can loft 45.

SpaceX tests previously flown Super Heavy booster. SpaceX is having trouble with Starship’s upper stage after back-to-back failures, but engineers are making remarkable progress with the rocket’s enormous booster. The most visible sign of SpaceX making headway with Starship’s first stage—called Super Heavy—came at 9: 40 am local time (10: 40 am EDT; 14: 40 UTC) Thursday at the company’s Starbase launch site in South Texas. With an unmistakable blast of orange exhaust, SpaceX fired up a Super Heavy booster that has already flown to the edge of space. The burn lasted approximately eight seconds, Ars reports.

Rocket will fly on next Starship test … This was the first time SpaceX has test-fired a “flight-proven” Super Heavy booster, and it paves the way for this particular rocket—designated Booster 14—to fly again soon. A reflight of Booster 14, which previously launched and returned to Earth in January, will happen on the next Starship launch, SpaceX confirmed Thursday. “This booster previously launched and returned on Flight 7 and 29 of its 33 Raptor engines are flight proven,” the company said. “The first Super Heavy reuse will be a step towards our goal of zero-touch reflight.” It is a legitimately and characteristically bold decision to refly a Starship booster on a test flight that SpaceX really needs to succeed. The next test may come late this month or more likely in May.

FAA closes big rocket mishap investigations. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) closed mishap investigations into both the SpaceX Starship flight and Blue Origin New Glenn debut that both took place on Jan. 16, Via Satellite reports. Although the FAA closed the mishap investigation regarding the January 16 Starship flight, the rocket is still grounded because there is still an open mishap investigation into the following March 7 flight. “There were no public injuries and one confirmed report of minor vehicle damage in the Turks and Caicos Islands,” the FAA said in a statement on the January 16 flight.

New Glenn closed out as well … The FAA also completed its mishap investigation of Blue Origin’s first New Glenn flight, which successfully deployed Blue Origin’s own space logistics vehicle Blue Ring. Blue Origin failed to recover the first stage booster, which triggered the mishap investigation. The first stage was not able to restart its engines, which prevented the reentry burn from occurring and caused the loss of the stage. Blue Origin has identified seven corrective actions, and the FAA will verify those have been implemented before the second mission. Blue Origin is targeting a return to flight in late spring and will attempt to land the booster again.

Artemis II one step closer to launch. The four astronauts who will fly on board NASA’s Artemis II mission unveiled the patch for their historic flight on Thursday. The four astronauts who will be the first to fly to the Moon under NASA’s Artemis campaign—Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialist Christina Koch from NASA, and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen from Canada—have designed an emblem to represent their mission that references both their distant destination and the home they will return to, the space agency said. It looks great!

Here’s what it means … “This patch designates the mission as “AII,” signifying not only the second major flight of the Artemis campaign, but also an endeavor of discovery that seeks to explore for all and by all. Framed in Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise photo, the scene of the Earth and the Moon represents the dual nature of human spaceflight, both equally compelling: The Moon represents our exploration destination, focused on discovery of the unknown. The Earth represents home, focused on the perspective we gain when we look back at our shared planet and learn what it is to be uniquely human. The orbit around Earth highlights the ongoing exploration missions that have enabled Artemis to set sights on a long-term presence on the Moon and soon, Mars.”

Next three launches

April 4: Falcon 9 | Starlink 11-13 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 01: 02 UTC

April 6: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-72 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla. | 02: 40 UTC

April 7: Falcon 9 | Starlink 11-11 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 21: 35 UTC