blue origin

rocket-report:-china-leaps-into-rocket-reuse;-19-people-are-currently-in-orbit

Rocket Report: China leaps into rocket reuse; 19 people are currently in orbit

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Ascendant —

Launch startups in China and Europe are borrowing ideas and rhetoric from SpaceX.

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Landspace's reusable rocket test vehicle lifts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Wednesday, September 11, 2024.

Enlarge / Landspace’s reusable rocket test vehicle lifts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Wednesday, September 11, 2024.

Welcome to Edition 7.11 of the Rocket Report! Outside of companies owned by American billionaires, the most imminent advancements in reusable rockets are coming from China’s quasi-commercial launch industry. This industry is no longer nascent. After initially relying on solid-fueled rocket motors apparently derived from Chinese military missiles, China’s privately funded launch firms are testing larger launchers, with varying degrees of success, and now performing hop tests reminiscent of SpaceX’s Grasshopper and F9R Dev1 programs more than a decade ago.

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

Landspace hops closer to a reusable rocket. Chinese private space startup Landspace has completed a 10-kilometer (33,000-foot) vertical takeoff and vertical landing test on its Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3) reusable rocket testbed, including a mid-flight engine reignition at near supersonic conditions, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. The 18.3-meter (60-foot) vehicle took off from the Jiuquan launch base in northwestern China, ascended to 10,002 meters, and then made a vertical descent and achieved an on-target propulsive landing 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) from the launch pad. Notably, the rocket’s methane-fueled variable-thrust engine intentionally shutdown in flight, then reignited for descent, as engines would operate on future full-scale booster flybacks. The test booster used grid fins and cold gas thrusters to control itself when its main engine was dormant, according to Landspace.

“All indicators met the expected design” … Landspace hailed the test as a major milestone in the company’s road to flying its next rocket, the Zhuque-3, as soon as next year. With nine methane-fueled main engines, the Zhuque-3 will initially be able to deliver 21 metric tons (46,300 pounds) of payload into low-Earth orbit with its booster flying in expendable mode. In 2026, Landspace aims to begin recovering Zhuque-3 first-stage boosters for reuse. Landspace is one of several Chinese companies working seriously on reusable rocket designs. Another Chinese firm, Deep Blue Aerospace, says it plans a 100-kilometer (62-mile) suborbital test of a reusable booster soon, ahead of the first flight of its medium-class Nebula-1 rocket next year. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

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Isar Aerospace sets low bar for success on first launch. Daniel Metzler, CEO of German launch startup Isar Aerospace, stated that the first flight of the Spectrum rocket would be a success if it didn’t destroy the launch site, European Spaceflight reports. During an interview at the Handelsblatt innovation conference, Metzler was asked what he would consider a successful inaugural flight of Spectrum. “For me, the first flight will be a success if we don’t blow up the launch site,” explained Metzler. “That would probably be the thing that would set us back the most in terms of technology and time.” This tempering of expectations sounds remarkably similar to statements made by Elon Musk about SpaceX’s first flight of the Starship rocket last year.

In the catbird seat? … Isar Aerospace could be in a position to become the first in a new crop of European commercial launch companies to attempt its first orbital flight. Another German company, Rocket Factory Augsburg, recently gave up on a possible launch this year after the booster for its first launch caught fire and collapsed during a test at a launch site in Scotland. Isar plans to launch its two-stage Spectrum rocket, designed to carry up to 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) of payload into low-Earth orbit, from Andøya Spaceport in Norway. Isar hasn’t publicized any schedule for the first flight of Spectrum, but there are indications the publicity-shy company is testing hardware at the Norwegian spaceport. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

FAA to introduce new orbital debris rules. The Federal Aviation Administration is moving ahead with efforts to develop rules for the disposal of upper stages as another Centaur upper stage breaks apart in orbit, Space News reports. The FAA released draft regulations on the matter for public comment one year ago, and the head of the agency’s commercial spaceflight division recently said the rules are a “high priority for our organization.” The rules would direct launch operators to dispose of upper stages in one of five ways, from controlled reentries to placement in graveyard or “disposal” orbits not commonly used by operational satellites. One change the FAA might make to the draft rules is to reduce the required timeline for an uncontrolled reentry of a disposed upper stage from no more than 25 years to a shorter timeline. “We got a lot of comments that said it should be a lot less,” said Kelvin Coleman, head of the FAA’s commercial spaceflight office. “We’re taking that into consideration.”

Upper stages are a problem … Several recent breakups involving spent upper stages in orbit have highlighted the concern that dead rocket bodies could create unnecessary space junk. Last month, the upper stage from a Chinese Long March 6A disintegrated in low-Earth orbit, creating at least 300 pieces of space debris. More recently, a Centaur upper stage from a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket broke apart in a much higher orbit, resulting in more than 40 pieces of debris. This was the fourth time one of ULA’s Centaur upper stages has broken up since 2018. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Rocket Report: China leaps into rocket reuse; 19 people are currently in orbit Read More »

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Faced with a tight deadline, NASA and Blue Origin agree to delay New Glenn debut

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Glenn wen? —

“We can’t take our foot off the pedal here.”

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The second stage of the New Glenn rocket rolled to the launch site this week.

Enlarge / The second stage of the New Glenn rocket rolled to the launch site this week.

Blue Origin

NASA and Blue Origin announced Friday that they have agreed to delay the launch of the ESCAPADE mission to Mars until at least the spring of 2025.

The decision to stand down from a launch attempt in mid-October was driven by a deadline to begin loading hypergolic propellant on the two small ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft. While it is theoretically possible to offload fuel from these vehicles for a future launch attempt, multiple sources told Ars that such an activity would incur significant risk to the spacecraft.

Forced to make a call on whether to fuel, NASA decided not to. Although the two spacecraft were otherwise ready for launch, it was not clear the New Glenn rocket would be similarly ready to go.

Waiting on the rocket

NASA procured the debut launch of the New Glenn rocket, which was developed by Blue Origin, for a significant discount. The mission’s managers, University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, always understood there were timeline risks with launching on New Glenn.

Blue Origin appears to have worked with some urgency this year to prepare the massive rocket for its initial launch. However, when the company missed a key target of hot firing the rocket’s upper stage by the end of August, NASA delayed fueling of the ESCAPADE mission. Now, with the closing of a Mars launch window next month, NASA will not fuel the spacecraft until next spring, at the earliest.

Founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin successfully rolled the New Glenn second stage to its launch pad at Launch Complex-36 in Florida on Tuesday. The company is now targeting Monday, September 9, for a hot fire test of the second stage.

At the same time, preparations for the rocket’s first stage are nearing completion. All seven of the rocket’s BE-7 engines have arrived at the launch site following acceptance testing. Engineers and technicians are presently attaching the engines to the first stage of the vehicle.

Blue Origin will now pivot to launching a prototype of its Blue Ring transfer vehicle on the debut launch of New Glenn, with the intent of testing the electronics, avionics, and other systems on the vehicle. Blue Origin is targeting the first half of November for this launch. This test flight will also serve as the first of three “certification” flights for New Glenn, which will allow the vehicle to become eligible to carry national security payloads for the US Space Force.

A sense of urgency

It’s nearly been a year since Bezos tapped a former Amazon executive, Dave Limp, to lead Blue Origin. Bezos tasked the company’s new chief executive with injecting a sense of purpose toward getting New Glenn flying as soon as possible. Bezos has made a launch this year a high priority.

In an email to Blue Origin employees on Friday, Limp expressed that sense of urgency.

“We can’t take our foot off the pedal here,” Limp wrote. “Everyone’s work to get us to NG-1 flight this year is critical and I’m so appreciative of everyone’s relentless dedication to make this happen.”

As for ESCAPADE, the mission could launch in the spring of 2025. Although the “Mars window” only opens every 18 to 24 months, there are complex trajectories by which a payload launched in the spring of 2025 could reach the red planet. It’s also possible that NASA and Blue Origin could ultimately wait until the next Mars window opens in November 2026 to launch the mission.

Faced with a tight deadline, NASA and Blue Origin agree to delay New Glenn debut Read More »

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The New Glenn rocket’s second stage set to roll to the launch pad on Monday

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Rings of power —

The large rocket will attempt to land on its debut flight.

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Image of the New Glenn second stage on its mobile test stand.

Enlarge / Image of the New Glenn second stage on its mobile test stand.

Blue Origin

Blue Origin plans to enter the final phase of its launch preparations for the New Glenn rocket on Monday by rolling the vehicle’s second stage to Launch Complex 36 in Florida. Pending weather and other final considerations, a rollout could occur as early as Monday afternoon.

This is the flight version of the vehicle, with the exception of a fixed adaptor for weather protection during a test campaign. The launch company is targeting a hot fire test of the upper stage, which is powered by two BE-3U engines, within the next week or so.

The launch company, founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, is closing in on the debut launch of the massive New Glenn rocket, which will be one of the most powerful launch vehicles in the world. With a fully reusable first stage, New Glenn has a lift capacity of 45 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.

A tight launch window

NASA has contracted with Blue Origin for the first launch of New Glenn, seeking to boost two relatively small spacecraft to Mars. These ESCAPADE orbiters have a tight launch window, from October 13 to October 21. Managed by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, the ESCAPADE spacecraft will analyze the Martian magnetic field.

It is an open question as to whether Blue Origin can integrate, test, and launch ESCAPADE within the launch window, which opens in less than six weeks. Between now and then the company must successfully test fire the second stage, and then roll the first stage out to the company’s facilities at the Cape Canaveral launch complex.

The company’s plan is to mate the second and first stages of the rocket, and add the payload fairing with the spacecraft inside of it, before conducting a short hot fire test of the first stage. If all goes well, Blue Origin plans to attempt a launch during the October window for ESCAPADE. These spacecraft arrived at the company’s launch facilities a couple of weeks ago.

This seems like an ambitious timeline for the new rocket, as final integration of stages is often where issues are discovered with new launch vehicles. However, Blue Origin has found a new sense or urgency under chief executive Dave Limp, who joined the company in December—hence the frenetic activity with the second stage over the Labor Day holiday weekend in the United States.

The road to commercial heavy lift

Limp led devices and services at Amazon for more than a decade, which included oversight of the Project Kuiper satellite project. In his nine months at Blue Origin, he has prioritized completion and launch of the New Glenn rocket amid a large portfolio of projects at the company.

New Glenn will join SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and Starship rockets as privately developed, heavy lift rockets. Its debut will confirm the trend in US spaceflight toward commercial developed large rockets that can be reused. Both Bezos and SpaceX founder Elon Musk have identified lower cost, rapidly reusable rockets as a key to expanding human activity in outer space. Bezos would like to see mining and other destructive industrial activities moved off world in order to preserve the natural vitality of Earth.

Whether it launches ESCAPADE next month, or some other payload on its debut flight after October, New Glenn will attempt an ambitious drone ship landing of the first stage on its debut launch. Success is unlikely—SpaceX did not manage to land its first Falcon 9 at sea until the 23rd launch of this rocket.

However, Bezos and Blue Origin are determined to gather all of the data possible from New Glenn’s initial flight in order to reach reusability of the larger booster as soon as possible. The attempt, whether successful or not, should make for compelling viewing.

The New Glenn rocket’s second stage set to roll to the launch pad on Monday Read More »

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Rocket Lab entered “hero mode” to finish Mars probes—now it’s up to Blue Origin

blue origin, Commercial space, escapade, heliophysics, launch, Mars, new glenn, rocket lab, Science, Space / /
The two spacecraft for NASA's ESCAPADE mission at Rocket Lab's factory in Long Beach, California.

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

Two NASA spacecraft built by Rocket Lab are on the road from California to Florida this weekend to begin preparations for launch on Blue Origin’s first New Glenn rocket.

These two science probes must launch between late September and mid-October to take advantage of a planetary alignment between Earth and Mars that only happens once every 26 months. NASA tapped Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company, to launch the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission with a $20 million contract.

Last November, the space agency confirmed the $79 million ESCAPADE mission will launch on the inaugural flight of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket. With this piece of information, the opaque schedule for Blue Origin’s long-delayed first New Glenn mission suddenly became more clear.

The launch period opens on September 29. The two identical Mars-bound spacecraft for the ESCAPADE mission, nicknamed Blue and Gold, are now complete. Rocket Lab announced Friday that its manufacturing team packed the satellites and shipped them from their factory in Long Beach, California. Over the weekend, they arrived at a clean room facility just outside the gates of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where technicians will perform final checkups and load hydrazine fuel into both spacecraft, each a little more than a half-ton in mass.

Then, if Blue Origin is ready, ground teams will connect the ESCAPADE spacecraft with the New Glenn’s launch adapter, encapsulate the probes inside the payload fairing, and mount them on top of the rocket.

“There’s a whole bunch of checking and tests to make sure everything’s OK, and then we move into fueling, and then we integrate with the launch vehicle. So it’s a big milestone,” said Rob Lillis, the mission’s lead scientist from the University of California Berkeley’s Space Science Laboratory. “There have been some challenges along the way. This wasn’t easy to make happen on this schedule and for this cost. So we’re very happy to be where we are.”

Racing to the finish line

But there’s a lot for Blue Origin to accomplish in the next couple of months if the New Glenn rocket is going to be ready to send the ESCAPADE mission toward Mars in this year’s launch period. Blue Origin has not fully exercised a New Glenn rocket during a launch countdown, hasn’t pumped a full load of cryogenic propellants into the launch vehicle, and hasn’t test-fired a full complement of first stage or second stage engines.

These activities typically take place months before the first launch of a large new orbital-class rocket. For comparison, SpaceX test-fired its first fully assembled Falcon 9 rocket on the launch pad about three months before its first flight in 2010. United Launch Alliance completed a hot-fire test of its new Vulcan rocket on the launch pad last year, about seven months before its inaugural flight.

However, Blue Origin is making visible progress toward the first flight of New Glenn, after years of speculation and few outward signs of advancement. Earlier this year, the company raised a full-scale, 320-foot-tall (98-meter) New Glenn rocket on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and loaded it with liquid nitrogen, a cryogenic substitute for the methane and liquid hydrogen fuel it will burn in flight.

Rocket Lab entered “hero mode” to finish Mars probes—now it’s up to Blue Origin Read More »

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Rocket Report: Firefly delivers for NASA; Polaris Dawn launching this month

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No holds barred —

The all-private Polaris Dawn spacewalk mission is set for launch no earlier than July 31.

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Four kerosene-fueled Reaver engines power Firefly's Alpha rocket off the pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

Enlarge / Four kerosene-fueled Reaver engines power Firefly’s Alpha rocket off the pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

Welcome to Edition 7.01 of the Rocket Report! We’re compiling this week’s report a day later than usual due to the Independence Day holiday. Ars is beginning its seventh year publishing this weekly roundup of rocket news, and there’s a lot of it this week despite the holiday here in the United States. Worldwide, there were 122 launches that flew into Earth orbit or beyond in the first half of 2024, up from 91 in the same period last year.

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

Firefly launches its fifth Alpha flight. Firefly Aerospace placed eight CubeSats into orbit on a mission funded by NASA on the first flight of the company’s Alpha rocket since an upper stage malfunction more than half a year ago, Space News reports. The two-stage Alpha rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California late Wednesday, two days after an issue with ground equipment aborted liftoff just before engine ignition. The eight CubeSats come from NASA centers and universities for a range of educational, research, and technology demonstration missions. This was the fifth flight of Firefly’s Alpha rocket, capable of placing about a metric ton of payload into low-Earth orbit.

Anomaly resolution … This was the fifth flight of an Alpha rocket since 2021 and the fourth Alpha flight to achieve orbit. But the last Alpha launch in December failed to place its Lockheed Martin payload into the proper orbit due to a problem during the relighting of its second-stage engine. On this week’s launch, Alpha deployed its NASA-sponsored payloads after a single burn of the second stage, then completed a successful restart of the engine for a plane change maneuver. Engineers traced the problem on the last Alpha flight to a software error. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Two companies added to DoD’s launch pool. Blue Origin and Stoke Space Technologies — neither of which has yet reached orbit — have been approved by the US Space Force to compete for future launches of small payloads, Breaking Defense reports. Blue Origin and Stoke Space join a roster of launch companies eligible to compete for launch task orders the Space Force puts up for bid through the Orbital Services Program-4 (OSP-4) contract. Under this contract, Space Systems Command buys launch services for payloads 400 pounds (180 kilograms) or greater, enabling launch from 12 to 24 months of the award of a task order. The OSP-4 contract has an “emphasis on small orbital launch capabilities and launch solutions for Tactically Responsive Space mission needs,” said Lt. Col. Steve Hendershot, chief of Space Systems Command’s small launch and targets division.

An even dozen … Blue Origin aims to launch its orbital-class New Glenn rocket for the first time as soon as late September, while Stoke Space aims to fly its Nova rocket on an orbital test flight next year. The addition of these two companies means there are 12 providers eligible to bid on OSP-4 task orders. The other companies are ABL Space Systems, Aevum, Astra, Firefly Aerospace, Northrop Grumman, Relativity Space, Rocket Lab, SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and X-Bow. (submitted by Ken the Bin and brianrhurley)

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Italian startup test-fires small rocket. Italian rocket builder Sidereus Space Dynamics has completed the first integrated system test of its EOS rocket, European Spaceflight reports. This test occurred Sunday, culminating in a firing of the rocket’s kerosene/liquid oxygen MR-5 main engine for approximately 11 seconds. The EOS rocket is a novel design, utilizing a single-stage-to-orbit architecture, with the reusable booster returning to Earth from orbit for recovery under a parafoil. The rocket stands less than 14 feet (4.2 meters) tall and will be capable of delivering about 29 pounds (13 kilograms) of payload to low-Earth orbit.

A lean operation … After it completes integrated testing on the ground, the company will conduct the first low-altitude EOS test flights. Founded in 2019, Sidereus has raised 6.6 million euros ($7.1 million) to fund the development of the EOS rocket. While this is a fraction of the funding other European launch startups like Isar Aerospace, MaiaSpace, and Orbex have attracted, the Sidereus’s CEO, Mattia Barbarossa, has previously stated that the company intends to “reshape spaceflight in a fraction of the time and with limited resources.” (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)

Rocket Report: Firefly delivers for NASA; Polaris Dawn launching this month Read More »

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Here’s why SpaceX’s competitors are crying foul over Starship launch plans

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SpaceX launches Falcon 9 rockets from Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center and from Pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The company plans to develop Starship launch infrastructure at Pad 39A and Pad 37. United Launch Alliance flies Vulcan and Atlas V rockets from Pad 41, and Blue Origin will base its New Glenn rocket at Pad 36.

Enlarge / SpaceX launches Falcon 9 rockets from Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and from Pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The company plans to develop Starship launch infrastructure at Pad 39A and Pad 37. United Launch Alliance flies Vulcan and Atlas V rockets from Pad 41, and Blue Origin will base its New Glenn rocket at Pad 36.

NASA (labels by Ars Technica)

United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin are worried about SpaceX’s plans to launch its enormous Starship rocket from Florida.

In documents submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration last month, ULA and Blue Origin raised concerns about the impact of Starship launch operations on their own activities on Florida’s Space Coast. Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company, urged the federal government to consider capping the number of Starship launches and landings, test-firings, and other operations, and limiting SpaceX’s activities to particular times.

Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, called Blue Origin’s filing with the FAA “an obviously disingenuous response. Not cool of them to try (for the third time) to impede SpaceX’s progress by lawfare.” We’ll get to that in a moment.

The FAA and SpaceX are preparing an environmental impact statement for launches and landings of the Super Heavy booster and Starship rocket at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), while the US Space Force is working with SpaceX on a similar environmental review for Starship flights from Space Launch Complex 37 at nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS).

These reviews likely won’t be complete until late 2025, at the earliest, and only then will SpaceX be cleared to launch Starship from Florida. SpaceX also must construct launch infrastructure at both sites, which could take a couple of years. This is already underway at Launch Complex 39A.

Big rocket with a big footprint

During the environmental review process, the FAA should weigh how regular flights of the reusable Starship—as many as 120 launches per year, according to TechCrunch—will affect other launch providers operating at Cape Canaveral, ULA and Blue Origin said. SpaceX’s final proposed launch cadence from each site will be part of draft environmental assessments released for public comment as soon as the end of this year.

SpaceX plans to launch Starlink satellites, customer payloads, and missions to support NASA’s Artemis lunar landings from the launch pads in Florida. Getting a launch pad up and running in Florida is one of several schedule hurdles facing SpaceX’s program to develop a human-rated lunar lander version of Starship, alongside demonstrating orbital refueling.

Starship-Super Heavy launches and landings “are expected to have a greater environmental impact than any other launch system currently operating at KSC or CCSFS,” Blue Origin wrote. In its current configuration, Starship is the most powerful rocket in history, and SpaceX is developing a larger version standing 492 feet (150 meters) tall with nearly 15 million pounds (6,700 metric tons) of propellant. This larger variant is the one that will fly from Cape Canaveral.

“It’s a very, very large rocket, and getting bigger,” wrote Tory Bruno, ULA’s CEO, in a post on X. “That quantity of propellant requires an evacuation zone whenever fueled that includes other people’s facilities. A (weekly) launch has injurious sound levels all the way into town. The Cape isn’t meant for a monopoly.”

SpaceX's Starship rocket launches from Starbase during its second test flight in Boca Chica, Texas, on November 18, 2023.

Enlarge / SpaceX’s Starship rocket launches from Starbase during its second test flight in Boca Chica, Texas, on November 18, 2023.

At SpaceX’s privately owned Starbase launch site in South Texas, the evacuation zone is set at 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) when Starship and Super Heavy are filled with methane and liquid oxygen propellants. During an actual launch, the checkpoint is farther back at more than 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the pad.

“The total launch capacity of the Cape will go down if other providers are forced to evacuate their facilities whenever a vehicle is fueled,” Bruno wrote.

We don’t yet know the radius of the keep-out zones for Starship operations in Florida, but Blue Origin wrote that the impact of Starship activities in Florida “may be even greater than at Starbase,” presumably due to the larger rocket SpaceX plans to launch from Cape Canaveral. If this is the case, neighboring launch pads would need to be evacuated during Starship operations.

Purely based on the geography of Cape Canaveral, ULA seems to have the bigger worry. Its launch pad for the Vulcan and Atlas V rocket is located less than 2.2 miles (3.5 kilometers) from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A). SpaceX’s proposal for up to 44 launches from LC-39A “will result in significant airspace and ground closures, result in acoustic impacts felt at nearby operations, and potentially produce debris, particulates, and property damage,” ULA said.

ULA said these hazards could prevent it from fulfilling its contracts to launch critical national security satellites for the US military.

“As the largest rocket in existence, an accident would inflict serious or even catastrophic damage, while normal launch operations would have a cumulative impact on structures, launch vehicle hardware, and other critical launch support equipment,” ULA said.

Here’s why SpaceX’s competitors are crying foul over Starship launch plans Read More »

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Blue Origin joins SpaceX and ULA in new round of military launch contracts

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Playing with the big boys —

“Lane 1 serves our commercial-like missions that can accept more risk.”

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Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket on the launch pad for testing earlier this year.

Enlarge / Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket on the launch pad for testing earlier this year.

After years of lobbying, protests, and bidding, Jeff Bezos’s space company is now a military launch contractor.

The US Space Force announced Thursday that Blue Origin will compete with United Launch Alliance and SpaceX for at least 30 military launch contracts over the next five years. These launch contracts have a combined value of up to $5.6 billion.

This is the first of two major contract decisions the Space Force will make this year as the military seeks to foster more competition among its roster of launch providers and reduce its reliance on just one or two companies.

For more than a decade following its formation from the merger of Boeing and Lockheed Martin rocket programs, ULA was the sole company certified to launch the military’s most critical satellites. This changed in 2018, when SpaceX started launching national security satellites for the military. In 2020, despite protests from Blue Origin seeking eligibility, the Pentagon selected ULA and SpaceX to continue sharing launch duties.

The National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program is in charge of selecting contractors to deliver military surveillance, navigation, and communications satellites into orbit.

Over the next five years, the Space Force wants to tap into new launch capabilities from emerging space companies. The procurement approach for this new round of contracts, known as NSSL Phase 3, is different from the way the military previously bought launch services. Instead of grouping all national security launches into one monolithic contract, the Space Force is dividing them into two classifications: Lane 1 and Lane 2.

The Space Force’s contract announced Thursday was for Lane 1, which is for less demanding missions to low-Earth orbit. These missions include smaller tech demos, experiments, and launches for the military’s new constellation of missile-tracking and data-relay satellites, an effort that will eventually include hundreds or thousands of spacecraft managed by the Pentagon’s Space Development Agency.

This fall, the Space Force will award up to three contracts for Lane 2, which covers the government’s most sensitive national security satellites, which require “complex security and integration requirements.” These are often large, heavy spacecraft weighing many tons and sometimes needing to go to orbits thousands of miles from Earth. The Space Force will require Lane 2 contractors to go through a more extensive certification process than is required in Lane 1.

“Today marks the beginning of this innovative, dual-lane approach to launch service acquisition, whereby Lane 1 serves our commercial-like missions that can accept more risk and Lane 2 provides our traditional, full mission assurance for the most stressing heavy-lift launches of our most risk-averse missions,” said Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration.

Meeting the criteria

The Space Force received seven bids for Lane 1, but only three companies met the criteria to join the military’s roster of launch providers. The basic requirement to win a Lane 1 contract was for a company to show its rocket can place at least 15,000 pounds of payload mass into low-Earth orbit, either on a single flight or over a series of flights within a 90-day period.

The bidders also had to substantiate their plan to launch the rocket they proposed to use for Lane 1 missions by December 15 of this year. A spokesperson for Space Systems Command said SpaceX proposed using their Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, and ULA offered its Vulcan rocket. Those launchers are already flying. Blue Origin proposed its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket, slated for an inaugural test flight no earlier than September.

“As we anticipated, the pool of awardees is small this year because many companies are still maturing their launch capabilities,” said Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, program executive officer for the Space Force’s assured access to space division. “Our strategy accounted for this by allowing on-ramp opportunities every year, and we expect increasing competition and diversity as new providers and systems complete development.”

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Enlarge / A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Trevor Mahlmann/Ars Technica

The Space Force plans to open up the first on-ramp opportunity for Lane 1 as soon as the end of this year. Companies with medium-lift rockets in earlier stages of development, such as Rocket Lab, Relativity Space, Firefly Aerospace, and Stoke Space, will have the chance to join ULA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin in the Lane 1 pool at that time. The structure of the NSSL Phase 3 contracts allow the Pentagon to take advantage of emerging launch capabilities as soon as they become available, according to Calvelli.

In a statement, Panzenhagen said having additional launch providers will increase the Space Force’s “resiliency” in a time of increasing competition between the US, Russia, and China in orbit. “Launching more risk-tolerant satellites on potentially less mature launch systems using tailored independent government mission assurance could yield substantial operational responsiveness, innovation, and savings,” Panzenhagen said.

More competition, theoretically, will also deliver lower launch prices to the Space Force. SpaceX and Blue Origin rockets are partially reusable, while ULA eventually plans to recover and reuse Vulcan main engines.

Over the next five years, Space Systems Command will dole out fixed-price “task orders” to ULA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin for groups of Lane 1 missions. The first batch of missions up for awards in Lane 1 include seven launches for the Space Development Agency’s missile tracking mega-constellation, plus a task order for the National Reconnaissance Office, the government’s spy satellite agency. However, military officials require a rocket to have completed at least one successful orbital launch to win a Lane 1 task order, and Blue Origin’s New Glenn doesn’t yet satisfy this requirement.

The Space Force will pay Blue Origin $5 million for an “initial capabilities assessment” for Lane 1. SpaceX and ULA, the military’s incumbent launch contractors, will each receive $1.5 million for similar assessments.

ULA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin are also the top contenders to win Lane 2 contracts later this year. In order to compete in Lane 2, a launch provider must show it has a plan for its rockets to meet the Space Force’s stringent certification requirements by October 1, 2026. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are already certified, and ULA’s Vulcan is on a path to achieve this milestone by the end of this year, pending a successful second test flight in the next few months. A successful debut of New Glenn by the end of this year would put the October 2026 deadline within reach of Blue Origin.

Blue Origin joins SpaceX and ULA in new round of military launch contracts Read More »

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Blue Origin resumes human flights to suborbital space, but it wasn’t perfect

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“I lied” —

Blue Origin’s space capsule safely landed despite a problem with one of its parachutes.

–

Ed Dwight, 90, exits Blue Origin's crew capsule Sunday after a 10-minute flight to the edge of space.

Enlarge / Ed Dwight, 90, exits Blue Origin’s crew capsule Sunday after a 10-minute flight to the edge of space.

More than 60 years after he was denied an opportunity to become America’s first Black astronaut, Ed Dwight finally traveled into space Sunday with five other passengers on a 10-minute flight inside a Blue Origin capsule.

Dwight, a retired Air Force captain and test pilot, had a chance to become the first African American astronaut. He was one of 26 pilots the Air Force recommended to NASA for the third class of astronauts in 1963, but the agency didn’t select him. It took another 20 years for America’s first Black astronaut, Guion Bluford, to fly in space in 1983.

“Everything they did, I did, and I did it well,” Dwight said in a video released by Blue Origin. “If politics had changed, I would have gone to space in some kind of capacity.”

At the age of 90, Dwight finally entered the record books Sunday, becoming the oldest person to reach space, displacing the previous record-holder, actor William Shatner, who flew on a similar Blue Origin launch to the edge of space in 2021.

“I thought I didn’t need it in my life,” Dwight said after Sunday’s fight. “But I lied!”

Since retiring from the Air Force, Dwight became an accomplished sculptor. His works, which focus on Black history, are installed at memorials and monuments across the country.

“The transitions, the separations and stuff were a little bit more dynamic than I thought,” Dwight said in remarks after Sunday’s flight. “But that’s how it’s supposed to be. It makes your mind wonder, ‘Is something wrong?’ But no, it was absolutely terrific and the view … absolutely fantastic. This was a life-changing experience. Everybody needs to do this.”

Ed Dwight stands in front of an F-104 jet fighter in 1963.

Enlarge / Ed Dwight stands in front of an F-104 jet fighter in 1963.

Dwight and his five co-passengers lifted off from Blue Origin’s remote launch site in West Texas at 9: 35 am CDT (14: 35 UTC). Strapped into reclining seats inside a pressurized capsule, the passengers rode Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket into the uppermost layers of the atmosphere. After burning its main engine more than two minutes, the rocket released the crew capsule and continued coasting upward to an apogee, or high point, of nearly 66 miles (107 kilometers), just above the internationally recognized boundary of space.

This was the seventh time Blue Origin, the space company owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, has flown people to suborbital space, and the 25th flight overall of the company’s fleet of New Shepard rockets. It was the first time Blue Origin has launched people in nearly two years, resuming suborbital service after a rocket failure on an uncrewed research flight in September 2022. In December, Blue Origin launched another uncrewed suborbital research mission to set the stage for the resumption of human missions Sunday.

Joining Dwight on Blue Origin’s capsule were investor Mason Angel, French businessman Sylvain Chiron, software engineer Kenneth Hess, adventurer Carol Schaller, and Gopi Thotakura, an Indian pilot and entrepreneur. Dwight’s ticket with Blue Origin was sponsored by Space for Humanity, a nonprofit that seeks to expand access to space for all people, and the other five participants were paying passengers.

After cutoff of the New Shepard rocket engine, the passengers had a few minutes to unfasten their seatbelts and float around the cabin while taking in the view of Earth. They returned to their seats as the capsule descended back into the atmosphere. The reusable New Shepard booster reignited its main engine for a propulsive landing back in Texas, while the crew capsule deployed parachutes to slow for touchdown a few miles away.

Two of three

However, one of the three main parachutes did not fully unfurl as the capsule drifted back to the ground. The capsule is designed to safely land with two chutes, a capability Blue Origin demonstrated on a test flight in 2016.

“It looks like we do have two parachutes that have full inflation, the third is not quite fully inflated,” said Ariane Cornell, a Blue Origin official hosting the company’s live webcast Sunday. “Landing with two parachutes is perfectly OK for this system.”

Family members and Blue Origin personnel greeted the passengers as they exited the capsule. All six appeared to be in good spirits and good health.

Although it had no obvious ill effects on the crew or the spacecraft, Blue Origin engineers will investigate the malfunction to determine what went wrong. The capsule’s three main parachutes were supplied to Blue Origin by Airborne Systems, which manufactures parachutes for every US human-rated spacecraft.

One of the three main parachutes on Blue Origin's crew capsule did not fully inflate before landing.

Enlarge / One of the three main parachutes on Blue Origin’s crew capsule did not fully inflate before landing.

Blue Origin

Airborne also provides parachutes for SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, Boeing’s Starliner, and NASA’s Orion capsule. Those parachutes have different designs and sizes than the chutes used on Blue Origin’s capsule, but it wasn’t immediately clear if there might be any crossover concerns on other programs stemming from the malfunction on Sunday’s flight.

The Federal Aviation Administration, the regulatory agency that oversees US commercial space missions, said in a statement it did not consider the parachute issue a mishap. This statement suggests the incident will not trigger a mishap investigation that would require FAA oversight.

Before the 2022 launch failure, Blue Origin’s New Shepard program achieved a cadence, on average, of roughly one flight every two months. Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company founded by Richard Branson, ramped up the flight rate of its suborbital SpaceShipTwo spaceplane over the last year as Blue Origin’s rocket remained grounded.

But Virgin Galactic is about to halt operations of its own spaceship following one more flight with passengers next month. The company says it decided to suspend flights of the VSS Unity rocket plane to focus its resources on developing a fleet of larger air-launched spaceships that are easier to reuse.

This means Blue Origin, assuming it can regain or build on the cadence it demonstrated in 2021 and 2022, will be the only company serving the suborbital space tourism and research market for at least the next couple of years.

Blue Origin resumes human flights to suborbital space, but it wasn’t perfect Read More »

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Rocket Report: Starship stacked; Georgia shuts the door on Spaceport Camden

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On Wednesday, SpaceX fully stacked the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage for the mega-rocket's next test flight from South Texas.

Enlarge / On Wednesday, SpaceX fully stacked the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage for the mega-rocket’s next test flight from South Texas.

Welcome to Edition 6.44 of the Rocket Report! Kathy Lueders, general manager of SpaceX’s Starbase launch facility, says the company expects to receive an FAA launch license for the next Starship test flight shortly after Memorial Day. It looks like this rocket could fly in late May or early June, about two-and-a-half months after the previous Starship test flight. This is an improvement over the previous intervals of seven months and four months between Starship flights.

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.

Blue Origin launch on tap this weekend. Blue Origin plans to launch its first human spaceflight mission in nearly two years on Sunday. This flight will launch six passengers on a flight to suborbital space more than 60 miles (100 km) over West Texas. Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’s space company, has not flown people to space since a New Shepard rocket failure on an uncrewed research flight in September 2022. The company successfully launched New Shepard on another uncrewed suborbital mission in December.

Historic flight … This will be the 25th flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, and the seventh human spaceflight mission on New Shepard. Before Blue Origin’s rocket failure in 2022, the company was reaching a flight cadence of about one launch every two months, on average. The flight rate has diminished since then. Sunday’s flight is important not only because it marks the resumption of launches for Blue Origin’s suborbital human spaceflight business, but also because its six-person crew includes an aviation pioneer. Ed Dwight, 90, almost became the first Black astronaut in 1963. Dwight, a retired Air Force captain, piloted military fighter jets and graduated test pilot school, following a familiar career track as many of the early astronauts. He was on a short list of astronaut candidates the Air Force provided NASA, but the space agency didn’t include him. Dwight will become the oldest person to ever fly in space.

Spaceport Camden is officially no more. With the stroke of a pen, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed a bill that dissolved the Camden County Spaceport Authority, Action News Jax reported. This news follows a referendum in March 2022 where more than 70 percent of voters rejected a plan to buy land for the spaceport on the Georgia coastline between Savannah and Jacksonville, Florida. County officials still tried to move forward with the spaceport initiative after the failed referendum, but Georgia’s Supreme Court ruled in February that the county had to abide by the voters’ wishes.

$12 million for what?… The government of Camden County, with a population of about 55,000 people spent $12 million on the Spaceport Camden concept over the course of a decade. The goal of the spaceport authority was to lure small launch companies to the region, but no major launches ever took place from Camden County. State Rep. Steven Sainz, who sponsored the bill eliminating the spaceport authority, said in a statement that the legislation “reflects the community’s choice and opens a path for future collaborations in economic initiatives that are more aligned with local needs.” (submitted by zapman987)

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.

Polaris Spaceplanes moves on to bigger things. German startup Polaris Spaceplanes says it is progressing with construction of its MIRA II and MIRA III spaceplane prototypes after MIRA, a subscale test vehicle, was damaged earlier this year, European Spaceflight reports. The MIRA demonstration vehicle crash-landed on a test flight in February. The incident occurred on takeoff at an airfield in Germany before the vehicle could ignite its linear aerospace engine in flight. The remote-controlled MIRA prototype measured about 4.25 meters long. Polaris announced on April 30 that will not repair MIRA and will instead move forward with the construction of a pair of larger vehicles.

Nearly 16 months without a launch … The MIRA II and MIRA III vehicles will be 5 meters long and will be powered by Polaris’s AS-1 aerospike engines, along with jet engines to power the craft before and after in-flight tests of the rocket engine. Aerospike engines are rocket engines that are designed to operate efficiently at all altitudes. The MIRA test vehicles are precursors to AURORA, a multipurpose spaceplane and hypersonic transporter Polaris says will be capable of delivering up to 1,000 kilograms of payload to low-Earth orbit. (submitted by Jay500001 and Tfargo04)

Rocket Report: Starship stacked; Georgia shuts the door on Spaceport Camden Read More »

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Rocket Report: Blue Origin to resume human flights; progress for Polaris Dawn

blue origin, Commercial space, ed Dwight, human spaceflight, launch, Polaris dawn, rocket report, russia, Science, Space, spacex, united launch alliance / /

The wait is over —

“The pacing item in our supply chain is the BE-4.”

–

Ed Dwight stands in front of an F-104 jet fighter in 1963.

Enlarge / Ed Dwight stands in front of an F-104 jet fighter in 1963.

Welcome to Edition 6.38 of the Rocket Report! Ed Dwight was close to joining NASA’s astronaut corps more than 60 years ago. With an aeronautical engineering degree and experience as an Air Force test pilot, Dwight met the qualifications to become an astronaut. He was one of 26 test pilots the Air Force recommended to NASA for the third class of astronauts in 1963, but he wasn’t selected. Now, the man who would have become the first Black astronaut will finally get a chance to fly to space.

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.

Ed Dwight named to Blue Origin’s next human flight. Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company, announced Thursday that 90-year-old Ed Dwight, who almost became the first Black astronaut in 1963, will be one of six people to fly to suborbital space on the company’s next New Shepard flight. Dwight, a retired Air Force captain, piloted military fighter jets and graduated test pilot school, following a familiar career track as many of the early astronauts. He was on a short list of astronaut candidates the Air Force provided NASA, but the space agency didn’t include him. It took 20 more years for the first Black American to fly to space. Dwight’s ticket with Blue Origin is sponsored by Space for Humanity, a nonprofit that seeks to expand access to space for all people. Five paying passengers will join Dwight for the roughly 10-minute up-and-down flight to the edge of space over West Texas. Kudos to Space for Humanity and Blue Origin for making this happen.

Return to flight … This mission, named NS-25, will be the first time Blue Origin flies with human passengers since August 2022. Blue Origin hasn’t announced a launch date yet for NS-25. On an uncrewed launch the following month, an engine failure destroyed a New Shepard booster and grounded Blue Origin’s suborbital rocket program for more than 15 months. New Shepard returned to flight December 19 on another research flight, again without anyone onboard. As the mission name suggests, this will be the 25th flight of a New Shepard rocket and the seventh flight with people. Blue Origin has a history of flying aviation pioneers and celebrities. On the first human flight with New Shepard in 2021, the passengers included company founder Jeff Bezos and famed female aviator Wally Funk. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.

Revisit Astra’s 2020 rocket explosion. In March 2020, as the world was under the grip of COVID, Astra blew up a rocket in remote Alaska and didn’t want anyone to see it. New video published by TechCrunch shows Astra’s Rocket 3 vehicle exploding on its launch pad. This was one of several setbacks that have brought the startup to its knees. The explosion, which occurred at Alaska’s Pacific Spaceport Complex, was simply reported as an “anomaly” at the time, an industry term for pretty much any issue that deviates from the expected outcome, TechCrunch reports. Satellite imagery of the launch site showed burn scars, suggesting an explosion, but the footage published this week confirms the reality of the event. This was Astra’s first orbital-class rocket, and it blew up during a fueling rehearsal.

A sign of things to come … Astra eventually flew its Rocket 3 small satellite launcher seven times, but only two of the flights actually reached orbit. This prompted Astra to abandon its Rocket 3 program and focus on developing a larger rocket, Rocket 4. But the future of this new rocket is in doubt. Astra’s co-founders are taking the company private after its market value and stock price tanked, and it’s not clear where the company will go from here. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.

Russia’s plan to “restore” its launch industry. Yuri Borisov, chief of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, has outlined a strategy for Russia to regain a dominant position in the global launch market, Ars reports. This will include the development of a partially reusable replacement for the Soyuz rocket called Amur-CNG. The country’s spaceflight enterprise is also working on “ultralight” boosters that will incorporate an element of reusability. In an interview posted on the Roscosmos website, Borisov said he hopes Russia will have a “completely new fleet of space vehicles” by the 2028-2029 timeframe. Russia has previously discussed plans to develop the Amur rocket (the CNG refers to the propellant, liquified methane). The multi-engine vehicle looks somewhat similar to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket in that preliminary designs incorporated landing legs and grid fins to enable a powered first-stage landing.

Reason to doubt … Russia’s launch industry was a global leader a couple of decades ago when prices were cheap relative to Western rockets. But the heavy-lift Proton rocket is nearing retirement after concerns about its reliability, and the still-reliable Soyuz is now excluded from the global market after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the 2000s and 2010s, Russia’s position in the market was supplanted by the European Ariane 5 rocket and then SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Roscosmos originally announced the medium-lift Amur rocket program in 2020 for a maiden flight in 2026. Since then, the rocket has encountered a nearly year-for-year delay in its first test launch. I’ll believe it when I see it. The only new, large rocket Russia has developed in nearly 40 years, the expendable Angara A5, is still launching dummy payloads on test flights a decade after its debut.

Rocket Report: Blue Origin to resume human flights; progress for Polaris Dawn Read More »

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Blue Origin is getting serious about developing a human spacecraft

blue origin, Science, Space / /

A new era at Blue —

Company seeks: “Experience with human spaceflight or high-performance aircraft systems?”

–

Dave Limp, Blue Origin's new CEO, and founder Jeff Bezos observe the New Glenn rocket on its launch pad Wednesday at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

Enlarge / Dave Limp, Blue Origin’s new CEO, and founder Jeff Bezos observe the New Glenn rocket on its launch pad Wednesday at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

The space company named Blue Origin is having a big year. New chief executive Dave Limp, who arrived in December, is working to instill a more productive culture at the firm owned by Jeff Bezos. In January, the company’s powerful BE-4 rocket engine performed very well on the debut launch of the Vulcan booster. And later this year, possibly as soon as August, Blue Origin’s own heavy-lift rocket, New Glenn, will take flight.

But wait, there’s more. The company has also been hard at work developing hardware that will fly on New Glenn, such as the Blue Ring transfer vehicle that will be used to ferry satellites into precise orbits. In addition, work continues on a private space station called Orbital Reef.

One of the key questions about that space station is how astronauts will get there. The only current means of US crew transportation to low-Earth orbit is via Blue Origin’s direct competitor, SpaceX, with its Dragon vehicle. This is likely unpalatable for Bezos.

Boeing is an official partner on Orbital Reef. It has a crewed spacecraft, Starliner, set to make its debut flight in April. But there are serious questions about Boeing’s long-term commitment to Starliner beyond its seven contracted missions with NASA, in addition to concerns that its price will be about 50 percent higher than Dragon if it ever flies private astronauts. Blue Origin has also had some discussions with India about using its new crew capsule.

All of these options have downsides, especially for a company that has a vision of “millions of people living and working in space.” It has long been understood that Blue Origin will eventually develop a crewed spacecraft vehicle. But when?

Now, apparently.

A bit of history

A dozen years ago, the company was performing preliminary studies of a “next-generation” spacecraft that would provide transportation to low-Earth orbit for up to seven astronauts. Blue Origin ultimately received about $25 million from NASA’s commercial crew program before dropping out—SpaceX and Boeing were the ultimate victors.

For a time, the crew project was on the back burner, but it has now become a major initiative within Blue Origin, with the company hiring staff to develop the vehicle.

The first public hint of this renewed interest came last June, when NASA announced that Blue Origin was one of seven companies to sign an unfunded Space Act Agreement to design advanced commercial space projects. Later, in a document explaining this selection process, NASA revealed that Blue Origin was working on a “commercial space transportation system.” This included a reusable spacecraft that would launch on the New Glenn rocket.

“The development plan for the reusable CTS (commercial space transportation system) has significant strengths for its low external dependence, approach to mature its technologies, and demonstrated technical competency,” NASA stated in its source selection document, signed by Phil McAlister, director of the agency’s commercial space division.

Staffing up for a crew vehicle

The best evidence that Blue Origin is serious about developing an orbital human spacecraft has come in recent job postings. For example, the company is seeking a leader for its “Space Vehicle Abort Thrusters Integrated Product Team” on LinkedIn. Among the preferred qualifications is “experience with human spaceflight or high-performance aircraft systems.”

Most human spacecraft have “abort thrusters” as part of their design. Built into the crew vehicle, they are designed to automatically fire when there is a problem with the rocket. These powerful thrusters pull the crew vehicle away from the rocket—which is often in the process of exploding—so that the astronauts can parachute safely back to Earth. All of the crewed vehicles currently in operation, SpaceX’s Dragon, Russia’s Soyuz, and China’s Shenzhou, have such escape systems. There is no practical reason for abort thrusters on a non-human spacecraft.

After years of secrecy, Blue Origin is revealing more about its intentions of late. This is likely due to the long-awaited debut of the New Glenn rocket, which will announce Blue Origin’s presence as a bona fide launch company and significant competitor to SpaceX. It’s therefore probable that the company will talk more about its crewed spaceflight ambitions later this year.

Blue Origin is getting serious about developing a human spacecraft Read More »

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Rocket Report: Starliner launch preps; Indian rocket engine human-rated

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Cape-a-palooza —

The Bahamian government and SpaceX signed an agreement for Falcon 9 booster landings.

–

The first stage of United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket was lifted onto its launch platform this week in preparation for an April liftoff with two NASA astronauts on Boeing's Starliner Crew Flight Test.

Enlarge / The first stage of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket was lifted onto its launch platform this week in preparation for an April liftoff with two NASA astronauts on Boeing’s Starliner Crew Flight Test.

United Launch Alliance

Welcome to Edition 6.32 of the Rocket Report! I’m writing the report again this week as Eric Berger is in Washington, DC, to receive a well-earned honor, the 2024 Excellence in Commercial Space Journalism Award from the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. Cape Canaveral is the world’s busiest spaceport, and this week, three leading US launch companies were active there. SpaceX launched another Falcon 9 rocket, and a few miles away, Blue Origin raised a New Glenn rocket on its launch pad for long-awaited ground testing. Nearby, United Launch Alliance began assembling an Atlas V rocket for the first crew launch of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft in April. 2024 is shaping up to be a truly exciting year for the spaceflight community.

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.

Astroscale inspector satellite launched by Rocket Lab. Astroscale, a well-capitalized Japanese startup, has launched a small satellite to do something that has never been done in space, Ars reports. This new spacecraft, delivered into orbit on February 18 by Rocket Lab, will approach a defunct upper stage from a Japanese H-IIA rocket that has been circling Earth for more than 15 years. Over the next few months, the satellite will try to move within arm’s reach of the rocket, taking pictures and performing complicated maneuvers to move around the bus-size H-IIA upper stage as it moves around the planet at nearly 5 miles per second (7.6 km/s).

This is a first … Astroscale’s ADRAS-J mission is the first satellite designed to approach and inspect a piece of space junk in orbit. This is a public-private partnership between Astroscale and the Japanese space agency. Of course, space agencies and commercial companies have demonstrated rendezvous operations in orbit for decades. The difference here is the H-IIA rocket is uncontrolled, likely spinning and in a slow tumble, and was never designed to accommodate any visitors. Japan left it in orbit in January 2009 following the launch of a climate monitoring satellite and didn’t look back. ADRAS-J is a technology demonstration that could pave the way for a follow-on mission to actually link up with this H-IIA rocket and remove it from orbit. Astroscale eventually wants to use these technologies for satellite servicing, refueling, and further debris removal missions. (submitted by Ken the Bin and Jay500001)

Software error blamed for Firefly launch malfunction. Firefly Aerospace released an update Tuesday on an investigation into an upper stage malfunction on the company’s Alpha rocket in December. The investigation team, consisting of membership from Firefly, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board, Lockheed Martin, NASA, and the US Space Force, determined a software error in the rocket’s guidance, navigation, and control software algorithm ultimately caused the Alpha rocket to release its payload into a lower-than-planned orbit following a launch from California.

Upper stage woes… The software error prevented the rocket from sending the “necessary pulse commands” to control thrusters on the upper stage before its main engine was supposed to reignite. This second burn by the upper stage was supposed to circularize the rocket’s orbit, but it didn’t happen as planned. Still, the Alpha rocket safely released its commercial satellite payload for Lockheed Martin. Although the lower orbit caused the satellite to reenter the atmosphere earlier this month, Lockheed Martin said it was able to achieve many of the objectives of the technology demonstration mission, which focused on testing an electronically steered antenna. This was the fourth launch of an Alpha rocket, and two of them have suffered from upper stage malfunctions during engine restart attempts. Firefly says it is preparing the next Alpha rocket to fly “in the coming months.” (submitted by Ken the Bin)

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.

A good fundraising round for Gilmour Space. Australian startup Gilmour Space Technologies has raised $55 million Australian dollars ($36 million) in a Series D funding round announced Monday, Space News reports. The funding supports the small launch vehicle startup’s campaign to manufacture, test, and begin launching rockets and satellites from the Bowen Orbital Spaceport in North Queensland. Gilmour Space, founded in 2012, is developing a three-stage rocket called Eris. The first Eris test flight is expected “in the coming months, pending launch approvals from the Australian Space Agency,” according to the Gilmour Space news release.

Launching from down under… Gilmour Space is aiming to launch the first Australian-built rocket into orbit later this year. The Eris rocket is powered by hybrid engines, and Gilmour says it is capable of delivering about 670 pounds (305 kilograms) of payload mass into a Sun-synchronous orbit. The $36 million fundraising round announced this week follows a $46 million fundraising round in 2021. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Gilmour Space is aiming for the first flight of Eris in April, and this latest fundraising should give the company enough money to mount four test flights. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Rocket Report: Starliner launch preps; Indian rocket engine human-rated Read More »