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Rocket Report: SpaceX to make its own propellant; China’s largest launch pad

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United Launch Alliance begins stacking its third Vulcan rocket for the second time.

Visitors walk by models of a Long March 10 rocket, lunar lander, and crew spacecraft during an exhibition on February 24, 2023 in Beijing, China. Credit: Hou Yu/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images

Welcome to Edition 8.02 of the Rocket Report! It’s worth taking a moment to recognize an important anniversary in the history of human spaceflight next week. Fifty years ago, on July 15, 1975, NASA launched a three-man crew on an Apollo spacecraft from Florida and two Russian cosmonauts took off from Kazakhstan, on course to link up in low-Earth orbit two days later. This was the first joint US-Russian human spaceflight mission, laying the foundation for a strained but enduring partnership on the International Space Station. Operations on the ISS are due to wind down in 2030, and the two nations have no serious prospects to continue any partnership in space after decommissioning the station.

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.

Sizing up Europe’s launch challengers. The European Space Agency has selected five launch startups to become eligible for up to 169 million euros ($198 million) in funding to develop alternatives to Arianespace, the continent’s incumbent launch service provider, Ars reports. The five small launch companies ESA selected are Isar Aerospace, MaiaSpace, Rocket Factory Augsburg, PLD Space, and Orbex. Only one of these companies, Isar Aerospace, has attempted to launch a rocket into orbit. Isar’s Spectrum rocket failed moments after liftoff from Norway on a test flight in March. None of these companies is guaranteed an ESA contract or funding. Over the next several months, ESA and the five launch companies will negotiate with European governments for funding leading up to ESA’s ministerial council meeting in November, when ESA member states will set the agency’s budget for at least the next two years. Only then will ESA be ready to sign binding agreements.

Let’s rank ’em … Ars Technica’s space reporters ranked the five selectees for the European Launcher Challenge in order from most likely to least likely to reach orbit. We put Munich-based Isar Aerospace, the most well-funded of the group, at the top of the list after attempting its first orbital launch earlier this year. Paris-based MaiaSpace, backed by ArianeGroup, comes in second, with plans for a partially reusable rocket. Rocket Factory Augsburg, another Germany company, is in third place after getting close to a launch attempt last year before its first rocket blew up on a test stand. Spanish startup PLD Space is fourth, and Britain’s Orbex rounds out the list. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

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Japan’s Interstellar Technologies rakes in more cash. Interstellar Technologies raised 8.9 billion yen ($61.8 million) to boost development of its Zero rocket and research and development of satellite systems, Space News reports. The money comes from Japanese financial institutions, venture capital funds, and debt financing. Interstellar previously received funding through agreements with the Japanese government and Toyota, which Interstellar says will add expertise to scale manufacturing of the Zero rocket for “high-frequency, cost-effective launches.” The methane-fueled Zero rocket is designed to deploy a payload of up to 1 metric ton (2,200 pounds) into low-Earth orbit. The unfortunate news from Interstellar’s fundraising announcement is that the company has pushed back the debut flight of the Zero rocket until 2027.

Straight up … Interstellar has aspirations beyond launch vehicles. The company is also developing a satellite communications business, and some of the money raised in the latest investment round will go toward this segment of the company. Interstellar is open about comparing its ambition to that of SpaceX. “On the satellite side, Interstellar is developing communications satellites that benefit from the company’s own launch capabilities,” the company said in a statement. “Backed by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and JAXA’s Space Strategy Fund, the company is building a vertically integrated model, similar to SpaceX’s approach with Starlink.”

Korean startup completes second-stage qual testing. South Korean launch services company Innospace says it has taken another step toward the inaugural launch of its Hanbit-Nano rocket by the year’s end with the qualification of the second stage, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. The second stage uses an in-house-developed 34-kilonewton (7,643-pound-thrust) liquid methane engine. Innospace says the engine achieved a combustion time of 300 seconds, maintaining stability of the fuel and oxidizer supply system, structural integrity, and the launch vehicle integrated control system.

A true micro-launcher … Innospace’s rocket is modest in size and capacity, even among its cohorts in the small launch market. The Hanbit-Nano rocket is designed to launch approximately 200 pounds (90 kilograms) of payload into Sun-synchronous orbit. “With the success of this second stage engine certification test, we have completed the development of the upper stage of the Hanbit-Nano launch vehicle,” said Kim Soo-jong, CEO of Innospace. “This is a very symbolic and meaningful technological achievement that demonstrates the technological prowess and test operation capabilities that Innospace has accumulated over a long period of time, while also showing that we have entered the final stage for commercial launch. Currently, all executives and staff are doing their best to successfully complete the first stage certification test, which is the final gateway for launch, and we will make every effort to prepare for a smooth commercial launch in the second half of the year.”

Two companies forge unlikely alliance in Dubai. Two German entrepreneurs have joined forces with a team of Russian expats steeped in space history to design a rocket using computational AI models, Payload reports. The “strategic partnership” is between LEAP 71, an AI-enabled design startup, and Aspire Space, a company founded by the son of a Soviet engineer who was in charge of launching Zenit rockets from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in the 1980s. The companies will base their operations in Dubai. The unlikely pairing aims to develop a new large reusable launch vehicle capable of delivering up to 15 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. Aspire Space is a particularly interesting company if you’re a space history enthusiast. Apart from the connections of Aspire’s founder to Soviet space history, Aspire’s chief technology officer, Sergey Sopov, started his career at Baikonur working on the Energia heavy-lift rocket and Buran space shuttle, before becoming an executive at Sea Launch later in his career.

Trust the computer … It’s easy to be skeptical about this project, but it has attracted an interesting group of people. LEAP 71 has just two employees—its two German co-founders—but boasts lofty ambitions and calls itself a “pioneer in AI-driven engineering.” As part of the agreement with Aspire Space, LEAP 71 will use a proprietary software program called Noyron to design the entire propulsion stack for Aspire’s rockets. The company says its AI-enabled design approach for Aspire’s 450,000-pound-thrust engine will cut in half the time it took other rocket companies to begin test-firing a new engine of similar size. Rudenko forecasts Aspire’s entire project, including a launcher, reusable spacecraft, and ground infrastructure to support it all, will cost more than $1 billion. So far, the project is self-funded, Rudenko told Payload. (submitted by Lin Kayser)

Russia launches ISS resupply freighter. A Russian Progress supply ship launched July 3 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan atop a Soyuz-2.1a rocket, NASASpaceflight reports. Packed with 5,787 pounds (2,625 kilograms) of cargo and fuel, the Progress MS-31 spacecraft glided to an automated docking at the International Space Station two days later. The Russian cosmonauts living aboard the ISS will unpack the supplies carried inside the Progress craft’s pressurized compartment. This was the eighth orbital launch of the year by a Russian rocket, continuing a downward trend in launch activity for the Russian space program in recent years.

Celebrating a golden anniversary … The Soyuz rocket that launched Progress MS-31 was painted an unusual blue and white scheme, as it was originally intended for a commercial launch that was likely canceled after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It also sported a logo commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz mission in July 1975.

Chinese rocket moves closer to first launch. Chinese commercial launch firm Orienspace is aiming for a late 2025 debut of its Gravity-2 rocket following a recent first-stage engine hot fire test, Space News reports. The “three-in-one” hot fire test verified the performance of the Gravity-2 rocket’s first stage engine, servo mechanisms, and valves that regulate the flow of propellants into the engine, according to a press release from Orienspace. The Gravity-2 rocket’s recoverable and reusable first stage will be powered by nine of these kerosene-fueled engines. The recent hot fire test “lays a solid foundation” for future tests leading up to the Gravity-2’s inaugural flight.

Extra medium … Orienspace’s first rocket, the solid-fueled Gravity-1, completed its first successful flight last year to place multiple small satellites into orbit. Gravity-2 is a much larger vehicle, standing 230 feet (70 meters) tall, the same height as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Orienspace’s new rocket will fly in a core-only configuration or with the assistance of two solid rocket boosters. An infographic released by Orienspace in conjunction with the recent engine hot fire test indicates the Gravity-2 rocket will be capable of hauling up to 21.5 metric tons (47,400 pounds) of cargo into low-Earth orbit, placing its performance near the upper limit of medium-lift launchers.

Senator calls out Texas for trying to steal space shuttle. A political effort to remove space shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian and place it on display in Texas encountered some pushback on Thursday, as a US senator questioned the expense of carrying out what he described as a theft, Ars reports. “This is not a transfer. It’s a heist,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) during a budget markup hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee. “A heist by Texas because they lost a competition 12 years ago.” In April, Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, both representing Texas, introduced the “Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act” that called for Discovery to be relocated from the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in northern Virginia and displayed at Space Center Houston. They then inserted an $85 million provision for the shuttle relocation into the Senate version of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which, to comply with Senate rules, was more vaguely worded but was meant to achieve the same goal. That bill was enacted on July 4, when President Donald Trump signed it into law.

Dollar signs … As ridiculous as it is to imagine spending $85 million on moving a space shuttle from one museum to another, it’ll actually cost a lot more to do it safely. Citing research by NASA and the Smithsonian, Durbin said that the total was closer to $305 million and that did not include the estimated $178 million needed to build a facility to house and display Discovery once in Houston. Furthermore, it was unclear if Congress even has the right to remove an artifact, let alone a space shuttle, from the Smithsonian’s collection. The Washington, DC, institution, which serves as a trust instrumentality of the US, maintains that it owns Discovery. The paperwork signed by NASA in 2012 transferred “all rights, interest, title, and ownership” for the spacecraft to the Smithsonian. “This will be the first time ever in the history of the Smithsonian someone has taken one of their displays and forcibly taken possession of it. What are we doing here? They don’t have the right in Texas to claim this,” said Durbin.

Starbase keeps getting bigger. Cameron County, Texas, has given SpaceX the green light to build an air separator facility, which will be located less than 300 feet from the region’s sand dunes, frustrating locals concerned about the impact on vegetation and wildlife, the Texas Tribune reports. The commissioners voted 3–1 to give Elon Musk’s rocket company a beachfront construction certificate and dune protection permit, allowing the company to build a facility to produce gases needed for Starship launches. The factory will separate air into nitrogen and oxygen. SpaceX uses liquid oxygen as a propellant and liquid nitrogen for testing and operations.

Saving the roads … By having the facility on site, SpaceX hopes to make the delivery of those gases more efficient by eliminating the need to have dozens of trucks deliver them from Brownsville. The company says they need more than 200 trucks of liquid nitrogen and oxygen delivered for each launch, a SpaceX engineer told the county during a meeting last week. With their application, SpaceX submitted a plan to mitigate expected negative effects on 865 square feet of dune vegetation and 20 cubic yards of dunes, as well as compensate for expected permanent impacts to 7,735 square feet of dune vegetation and 465 cubic yards of dunes. While the project will be built on property owned by SpaceX, the county holds the authority to manage the construction that affects Boca Chica’s dunes.

ULA is stacking its third Vulcan rocket. A little more than a week after its most recent Atlas V rocket launch, United Launch Alliance rolled a Vulcan booster to the Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on July 2 to begin stacking its first post-certification Vulcan rocket, Spaceflight Now reports. The operation, referred to by ULA as Launch Vehicle on Stand (LVOS), is the first major milestone toward the launch of the third Vulcan rocket. The upcoming launch will be the first operational flight of ULA’s new rocket with a pair of US military payloads, following two certification flights in 2024.

For the second time … This is the second time that this particular Vulcan booster was brought to Space Launch Complex 41 in anticipation of a launch campaign. It was previously readied in late October of last year in support of the USSF-106 mission, the Space Force’s designation for the first national security launch to use the Vulcan rocket. However, plans changed as the process of certifying Vulcan to fly government payloads took longer than expected, and ULA pivoted to launch two Atlas V rockets on commercial missions from the same pad before switching back to Vulcan launch preps.

Progress report on China’s Moon rocket. China’s self-imposed deadline of landing astronauts on the Moon by 2030 is now just five years away, and we’re starting to see some tangible progress. Construction of the launch pad for the Long March 10 rocket, the massive vehicle China will use to launch its first crews toward the Moon, is well along at the Wenchang Space Launch Site on Hainan Island. An image shared on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, and then reposted on X, shows the Long March 10’s launch tower near its final height. A mobile launch platform presumably for the Long March 10 is under construction nearby.

Super heavy … The Long March 10 will be China’s most powerful rocket to date, with the ability to dispatch 27 metric tons of payload toward the Moon, a number comparable to NASA’s Space Launch System. Designed for partial reusability, the Long March 10 will use an all-liquid propulsion system and stand more than 92 meters (300 feet) tall. The rocket will launch Chinese astronauts inside the nation’s next-generation Mengzhou crew capsule, along with a lunar lander to transport crew members from lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon using an architecture similar to NASA’s Apollo program.

Next three launches

July 11: Electron | JAKE 4 | Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia | 23: 45 UTC

July 13: Falcon 9 | Dror 1 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 04: 31 UTC

July 14: Falcon 9 | Starlink 15-2 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 02: 27 UTC

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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 to make its own propellant; China’s largest launch pad Read More »

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Sizing up the 5 companies selected for Europe’s launcher challenge

Europe, european space agency, isar aerospace, launch, MaiaSpace, orbex, pld space, rocket factory Augsburg, Science, Space / /

The European Space Agency has selected five launch startups to become eligible for up to 169 million euros ($198 million) in funding to develop alternatives to Arianespace, the continent’s incumbent launch service provider.

The five companies ESA selected are Isar Aerospace, MaiaSpace, Rocket Factory Augsburg, PLD Space, and Orbex. Only one of these companies, Isar Aerospace, has attempted to launch a rocket into orbit. Isar’s Spectrum rocket failed moments after liftoff from Norway on a test flight in March.

None of these companies are guaranteed ESA contracts or funding. Over the next several months, the European Space Agency and the five launch companies will negotiate with European governments for funding leading up to ESA’s ministerial council meeting in November, when ESA member states will set the agency’s budget for at least the next two years. Only then will ESA be ready to sign binding agreements.

In a press release, ESA referred to the five companies as “preselected challengers” in a competition for ESA support in the form of launch contracts and an ESA-sponsored demonstration to showcase upgraded launch vehicles to heave heavier payloads into orbit. So far, all five of the challengers are focusing on small rockets.

Earlier this year, ESA released a request for proposals to European industry for bids to compete in the European Launch Challenge. ESA received 12 proposals from European companies and selected five to move on to the next phase of the challenge.

A new way of doing business

In this competition, ESA is eschewing a rule that governs nearly all of the space agency’s other programs. This policy, known as geographic return, guarantees industrial contracts to ESA member states commensurate with the level of money they put into each project. The most obvious example of this is Europe’s Ariane rocket family, whose development was primarily funded by France, followed by Germany in second position. Therefore, the Ariane 6 rocket’s core stage and engines are built in France, and its upper stage is manufactured in Germany.

Sizing up the 5 companies selected for Europe’s launcher challenge Read More »

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Rocket Report: SpaceX’s dustup on the border; Northrop has a nozzle problem

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NASA has finally test-fired the first of its new $100 million SLS rocket engines.

Backdropped by an offshore thunderstorm, a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster stands on its landing pad at Cape Canaveral after returning to Earth from a mission launching four astronauts to the International Space Station early Wednesday. Credit: SpaceX

Welcome to Edition 7.50 of the Rocket Report! We’re nearly halfway through the year, and it seems like a good time to look back on the past six months. What has been most surprising to me in the world of rockets? First, I didn’t expect SpaceX to have this much trouble with Starship Version 2. Growing pains are normal for new rockets, but I expected the next big hurdles for SpaceX to clear with Starship to be catching the ship from orbit and orbital refueling, not completing a successful launch. The state of Blue Origin’s New Glenn program is a little surprising to me. New Glenn’s first launch in January went remarkably well, beating the odds for a new rocket. Now, production delays are pushing back the next New Glenn flights. The flight of Honda’s reusable rocket hopper also came out of nowhere a few weeks 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.

Isar raises 150 million euros. German space startup Isar Aerospace has obtained 150 million euros ($175 million) in funding from an American investment company, Reuters reports. The company, which specializes in satellite launch services, signed an agreement for a convertible bond with Eldridge Industries, it said. Isar says it will use the funding to expand its launch service offerings. Isar’s main product is the Spectrum rocket, a two-stage vehicle designed to loft up to a metric ton (2,200 pounds) of payload mass to low-Earth orbit. Spectrum flew for the first time in March, but it failed moments after liftoff and fell back to the ground near its launch pad. Still, Isar became the first in a new crop of European launch startups to launch a rocket theoretically capable of reaching orbit.

Flush with cash … Isar is leading in another metric, too. The Munich-based company has now raised more than 550 million euros ($642 million) from venture capital investors and government-backed funds. This far exceeds the fundraising achievements of any other European launch startup. But the money will only go so far before Isar must prove it can successfully launch a rocket into orbit. Company officials have said they aim to launch the second Spectrum rocket before the end of this year. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

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Rocket Lab aiming for record turnaround. Rocket Lab demonstrated a notable degree of flexibility this week. Two light-class Electron rockets were nearing launch readiness at the company’s privately owned spaceport in New Zealand, but one of the missions encountered a technical problem, and Rocket Lab scrubbed a launch attempt Tuesday. The spaceport has two launch pads next to one another, so while technicians worked to fix that problem, Rocket Lab slotted in another Electron rocket to lift off from the pad next door. That mission, carrying a quartet of small commercial signals intelligence satellites for HawkEye 360, successfully launched Thursday.

Giving it another go … A couple of hours after that launch, Rocket Lab announced it was ready to try again with the mission it had grounded earlier in the week. “Can’t get enough of Electron missions? How about another one tomorrow? With our 67th mission complete, we’ve scheduled our next launch from LC-1 in less than 48 hours–Electron’s fastest turnaround from the same launch site yet!” Rocket Lab hasn’t disclosed what satellite is flying on this mission, citing the customer’s preference to remain anonymous for now.

You guessed it! Baguette One will launch from France. French rocket builder HyPrSpace will launch its Baguette One demonstrator from a missile testing site in mainland France, after signing an agreement with the country’s defense procurement agency, European Spaceflight reports. HyPrSpace was founded in 2019 to begin designing an orbital-class rocket named Orbital Baguette 1 (OB-1). The Baguette One vehicle is a subscale, single-stage suborbital demonstrator to prove out technologies for the larger satellite launcher, mainly its hybrid propulsion system.

Sovereign launch … HyPrSpace’s Baguette One will stand roughly 10 meters (30 feet) tall and will be capable of carrying payloads of up to 300 kilograms (660 pounds) to suborbital space. It is scheduled to launch next year from a French missile testing site in the south of France. “Gaining access to this dual-use launch pad in mainland France is a major achievement after many years of work on our hybrid propulsion technology,” said Sylvain Bataillard, director general of HyPrSpace. “It’s a unique opportunity for HyPrSpace and marks a decisive turning point. We’re eager to launch Baguette One and to play a key role in building a more sovereign, more sustainable, and boldly innovative European dual-use space industry.” (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Firefly moves closer to launching from Sweden. An agreement between the United States and Sweden brings Firefly Aerospace one step closer to launching its Alpha rocket from a Swedish spaceport, Space News reports. The two countries signed a technology safeguards agreement (TSA) at a June 20 ceremony at the Swedish Embassy in Washington, DC. The TSA allows the export of American rockets to Sweden for launches there, putting in place measures to protect launch vehicle technology.

A special relationship … The US government has signed launch-related safeguard agreements with only a handful of countries, such as Australia, the United Kingdom, and now Sweden. Rocket exports are subject to strict controls because of the potential military applications of that technology. Firefly currently launches its Alpha rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, and is building a launch site at Wallops Island, Virginia. Firefly also has a lease for a launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, although the company is prioritizing other sites. Then, last year, Firefly announced an agreement with the Swedish Space Corporation to launch Alpha from Esrange Space Center as soon as 2026. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Amazon is running strong out of the gate. For the second time in two months, United Launch Alliance sent a batch of 27 broadband Internet satellites into orbit for Amazon on Monday morning, Ars reports. This was the second launch of a full load of operational satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper, a network envisioned to become a competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink. Just like the last flight on April 28, an Atlas V rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and delivered Amazon’s satellites into an on-target orbit roughly 280 miles (450 kilometers) above Earth.

Time to put up or shut up … After lengthy production delays at Amazon’s satellite factory, the retail giant is finally churning out Kuiper satellites at scale. Amazon has already shipped the third batch of Kuiper satellites to Florida to prepare for launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket next month. ULA won the lion’s share of Amazon’s multibillion-dollar launch contract in 2022, committing to up to 38 Vulcan launches for Kuiper and nine Atlas V flights. Three of those Atlas Vs have now launched. Amazon also reserved 18 launches on Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket, and at least 12 on Blue Origin’s New Glenn. Vulcan, Ariane 6, and New Glenn have only flown one or two times, and Amazon is asking them to quickly ramp up their cadence to deliver 3,232 Kuiper satellites to orbit in the next few years. The handful of Falcon 9s and Atlas Vs that Amazon has on contract are the only rockets in the bunch with a proven track record. With Kuiper satellites now regularly shipping out of the factory, any blame for future delays may shift from Amazon to the relatively unproven rockets it has chosen to launch them.

Falcon 9 launches with four commercial astronauts. Retired astronaut Peggy Whitson, America’s most experienced space flier, and three rookie crewmates from India, Poland, and Hungary blasted off on a privately financed flight to the International Space Station early Wednesday, CBS News reports. This is the fourth non-government mission mounted by Houston-based Axiom Space. The four commercial astronauts rocketed into orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and their Dragon capsule docked at the space station Thursday to kick off a two-week stay.

A brand-new Dragon … The Crew Dragon spacecraft flown on this mission, serial number C213, is the fifth and final addition to SpaceX’s fleet of astronaut ferry ships built for NASA trips to the space station and for privately funded commercial missions to low-Earth orbit. Moments after reaching orbit Wednesday, Whitson revealed the name of the new spacecraft: Crew Dragon Grace. “We had an incredible ride uphill, and now we’d like to set our course for the International Space Station aboard the newest member of the Dragon fleet, our spacecraft named Grace. … Grace reminds us that spaceflight is not just a feat of engineering, but an act of goodwill to the benefit of every human everywhere.”

How soon until Ariane 6 is flying regularly? It’ll take several years for Arianespace to ramp up the launch cadence of Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket, Space News reports. David Cavaillolès, chief executive of Arianespace, addressed questions at the Paris Air Show about how quickly Arianespace can reach its target of launching 10 Ariane 6 rockets per year. “We need to go to 10 launches per year for Ariane 6 as soon as possible,” he said. “It’s twice as more as for Ariane 5, so it’s a big industrial change.” Two Ariane 6 rockets have launched so far, and a third mission is on track to lift off in August. Arianespace’s CEO reiterated earlier plans to conduct four more Ariane 6 launches through the end of this year, including the first flight of the more powerful Ariane 64 variant with four solid rocket boosters.

Not a heavy lift … Arianespace’s target flight rate of 10 Ariane 6 rockets per year is modest compared to other established companies with similarly sized launch vehicles. United Launch Alliance is seeking to launch as many as 25 Vulcan rockets per year. Blue Origin’s New Glenn is designed to eventually fly often, although the company hasn’t released a target launch cadence. SpaceX, meanwhile, aims to launch up to 170 Falcon 9 rockets this year. But European governments are perhaps more committed than ever to maintaining a sovereign launch capability for the continent, so Ariane 6 isn’t going away. Arianespace has sold more than 30 Ariane 6 launches, primarily to European institutional customers and Amazon.

SLS booster blows its nozzle. NASA and Northrop Grumman test-fired a new solid rocket booster in Utah on Thursday, and it didn’t go exactly according to plan, Ars reports. This booster features a new design that NASA would use to power Space Launch System rockets, beginning with the ninth mission, or Artemis IX. The motor tested on Thursday isn’t flight-worthy. It’s a test unit that engineers will use to learn about the rocket’s performance. It turns out they did learn something, but perhaps not what they wanted. About 1 minute and 40 seconds into the booster’s burn, a fiery plume emerged from the motor’s structure just above its nozzle. Moments later, the nozzle violently disintegrated. The booster kept firing until it ran out of pre-packed solid propellant.

A questionable future … NASA’s Space Launch System appears to have a finite shelf life. The Trump administration wants to cancel it after just three launches, while the preliminary text of a bill making its way through Congress would extend it to five flights. But chances are low the Space Launch System will make it to nine flights, and if it does, it’s questionable if it would reach that point before 2040. The SLS rocket is a core piece of NASA’s plan to return US astronauts to the Moon under the Artemis program, but the White House seeks to cancel the program in favor of cheaper commercial alternatives.

NASA conducts a low-key RS-25 engine test. The booster ground test on Thursday was the second time in less than a week that NASA test-fired new propulsion hardware for the Space Launch System. Last Friday, June 20, NASA ignited a new RS-25 engine on a test stand at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The hydrogen-fueled engine is the first of its kind to be manufactured since the end of the space shuttle program. This particular RS-25 engine is assigned to power the fifth launch of the SLS rocket, a mission known as Artemis V, that may end up never flying. While NASA typically livestreams engine tests at Stennis, the agency didn’t publicize this event ahead of time.

It has been 10 years … The SLS rocket was designed to recycle leftover parts from the space shuttle program, but NASA will run out of RS-25 engines after the rocket’s fourth flight and will exhaust its inventory of solid rocket booster casings after the eighth flight. Recognizing that shuttle-era parts will eventually run out, NASA signed a contract with Aerojet Rocketdyne (now L3Harris) to set the stage for the production of new RS-25 engines in 2015. NASA later ordered an initial batch of six RS-25 engines from Aerojet, then added 18 more to the order in 2020, at a price of about $100 million per engine. Finally, a brand-new flight-worthy RS-25 engine has fired up on a test stand. If the Trump administration gets its way, these engines will never fly. Maybe that’s fine, but after so long with so much taxpayer investment, last week’s test milestone is worth publicizing, if not celebrating.

SpaceX finds itself in a dustup on the border. President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico is considering taking legal action after one of SpaceX’s giant Starship rockets disintegrated in a giant fireball earlier this month as it was being fueled for a test-firing of its engines, The New York Times reports. No one was injured in the explosion, which rained debris on the beaches of the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The conflagration occurred at a test site SpaceX operates a few miles away from the Starship launch pad. This test facility is located next to the Rio Grande River, just a few hundred feet from Mexico. The power of the blast sent wreckage flying across the river onto Mexican territory.

Collision course …“We are reviewing everything related to the launching of rockets that are very close to our border,” Sheinbaum said at a news conference Wednesday. If SpaceX violated any international laws, she added, “we will file any necessary claims.” Sheinbaum’s leftist party holds enormous sway around Mexico, and the Times reports she was responding to calls to take action against SpaceX amid a growing outcry among scientists, regional officials and environmental activists over the impact that the company’s operations are having on Mexican ecosystems. SpaceX, on the other hand, said its efforts to recover debris from the Starship explosion have been “hindered by unauthorized parties trespassing on private property.” SpaceX said it requested assistance from the government of Mexico in the recovery, and added that it offered its own resources to help in the clean-up.

Next three launches

June 28: Falcon 9 | Starlink 10-34 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 04: 26 UTC

June 28: Electron | “Symphony in the Stars” | Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand | 06: 45 UTC

June 28: H-IIA | GOSAT-GW | Tanegashima Space Center, Japan | 16: 33 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 dustup on the border; Northrop has a nozzle problem Read More »

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NASA tested a new SLS booster that may never fly, and the end of it blew off

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NASA didn’t want to say much about one of the tests, and the other one lost its nozzle.

An uncontained plume of exhaust appeared near the nozzle of an SLS solid rocket booster moments before its nozzle was destroyed during a test-firing Thursday. Credit: NASA

NASA’s Space Launch System appears to have a finite shelf life. The Trump administration wants to cancel it after just three launches, while the preliminary text of a bill making its way through Congress would extend it to five flights.

But chances are low the Space Launch System will make it to nine flights, and if it does, it’s questionable that it would reach that point before 2040. The SLS rocket is a core piece of NASA’s plan to return US astronauts to the Moon under the Artemis program, but the White House seeks to cancel the program in favor of cheaper commercial alternatives.

For the second time in less than a week, NASA test-fired new propulsion hardware Thursday that the agency would need to keep SLS alive. Last Friday, a new liquid-fueled RS-25 engine ignited on a test stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The hydrogen-fueled engine is the first of its kind to be manufactured since the end of the Space Shuttle program. This particular RS-25 engine is assigned to power the fifth flight of the SLS rocket, a mission known as Artemis V.

Then, on Thursday of this week, NASA and Northrop Grumman test-fired a new solid rocket booster in Utah. This booster features a new design that NASA would use to power SLS rockets beginning with the ninth mission, or Artemis IX. The motor tested on Thursday isn’t flight-worthy. It’s a test unit that engineers will use to gather data on the rocket’s performance.

While the engine test in Mississippi apparently went according to plan, the ground firing of the new solid rocket booster didn’t go quite as smoothly. Less than two minutes into the burn, the motor’s exhaust nozzle violently shattered into countless shards of debris. You can watch the moment in the YouTube video below.

At the start of the program nearly 15 years ago, NASA and its backers in Congress pitched the SLS rocket as the powerhouse behind a new era of deep space exploration. The Space Launch System, they said, would have the advantage of recycling old space shuttle engines and boosters, fast-tracking the new rocket’s path to the launch pad for less money than the cost of an all-new vehicle.

That didn’t pan out. Each Artemis mission costs $4.2 billion per flight, and that’s with shuttle-era engines and boosters that NASA and its contractors already have in their inventories. NASA’s 16 leftover shuttle main engines are enough for the first four SLS flights. NASA has leftover parts for eight pairs of solid rocket boosters.

It has been 10 years

Recognizing that shuttle-era parts will eventually run out, NASA signed a contract with Aerojet Rocketdyne to set the stage for the production of new RS-25 engines in 2015. NASA later ordered an initial batch of six RS-25 engines from Aerojet, then added 18 more to the order in 2020, at a price of about $100 million per engine. NASA and its contractor aim to reduce the cost to $70 million per engine, but even that figure is many times the cost of engines of comparable size and power: Blue Origin’s BE-4 and SpaceX’s Raptor.

Finally, NASA test-fired a new flight-rated RS-25 engine for the first time last week at Stennis Space Center. The agency has often provided a livestream of its engine tests at Stennis, but it didn’t offer the public any live video. And this particular test was a pretty big deal. L3Harris, which acquired Aerojet Rocketdyne in 2023, has finally reactivated the RS-25 production line after a decade and billions of dollars of funding.

In fact, NASA made no public statement about the RS-25 test until Monday, and the agency didn’t mention its assignment to fly on the Artemis V mission. If the Trump administration gets its way, the engine will never fly. Maybe that’s fine, but after so long with so much taxpayer investment, this is a milestone worth publicizing, if not celebrating.

L3Harris issued a press release Tuesday confirming the engine’s planned use on the fifth SLS mission. The engine completed a 500-second acceptance test, throttling up to 111 percent of rated thrust, demonstrating more power than engines that flew on the space shuttle or on the first SLS launch in 2022.

A new RS-25 engine, No. 20001, was installed on its test stand in Mississippi earlier this year. Credit: NASA

“This successful acceptance test shows that we’ve been able to replicate the RS-25’s performance and reliability, while incorporating modern manufacturing techniques and upgraded components such as the main combustion chamber, nozzle, and pogo accumulator assembly,” said Kristin Houston, president of space propulsion and power systems at Aerojet Rocketdyne, L3Harris. “Our propulsion technology is key to ensuring the United States leads in lunar exploration, creates a sustained presence on the Moon and does not cede this strategic frontier to other nations.”

The test-firing last Friday came a few days before the 50th anniversary of the first space shuttle main engine test at Stennis on June 24, 1975. That engine carried the serial number 0001. The new RS-25 engine is designated No. 20001.

Watch out

NASA followed last week’s low-key engine test with the test-firing of a solid-fueled booster at Northrop Grumman’s rocket test site in Promontory, Utah, on Thursday. Held in place on its side, the booster produced 3.9 million pounds of thrust, outclassing the power output of the existing boosters assigned to the first eight SLS missions.

Unlike the RS-25 firing at Stennis, NASA chose to broadcast the booster test. Everything appeared to go well until 1 minute and 40 seconds into the burn, when a fiery plume of super-hot exhaust appeared to burn through part of the booster’s structure just above the nozzle. Moments later, the nozzle disintegrated.

Solid rocket boosters can’t be turned off after ignition, and for better or worse, the motor continued firing until it ran out of propellant about 30 seconds later. The rocket sparked a fire in the hills overlooking the test stand.

This was the first test-firing of the Booster Obsolescence and Life Extension (BOLE) program, which aims to develop a higher-performance solid rocket booster for SLS missions. NASA awarded Northrop Grumman a $3.2 billion contract in 2021 to produce boosters with existing shuttle parts for five SLS missions (Artemis IV-VIII), and design, develop, and test a new booster design for Artemis IX.

The boosters produce more than 75 percent of the thrust required to propel the SLS rocket off the launch pad with NASA’s crewed Orion spacecraft on top. Four RS-25 engines power the core stage, collectively generating more than 2 million pounds of thrust.

Northrop Grumman calls the new booster “the largest and most powerful segmented solid rocket motor ever built for human spaceflight.”

One of the most significant changes with the BOLE booster design is that it replaces shuttle-era steel cases with carbon-fiber composite cases. Northrop says the new cases are lighter and stronger. It also replaces the booster’s hydraulic thrust vector control steering system with an electronic system. The propellant packed inside the booster is also different, using a mix that Northrop packs inside its commercial rocket motors instead of the recipe used for the space shuttle.

Northrop Grumman has had a tough time with rocket nozzles in recent years. In 2019, a test motor for the company’s now-canceled Omega rocket lost its nozzle during a test-firing in Utah. Then, last year, a smaller Northrop-made booster flying on United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket lost its nozzle in flight. Vulcan’s guidance system and main engines corrected for the problem, and the rocket still achieved its planned orbit.

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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.

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SpaceX’s next Starship just blew up on its test stand in South Texas

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SpaceX had high hopes for Starship in 2025, but it’s been one setback after another.

A fireball erupts around SpaceX’s Starship rocket in South Texas late Wednesday night. Credit: LabPadre

SpaceX’s next Starship rocket exploded during a ground test in South Texas late Wednesday, dealing another blow to a program already struggling to overcome three consecutive failures in recent months.

The late-night explosion at SpaceX’s rocket development complex in Starbase, Texas, destroyed the bullet-shaped upper stage that was slated to launch on the next Starship test flight. The powerful blast set off fires around SpaceX’s Massey’s Test Site, located a few miles from the company’s Starship factory and launch pads.

Live streaming video from NASASpaceflight.com and LabPadre—media organizations with cameras positioned around Starbase—showed the 15-story-tall rocket burst into flames shortly after 11: 00 pm local time (12: 00 am EDT; 04: 00 UTC). Local residents as far as 30 miles away reported seeing and feeling the blast.

SpaceX confirmed the Starship, numbered Ship 36 in the company’s inventory, “experienced a major anomaly” on a test stand as the vehicle prepared to ignite its six Raptor engines for a static fire test. These hold-down test-firings are typically one of the final milestones in a Starship launch campaign before SpaceX moves the rocket to the launch pad.

The explosion occurred as SpaceX finished up loading super-cold methane and liquid oxygen propellants into Starship in preparation for the static fire test. The company said the area around the test site was evacuated of all personnel, and everyone was safe and accounted for after the incident. Firefighters from the Brownsville Fire Department were dispatched to the scene.

“Our Starbase team is actively working to safe the test site and the immediate surrounding area in conjunction with local officials,” SpaceX posted on X. “There are no hazards to residents in surrounding communities, and we ask that individuals do not attempt to approach the area while safing operations continue.”

Picking up the pieces

Earlier Wednesday, just hours before the late-night explosion at Starbase, an advisory released by the Federal Aviation Administration showed SpaceX had set June 29 as a tentative launch date for the next Starship test flight. That won’t happen now, and it’s anyone’s guess when SpaceX will have another Starship ready to fly.

Massey’s Test Site, named for a gun range that once occupied the property, is situated on a bend in the Rio Grande River, just a few hundred feet from the Mexican border. The test site is currently the only place where SpaceX can put Starships through proof testing and static fire tests before declaring the rockets are ready to fly.

The extent of the damage to ground equipment at Massey’s was not immediately clear, so it’s too soon to say how long the test site will be out of commission. For now, though, the explosion leaves SpaceX without a facility to support preflight testing on Starships.

The videos embedded below come from NASASpaceflight.com and LabPadre, showing multiple angles of the Starship blast.

The explosion at Massey’s is a reminder of SpaceX’s rocky path to get Starship to this point in its development. In 2020 and 2021, SpaceX lost several Starship prototypes to problems during ground and flight testing. The visual of Ship 36 going up in flames harkens back to those previous explosions, along with the fiery demise of a Falcon 9 rocket on its launch pad in 2016 under circumstances similar to Wednesday night’s incident.

SpaceX has now launched nine full-scale Starship rockets since April 2023, and before the explosion, the company hoped to launch the 10th test flight later this month. Starship’s track record has been dreadful so far this year, with the rocket’s three most recent test flights ending prematurely. These setbacks followed a triumphant 2024, when SpaceX made clear progress on each successive Starship suborbital test flight, culminating in the first catch of the rocket’s massive Super Heavy booster with giant robotic arms on the launch pad tower.

Stacked together, the Super Heavy booster stage and Starship upper stage stand more than 400 feet tall, creating the largest rocket ever built. SpaceX has already flown a reused Super Heavy booster, and the company has designed Starship itself to be recoverable and reusable, too.

After last year’s accomplishments, SpaceX appeared to be on track for a full orbital flight, an attempt to catch and recover Starship itself, and an important in-space refueling demonstration in 2025. The refueling demo has officially slipped into 2026, and it’s questionable whether SpaceX will make enough progress in the coming months to attempt recovery of a ship before the end of this year.

A Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage are seen in March at SpaceX’s launch pad in South Texas, before the ship was stacked atop the booster for flight. The Super Heavy booster for the next Starship flight completed its static fire test earlier this month. Credit: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Ambition meets reality

SpaceX debuted an upgraded Starship design, called Version 2 or Block 2, on a test flight in January. It’s been one setback after another since then.

The new Starship design is slightly taller than the version of Starship that SpaceX flew in 2023 and 2024. It has an improved heat shield to better withstand the extreme heat of atmospheric reentry. SpaceX also installed a new fuel feed line system to route methane fuel to the ship’s Raptor engines, and an improved propulsion avionics module controlling the vehicle’s valves and reading sensors.

Despite—or perhaps because of—all of these changes for Starship Version 2, SpaceX has been unable to replicate the successes it achieved with Starship in the last two years. Ships launched on test flights in January and March spun out of control minutes after liftoff, scattering debris over the sea, and in at least one case, onto a car in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

SpaceX engineers concluded the January failure was likely caused by intense vibrations that triggered fuel leaks and fires in the ship’s engine compartment, causing an early shutdown of the rocket’s engines. Engineers said the vibrations were likely in resonance with the vehicle’s natural frequency, intensifying the shaking beyond the levels SpaceX predicted.

The March flight failed in similar fashion, but SpaceX’s investigators determined the most probable root cause was a hardware failure in one of the ship’s engines, a different failure mode than two months before.

During SpaceX’s most recent Starship test flight last month, the rocket completed the ascent phase of the mission as planned, seemingly overcoming the problems that plagued the prior two launches. But soon after the Raptor engines shut down, a fuel leak caused the ship to begin tumbling in space, preventing the vehicle from completing a guided reentry to test the performance of new heat shield materials.

File photo of a Starship static fire in May at Massey’s Test Site.

SpaceX is working on a third-generation Starship design, called Version 3, that the company says could be ready to fly by the end of this year. The upgraded Starship Version 3 design will be able to lift heavier cargo—up to 200 metric tons—into orbit thanks to larger propellant tanks and more powerful Raptor engines. Version 3 will also have the ability to refuel in low-Earth orbit.

Version 3 will presumably have permanent fixes to the problems currently slowing SpaceX’s pace of Starship development. And there are myriad issues for SpaceX’s engineers to solve, from engine reliability and the ship’s resonant frequency, to beefing up the ship’s heat shield and fixing its balky payload bay door.

Once officials solve these problems, it will be time for SpaceX to bring a Starship from low-Earth orbit back to the ground. Then, there’s more cool stuff on the books, like orbital refueling and missions to the Moon in partnership with NASA’s Artemis program. NASA has contracts worth more than $4 billion with SpaceX to develop a human-rated Starship that can land astronauts on the Moon and launch them safely back into space.

The Trump administration’s proposed budget for NASA would cancel the Artemis program’s ultra-expensive Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule after two more flights, leaving commercial heavy-lifters to take over launching astronauts from the Earth to the Moon. SpaceX’s Starship, already on contract with NASA as a human-rated lander, may eventually win more government contracts to fill the role of SLS and Orion under Trump’s proposed budget. Other rockets, such as Blue Origin’s New Glenn, are also well-positioned to play a larger role in human space exploration.

NASA’s official schedule for the first Artemis crew landing on the Moon puts the mission some time in 2027, using SLS and Orion to transport astronauts out to the vicinity of the Moon to meet up with SpaceX’s Starship lunar lander. After that mission, known as Artemis III, NASA would pivot to using commercial rockets from Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to replace the Space Launch System.

Meanwhile, SpaceX’s founder and CEO has his sights set on Mars. Last month, Musk told his employees he wants to launch the first Starships toward the Red Planet in late 2026, when the positions of Earth and Mars in the Solar System make a direct journey possible. Optimistically, he would like to send people to Mars on Starships beginning in 2028.

All of these missions are predicated on SpaceX mastering routine Starship launch operations, rapid reuse of the ship and booster, and cryogenic refueling in orbit, along with adapting systems such as life support, communications, and deep space navigation for an interplanetary journey.

The to-do list is long for SpaceX’s Starship program—too long for Mars landings to seem realistic any time in the next few years. NASA’s schedule for the Artemis III lunar landing mission in 2027 is also tight, and not only because of Starship’s delays. The development of new spacesuits for astronauts to wear on the Moon may also put the Artemis III schedule at risk. NASA’s SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft have had significant delays throughout their history, so it’s not a sure thing they will be ready in 2027.

While it’s too soon to know the precise impact of Wednesday night’s explosion, we can say with some confidence that the chances of Starship meeting these audacious schedules are lower today than they were yesterday.

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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.

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Honda’s hopper suddenly makes the Japanese carmaker a serious player in rocketry

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The company has not disclosed how much it is spending on rocket development. Honda’s hopper is smaller than similar prototype boosters SpaceX has used for vertical landing demos, so engineers will have to scale up the design to create a viable launch vehicle.

But Tuesday’s test catapulted Honda into an exclusive club of companies that have flown reusable rocket hoppers with an eye toward orbital flight, including SpaceX, Blue Origin, and a handful of Chinese startups. Meanwhile, European and Japanese space agencies have funded a pair of reusable rocket hoppers named Themis and Callisto. Neither rocket has ever flown, after delays of several years.

Honda’s experimental rocket lifts off from a test site in Taiki, a community in northern Japan.

Before Honda’s leadership green-lit the rocket project in 2019, a group of the company’s younger engineers proposed applying the company’s expertise in combustion and control technologies toward a launch vehicle. Honda officials believe the carmaker “has the potential to contribute more to people’s daily lives by launching satellites with its own rockets.”

The company suggested in its press release Tuesday that a Honda-built rocket might launch Earth observation satellites to monitor global warming and extreme weather, and satellite constellations for wide-area communications. Specifically, the company noted the importance of satellite communications to enabling connected features in cars, airplanes, and other Honda products.

“In this market environment, Honda has chosen to take on the technological challenge of developing reusable rockets by utilizing Honda technologies amassed in the development of various products and automated driving systems, based on a belief that reusable rockets will contribute to achieving sustainable transportation,” Honda said.

Toyota, Japan’s largest car company, also has a stake in the launch business. Interstellar Technologies, a Japanese space startup, announced a $44 million investment from Toyota in January. The two firms said they were establishing an alliance to draw on Toyota’s formula for automobile manufacturing to set up a factory for mass-producing orbital-class rockets. Interstellar has launched a handful of sounding rockets but hasn’t yet built an orbital launcher.

Japan’s primary rocket builder, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, is another titan of Japanese industry, but it has never launched more than six space missions in a single year. MHI’s newest rocket, the H3, debuted in 2023 but is fully expendable.

The second-biggest Japanese automaker, Honda, is now making its own play. Car companies aren’t accustomed to making vehicles that can only be used once.

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Rocket Report: New delay for Europe’s reusable rocket; SpaceX moves in at SLC-37

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Canada is the only G7 nation without a launch program. Quebec wants to do something about that.

This graphic illustrates the elliptical shape of a geosynchronous transfer orbit in green, and the circular shape of a geosynchronous orbit in blue. In a first, SpaceX recently de-orbited a Falcon 9 upper stage from GTO after deploying a communications satellite. Credit: European Space Agency

Welcome to Edition 7.48 of the Rocket Report! The shock of last week’s public spat between President Donald Trump and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has worn off, and Musk expressed regret for some of his comments going after Trump on social media. Musk also backtracked from his threat to begin decommissioning the Dragon spacecraft, currently the only way for the US government to send people to the International Space Station. Nevertheless, there are many people who think Musk’s attachment to Trump could end up putting the US space program at risk, and I’m not convinced that danger has passed.

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.

Quebec invests in small launch company. The government of Quebec will invest CA$10 million ($7.3 million) into a Montreal-area company that is developing a system to launch small satellites into space, The Canadian Press reports. Quebec Premier François Legault announced the investment into Reaction Dynamics at the company’s facility in Longueuil, a Montreal suburb. The province’s economy minister, Christine Fréchette, said the investment will allow the company to begin launching microsatellites into orbit from Canada as early as 2027.

Joining its peers … Canada is the only G7 nation without a domestic satellite launch capability, whether it’s through an independent national or commercial program or through membership in the European Space Agency, which funds its own rockets. The Canadian Space Agency has long eschewed any significant spending on developing a Canadian satellite launcher, and a handful of commercial launch startups in Canada haven’t gotten very far. Reaction Dynamics was founded in 2017 by Bachar Elzein, formerly a researcher in multiphase and reactive flows at École Polytechnique de Montréal, where he specialized in propulsion and combustion dynamics. Reaction Dynamic plans to launch its first suborbital rocket later this year, before attempting an orbital flight with its Aurora rocket as soon as 2027. (submitted by Joey S-IVB)

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Another year, another delay for Themis. The European Space Agency’s Themis program has suffered another setback, with the inaugural flight of its reusable booster demonstrator now all but certain to slip to 2026, European Spaceflight reports. It has been nearly six years since the European Space Agency kicked off the Themis program to develop and mature key technologies for future reusable rocket stages. Themis is analogous to SpaceX’s Grasshopper reusable rocket prototype tested more than a decade ago, with progressively higher hop tests to demonstrate vertical takeoff and vertical landing techniques. When the program started, an initial hop test of the first Themis demonstrator was expected to take place in 2022.

Tethered to terra firma … ArianeGroup, which manufactures Europe’s Ariane rockets, is leading the Themis program under contract to ESA, which recently committed an additional 230 million euros ($266 million) to the effort. This money is slated to go toward development of a single-engine variant of the Themis program, continued development of the rocket’s methane-fueled engine, and upgrades to a test stand at ArianeGroup’s propulsion facility in Vernon, France. Two months ago, an official update on the Themis program suggested the first Themis launch campaign would begin before the end of the year. Citing sources close to the program, European Spaceflight reports the first Themis integration tests at the Esrange Space Center in Sweden are now almost certain to slip from late 2025 to 2026.

French startup tests a novel rocket engine. While Europe’s large government-backed rocket initiatives face delays, the continent’s space industry startups are moving forward on their own. One of these companies, a French startup named Alpha Impulsion, recently completed a short test-firing of an autophage rocket engine, European Spaceflight reports. These aren’t your normal rocket engines that burn conventional kerosene, methane, or hydrogen fuel. An autophage engine literally consumes itself as it burns, using heat from the combustion process to melt its plastic fuselage and feed the molten plastic into the combustion chamber in a controlled manner. Alpha Impulsion called the May 27 ground firing a successful test of the “largest autophage rocket engine in the world.”

So, why hasn’t this been done before? … The concept of a self-consuming rocket engine sounds like an idea that’s so crazy it just might work. But the idea remained conceptual from when it was first patented in 1938 until an autophage engine was fired in a controlled manner for the first time in 2018. The autophage design offers several advantages, including its relative simplicity compared to the complex plumbing of liquid and hybrid rockets. But there are serious challenges associated with autophage engines, including how to feed molten fuel into the combustion chamber and how to scale it up to be large enough to fly on a viable rocket. (submitted by trimeta and EllPeaTea)

Rocket trouble delays launch of private crew mission. A propellant leak in a Falcon 9 booster delayed the launch of a fourth Axiom Space private astronaut mission to the International Space Station this week, Space News reports. SpaceX announced the delay Tuesday, saying it needed more time to fix a liquid oxygen leak found in the Falcon 9 booster during inspections following a static-fire test Sunday. “Once complete–and pending Range availability–we will share a new launch date,” the company stated. The Ax-4 mission will ferry four commercial astronauts, led by retired NASA commander Peggy Whitson, aboard a Dragon spacecraft to the ISS for an approximately 14-day stay. Whitson will be joined by crewmates from India, Poland, and Hungary.

Another problem, too … While SpaceX engineers worked on resolving the propellant leak on the ground, a leak of another kind in orbit forced officials to order a longer delay to the Ax-4 mission. In a statement Thursday, NASA said it is working with the Russian space agency to understand a “new pressure signature” in the space station’s Russian service module. For several years, ground teams have monitored a slow air leak in the aft part of the service module, and NASA officials have identified it as a safety risk. NASA’s statement on the matter was vague, only saying that cosmonauts on the station recently inspected the module’s interior surfaces and sealed additional “areas of interest.” The segment is now holding pressure, according to NASA. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

SpaceX tries something new with Falcon 9. With nearly 500 launches under its belt, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket isn’t often up to new tricks. But the company tried something new following a launch June 7 with a radio broadcasting satellite for SiriusXM. The Falcon 9’s upper stage placed the SXM-10 satellite into an elongated, high-altitude transfer orbit, as is typical for payloads destined to operate in geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator. When a rocket releases a satellite in this type of high-energy orbit, the upper stage has usually burned almost all of its propellant, leaving little fuel left over to steer itself back into Earth’s atmosphere for a destructive reentry. This means these upper stages often remain in space for decades, becoming a piece of space junk transiting across the orbits of many other satellites.

Now, a solution … SpaceX usually deorbits rockets after they deploy payloads like Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit, but deorbiting a rocket from a much higher geosynchronous transfer orbit is a different matter. “Last week, SpaceX successfully completed a controlled deorbit of the SiriusXM-10 upper stage after GTO payload deployment,” wrote Jon Edwards, SpaceX’s vice president of Falcon and Dragon programs. “While we routinely do controlled deorbits for LEO stages (e.g., Starlink), deorbiting from GTO is extremely difficult due to the high energy needed to alter the orbit, making this a rare and remarkable first for us. This was only made possible due to the hard work and brilliance of the Falcon GNC (guidance, navigation, and control) team and exemplifies SpaceX’s commitment to leading in both space exploration and public safety.”

New Glenn gets a tentative launch date. Five months have passed since Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket made its mostly successful debut in January. At one point the company targeted “late spring” for the second launch of the rocket. However, on Monday, Blue Origin’s CEO, Dave Limp, acknowledged on social media that the rocket’s next flight will now no longer take place until at least August 15, Ars reports. Although he did not say so, this may well be the only other New Glenn launch this year. The mission, with an undesignated payload, will be named “Never Tell Me the Odds,” due to the attempt to land the booster. “One of our key mission objectives will be to land and recover the booster,” Limp wrote. “This will take a little bit of luck and a lot of excellent execution. We’re on track to produce eight GS2s [second stages] this year, and the one we’ll fly on this second mission was hot-fired in April.”

Falling short … Before 2025 began, Limp set expectations alongside Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos: New Glenn would launch eight times this year. That’s not going to happen. It’s common for launch companies to take a while ramping up the flight rate for a new rocket, but Bezos told Ars in January that his priority for Blue Origin this year was to hit a higher cadence with New Glenn. Elon Musk’s rift with President Donald Trump could open a pathway for Blue Origin to capture more government business if the New Glenn rocket is able to establish a reliable track record. Meanwhile, Limp told Blue Origin employees last month that Jarrett Jones, the manager running the New Glenn program, is taking a sabbatical. Although it appears Jones’ leave may have been planned, the timing is curious.

Making way for Starship at Cape Canaveral. The US Air Force is moving closer to authorizing SpaceX to move into one of the largest launch pads at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, with plans to use the facility for up to 76 launches of the company’s Starship rocket each year, Ars reports. A draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) released by the Department of the Air Force, which includes the Space Force, found SpaceX’s planned use of Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral would have no significant negative impacts on local environmental, historical, social, and cultural interests. The Air Force also found SpaceX’s plans at SLC-37 will have no significant impact on the company’s competitors in the launch industry.

Bringing the rumble … SLC-37 was the previous home to United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV rocket, which last flew from the site in April 2024, a couple of months after the military announced SpaceX was interested in using the launch pad. While it doesn’t have a lease for full use of the launch site, SpaceX has secured a “right of limited entry” from the Space Force to begin preparatory work. This included the explosive demolition of the launch pad’s Delta IV-era service towers and lightning masts Thursday, clearing the way for eventual construction of two Starship launch towers inside the perimeter of SLC-37. The new Starship launch towers at SLC-37 will join other properties in SpaceX’s Starship empire, including nearby Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, and SpaceX’s privately owned facility at Starbase, Texas.

Preps continue for Starship Flight 10. Meanwhile, at Starbase, SpaceX is moving forward with preparations for the next Starship test flight, which could happen as soon as next month following three consecutive flights that fell short of expectations. This next launch will be the 10th full-scale test flight of Starship. Last Friday, June 6, SpaceX test-fired the massive Super Heavy booster designated to launch on Flight 10. All 33 of its Raptor engines ignited on the launch pad in South Texas. This is a new Super Heavy booster. On Flight 9 last month, SpaceX flew a reused Super Heavy booster that launched and was recovered on a flight in January.

FAA signs off on SpaceX investigation … The Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday it has closed the investigation into Starship Flight 8 in March, which spun out of control minutes after liftoff, showering debris along a corridor of ocean near the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. “The FAA oversaw and accepted the findings of the SpaceX-led investigation,” an agency spokesperson said. “The final mishap report cites the probable root cause for the loss of the Starship vehicle as a hardware failure in one of the Raptor engines that resulted in inadvertent propellant mixing and ignition. SpaceX identified eight corrective actions to prevent a reoccurrence of the event.” SpaceX implemented the corrective actions prior to Flight 9 last month, when Starship progressed further into its mission before starting to tumble in space. It eventually reentered the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean. The FAA has mandated a fresh investigation into Flight 9, and that inquiry remains open.

Next three launches

June 13: Falcon 9 | Starlink 12-26 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 15: 21 UTC

June 14: Long March 2D | Unknown Payload | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China | 07: 55 UTC

June 16: Atlas V | Project Kuiper KA-02| Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 17: 25 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: New delay for Europe’s reusable rocket; SpaceX moves in at SLC-37 Read More »

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Prepping for Starship, SpaceX is about to demolish one of ULA’s launch pads

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SpaceX may soon have up to nine active launch pads. Most competitors have one or two.

A Delta IV Heavy rocket stands inside the mobile service tower at Space Launch Complex-37 in this photo from 2014. SpaceX is set to demolish all of the structures seen here. Credit: United Launch Alliance

The US Air Force is moving closer to authorizing SpaceX to move into one of the largest launch pads at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, with plans to use the facility for up to 76 launches of the company’s Starship rocket each year.

A draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) released this week by the Department of the Air Force, which includes the Space Force, found SpaceX’s planned use of Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral would have no significant negative impacts on local environmental, historical, social, and cultural interests. The Air Force also found SpaceX’s plans at SLC-37 will have no significant impact on the company’s competitors in the launch industry.

The Defense Department is leading the environmental review and approval process for SpaceX to take over the launch site, which the Space Force previously leased to United Launch Alliance, one of SpaceX’s chief rivals in the US launch industry. ULA launched its final Delta IV Heavy rocket from SLC-37 in April 2024, a couple of months after the military announced SpaceX was interested in using the launch pad.

Ground crews are expected to begin removing Delta IV-era structures at the launch pad this week. Multiple sources told Ars demolition could begin as soon as Thursday.

Emre Kelly, a Space Force spokesperson, deferred questions on the schedule for the demolition to SpaceX, which is overseeing the work. But he said the Delta IV’s mobile gantry, fixed umbilical tower, and both lightning towers will come down. Unlike other large-scale demolitions at Cape Canaveral, SpaceX and the Space Force don’t plan to publicize the event ahead of time.

“Demolition of these items will be conducted in accordance with federal and state laws that govern explosive demolition operations,” Kelly said.

In their place, SpaceX plans to build two 600-foot-tall (180-meter) Starship launch integration towers within the 230-acre confines of SLC-37.

Tied at the hip

The Space Force’s willingness to turn over a piece of prime real estate at Cape Canaveral to SpaceX helps illustrate the government’s close relationship with—indeed, reliance on—Elon Musk’s space company. The breakdown of Musk’s relationship with President Donald Trump has, so far, only spawned a war of words between the two billionaires.

But Trump has threatened to terminate Musk’s contracts with the federal government and warned of “serious consequences” for Musk if he donates money to Democratic political candidates. Musk said he would begin decommissioning SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, the sole US vehicle ferrying astronauts to and from orbit, before backing off the threat last week.

NASA and the Space Force need SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets to maintain the International Space Station and launch the nation’s most critical military satellites. The super heavy-lift capabilities Starship will bring to the government could enable a range of new missions, such as global cargo delivery for the military and missions to the Moon and Mars in partnership with NASA.

Fully stacked, the Starship rocket stands more than 400 feet tall. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX already has a “right of limited entry” to begin preparations to convert SLC-37 into a Starship launch pad. A full lease agreement between the Space Force and SpaceX is expected after the release of the final Environmental Impact Statement.

The environmental approval process began more than a year ago with a notice of intent, followed by studies, evaluations, and scope meetings that fed into the creation of the draft EIS. Now, government officials will host more public meetings and solicit public comments on SpaceX’s plans through late July. Then, sometime this fall, the Department of the Air Force will issue a final EIS and a “record of decision,” according to the project’s official timeline.

A growing footprint

This timeline could allow SpaceX to begin launching Starships from SLC-37 as soon as next year, although the site still requires the demolition of existing structures and construction of new towers, propellant farms, a methane liquefaction plant, water tanks, deluge systems, and other ground support equipment. The construction will likely take more than a year, so perhaps 2027 is a more realistic target.

The company is also studying an option to construct two separate towers for use exclusively as “catch towers” for recovery of Super Heavy boosters and Starship upper stages “if space allows” at SLC-37, according to the draft EIS. According to the Air Force, the initial review process eliminated an option for SpaceX to construct a standalone Starship launch pad on undeveloped property at Cape Canaveral because the site would have a “high potential” for impacting endangered species and is “less ideal” than developing an existing launch pad.

SpaceX’s plan for recovering its reusable Super Heavy and Starship vehicles involves catching them with articulating arms on a tower—either a launch integration structure or a catch-only tower. SpaceX has already demonstrated catching the Super Heavy booster on three test flights at the company’s Starbase launch site in South Texas. An attempt to catch a Starship vehicle returning from low-Earth orbit might happen later this year, assuming SpaceX can correct the technical problems that have stalled the rocket’s advancement in recent months.

Construction crews are outfitting a second Starship launch tower at Starbase, called Pad B, that may also come online before the end of this year. A few miles north of SLC-37, SpaceX has built another Starship tower at Launch Complex 39A, a historic site on NASA property at Kennedy Space Center. Significant work remains ahead at LC-39A to install a new launch mount, finish digging a flame trench, and install all the tanks and plumbing necessary to store and load super-cold propellants into the rocket. The most recent official schedule from SpaceX suggests a first Starship launch from LC-39A could happen before the end of the year, but it’s probably a year or more away.

The Air Force’s draft Environmental Impact Statement includes this map showing SpaceX’s site plan for SLC-37. Credit: Department of the Air Force

Similar to the approach SpaceX is taking at SLC-37, a document released last year indicates the Starship team plans to construct a separate catch tower near the Starship launch tower at LC-39A. If built, these catch towers could simplify Starship operations as the flight rate ramps up, allowing SpaceX to catch a returning rocket at one location while stacking Starships for launch with the chopstick arms on nearby integration towers.

With SpaceX’s growing footprint in Texas and Florida, the company has built, is building, or revealed plans to build at least five Starship launch towers. This number is likely to grow in the coming years as Musk aims to eventually launch and land multiple Starships per day. This will be a gradual ramp-up as SpaceX works through Starship design issues, grows factory capacity, and brings new launch pads online.

Last month, the Federal Aviation Administration—which oversees environmental reviews for launch sites that aren’t on military property—approved SpaceX’s request to launch Starships as many as 25 times per year from Starbase, Texas. The previous limit was five, but the number will likely go up from here. Coming into 2025, SpaceX sought to launch as many as 25 Starships this year, but failures on three of the rockets’ most recent test flights have slowed development, and this goal is no longer achievable.

That’s a lot of launches

Meanwhile, in Florida, the FAA’s environmental review for LC-39A is assessing the impact of launching Starships up to 44 times per year from Kennedy Space Center. At nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the Air Force is evaluating SpaceX’s proposal for up to 76 Starship flights per year from SLC-37. The scope of each review also includes environmental assessments for Super Heavy and Starship landings within the perimeters of each launch complex.

While the draft EIS for SLC-37 is now public, the FAA hasn’t yet released a similar document for SpaceX’s planned expansion and Starship launch operations at LC-39A, also home to a launch pad used for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy flights.

SpaceX will continue launching its workhorse Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets as Starship launch pads heat up with more test flights. Within a few years, SpaceX could have as many as nine active launch pads spread across three states. The company’s most optimistic vision for Starship would require many more, potentially including offshore launch and landing sites.

At Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, SpaceX has leased the former West Coast launch pad for United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV rocket. SpaceX will prepare this launch pad, known as SLC-6, for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches starting as soon as next year, augmenting the capacity of the company’s existing Vandenberg launch pad, which is only configured for Falcon 9s. Like the demolition at SLC-37 in Florida, the work to prepare SLC-6 will include the razing of unnecessary towers and structures left over from the Delta IV (and the Space Shuttle) program.

SpaceX has not yet announced any plans to launch Starships from the California spaceport.

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 has based its New Glenn rocket at Pad 36. Credit: NASA (labels by Ars Technica)

The expansion of SpaceX’s launch facilities comes as most of its closest competitors limit themselves to just one or two launch pads. ULA has reduced its footprint from seven launch pads to two as a cost-cutting measure. Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company, operates a single launch pad at Cape Canaveral, although it has unannounced plans to open a launch facility at Vandenberg. Rocket Lab has three operational launch pads in New Zealand and Virginia for the light-class Electron rocket and will soon have a fourth in for the medium-lift Neutron launcher.

These were the top four companies in Ars’ most recent annual power ranking of US launch providers.

Two of these competitors, ULA and Blue Origin, complained last year that SpaceX’s target of launching as many as 120 Starships per year from Florida’s Space Coast could force them to clear their launch pads for safety reasons. The Space Force is responsible for ensuring all personnel remain outside of danger areas during testing and launch operations.

It could become quite busy at Cape Canaveral. Military officials forecast that launch providers not named SpaceX could fly more than 110 launches per year. The Air Force acknowledged in the draft EIS that SpaceX’s plans for up to 76 launches and 152 landings (76 Starships and 76 Super Heavy boosters) per year at SLC-37 “could result in planning constraints for other range user operations.” This doesn’t take into account the FAA’s pending approval for up to 44 Starship flights per year from LC-39A.

But the report suggests SpaceX’s plans to launch from SLC-37 won’t require the evacuation of ULA and Blue Origin’s launch pads. While the report doesn’t mention the specific impact of Starship launches on ULA and Blue Origin, the Air Force wrote that work could continue on SpaceX’s own Falcon 9 launch pad at SLC-40 during a Starship launch at SLC-37. Because SLC-40 is closer to SLC-37 than ULA and Blue Origin’s pads, this finding seems to imply workers could remain at those launch sites.

The Air Force’s environmental report also doesn’t mention possible impacts of Starship launches from NASA property on nearby workers. It also doesn’t include any discussion of how Starship launches from SLC-37 might affect workers’ access to other facilities, such as offices and hangars, closer to the launch pad.

The bottom line of this section of the Air Force’s environmental report concluded that Starship flights from SLC-37 “should have no significant impact” on “ongoing and future activities” at the spaceport.

Shipping Starships

While SpaceX builds out its Starship launch pads on the Florida coast, the company is also constructing a Starship integration building a few miles away at Kennedy Space Center. This structure, called Gigabay, will be located next to an existing SpaceX building used for Falcon 9 processing and launch control.

The sprawling Gigabay will stand 380 feet tall and provide approximately 46.5 million cubic feet of interior processing space with 815,000 square feet of workspace, according to SpaceX. The company says this building should be operational by the end of 2026. SpaceX is also planning a co-located Starship manufacturing facility, similar to the Starfactory building recently completed at Starbase, Texas.

Until this factory is up and running, SpaceX plans to transport Starships and Super Heavy boosters horizontally via barges from South Texas to Cape Canaveral.

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.

Prepping for Starship, SpaceX is about to demolish one of ULA’s launch pads Read More »

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Blue Origin boss: Government should forget launch and focus on “exotic” missions

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“There’s not yet a commercial reason only to go to the Moon with humans.”

In this long exposure photograph, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket pierces a cloud deck over Florida’s Space Coast on its inaugural flight January 16. Credit: Blue Origin

Eighteen months after leaving his job as a vice president at Amazon to take over as Blue Origin’s chief executive, Dave Limp has some thoughts on how commercial companies and government agencies like NASA should explore the Solar System together.

Limp had no background in the space industry before taking the helm of Jeff Bezos’ space company in December 2023. He started his career as a computer scientist at Apple, took a stint at a venture capital firm, and joined Amazon in 2010, where he managed development of consumer devices like Alexa, Kindle, and the Fire TV.

“I had no thoughts of ever running a space company,” Limp said Thursday at a space conference in Washington, DC. “I’ve done consumer electronics my whole life. Started at Apple and did a bunch of other things, and so when I decided to retire from Amazon, I was looking for something that I could give back a little bit, be a little bit more philanthropic in the sort of second half of my career. I didn’t want to stop working, just wanted to do something different. And about that same time, Jeff was looking for a CEO.”

While he’s still a relative newcomer to the space business, Limp’s views align with those of many policy wonks and industry leaders who have the ears of senior officials in the Trump administration, including Jared Isaacman, President Trump’s nominee to become the next NASA administrator. Limp’s long tenure at Amazon and his selection as Blue Origin’s new CEO demonstrate that he also has the trust of Bezos, who was dissatisfied with his company’s slow progress in spaceflight.

“I think Jeff convinced me, and he’s very persuasive, that Blue didn’t need another rocket scientist,” Limp said. “We have thousands of the world’s best rocket scientists. What we needed was a little bit more decisiveness, a little bit more ability to think about: How do we manufacture at scale? And those are things I’ve done in the past, and so I’ve never looked back.”

David Limp, CEO of Blue Origin, speaks during the 2025 Humans to the Moon and Mars Summit at George Washington University in Washington, DC, on May 29, 2025. Credit: Alex Wroblewski / AFP via Getty Images

Leave it to us

In remarks Thursday at the Humans to the Moon & Mars Summit, Limp advocated for commercial companies, like his own, taking a larger role in developing the transportation and infrastructure to meet lofty national objectives established by government leaders.

In some ways, NASA has long been moving in this direction, beginning with initiatives ceding most launch services to private industry in the 1990s. More recently, NASA has turned to commercial companies for crew and cargo deliveries to the International Space Station and cargo and human-rated Moon landers.

However, NASA, with the backing of key congressional leaders, has held an iron grip on having its own heavy-lift launcher and crew capsule to ferry astronauts between Earth and destinations beyond low-Earth orbit. Now, these vehicles—the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft—may be canceled if Congress agrees with Trump’s proposed NASA budget.

Commercial rockets close to matching or exceeding the Space Launch System’s lift capability are available for purchase or likely will be soon. These include SpaceX’s Starship mega-rocket and Blue Origin’s New Glenn launcher. Both are already key elements of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to land US astronauts on the Moon as a stepping stone toward human expeditions to Mars.

But NASA still plans to use its government-owned Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to transport astronauts out to the Moon, where they will rendezvous with a Starship or Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander to fly to and from the lunar surface.

SLS and Orion are expensive vehicles, costing more than $4 billion per launch for the initial set of four Artemis missions, according to a report by NASA’s inspector general. While commercial companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman build elements of SLS and Orion, NASA acts as the prime integrator. The agency signed cost-plus contracts with the companies building SLS and Orion, meaning the government is on the hook for cost overruns. And there have been many.

Artist’s concept of Blue Ring, a propulsive spacecraft platform Blue Origin says it is developing to carry payloads to different orbits, and possibly all the way to Mars, at lower costs than feasible today. Credit: Blue Origin

NASA’s robotic science probes are also getting more expensive, even when accounting for inflation. Given the way NASA procures science probes, it would cost NASA more today to send an orbiter to Mars than it did for a similarly sized spacecraft a quarter-century ago.

This has to change in order for NASA and private companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX to make their ambitions a reality, Limp said Thursday.

“I think commercial folks can worry about the infrastructure,” he said. “We can do the launch. We can build the satellite buses that can get you to Mars much more frequently, that don’t cost billions of dollars. We can take a zero, and over time, maybe two zeros off of that. And if the governments around the world leave that to the commercial side, then there are a lot more resources that are freed up for the science side, for the national prestige side, and those types of things.”

The bottom line

Limp followed these comments with a dose of realism you don’t often hear from space industry executives. While there’s a growing list of commercially viable markets in space (things like Starlink and satellite servicing wouldn’t have been money-makers 20 years ago), the market for human spaceflight still requires some level of government commitment.

“I think the thing about bringing commercial aspects to exploration, to science, to the Moon, to Mars, is that we have to see a business prospect for it,” Limp said. “We have to turn it into a business, and that benefits American taxpayers because we will use that capital as efficiently as we can to get to the Moon, to get to Mars in a safe way, but in a way that’s the most efficient.

“We’re committed to that, no matter what the architecture looks like, but it does take the US government and international governments to have the motivation to do it,” he continued. “There’s not yet a commercial reason only to go to the Moon with humans. There are lots of commercial reasons to put robotics on the Moon and other types of things. So, we do need to have conviction that the Moon is important and Mars is important as well.”

Trump and Musk, an ally and advisor to the president, rekindled the question of Moon or Mars in a series of remarks during the early weeks of the new Trump administration. The Artemis Moon program began during the first Trump administration, with the goal of returning astronauts to the Moon for the first time since 1972. NASA would establish a sustained presence at the Moon, using our nearest planetary body as a proving ground for the next destination for humans in Solar System exploration: Mars.

Space industry rivals Jeff Bezos, second from left, and Elon Musk, second from right, inside the US Capitol for President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025. Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

SpaceX’s Starship, while capable of one day landing on the Moon, was designed for long-duration cruises to Mars. Blue Origin’s Blue Moon is tailored for lunar landings.

“As an American, I don’t want another Sputnik moment,” Limp said. “From my standpoint, getting boots on the Moon and setting the groundwork for permanence on the Moon is of national importance and urgency. Rest assured, Blue will do everything in its power to try to make that happen, but in a cost-effective way.”

NASA, please don’t leave us

Since retaking office in January, Trump has mentioned human missions to Mars multiple times, but not the Moon. Isaacman, who may be confirmed as NASA administrator by the Senate as soon as next week, told lawmakers in April that the agency should pursue human missions to the Moon and Mars simultaneously. The details of how that might work haven’t been released but could come out in the White House’s detailed budget proposal for fiscal-year 2026.

A blueprint of Trump’s spending proposal released May 2 includes a 25 percent cut to NASA’s overall budget, but the plan would provide additional money for human space exploration at the Moon and Mars. “The budget funds a program to replace SLS and Orion flights to the Moon with more cost-effective commercial systems that would support more ambitious subsequent lunar missions,” the White House budget office wrote.

This part of the budget request is not controversial for industry leaders like Limp. On the other hand, the budget blueprint proposes slashing NASA’s space science budget by nearly $2.3 billion, Earth science by almost $1.2 billion, and space technology by $531 million.

While Limp didn’t directly address these budget proposals, these parts of NASA are largely focused on research projects that lack a commercial business case. Who else but a government space agency, or perhaps an especially generous type of philanthropic multi-billionaire, would pay to send a probe to study Jupiter’s icy moon Europa? Or a robot to zip by Pluto? Or how about a mission like Landsat, which documents everything from water resources to farms and urban sprawl and makes its data freely available to anyone with an Internet connection?

Most experts agree there are better ways to do these things. Reusable rockets, mass-produced satellite platforms, and improved contracting practices can bring down the costs of these missions. Bezos’ long-term goal for Blue Origin, which is to move all polluting factories off the Earth and into space, will be easier to achieve with government support, not just funding, Limp said.

“Getting up there, building factories on the Moon is a great step, and the government can really help with research dollars around that,” he said. “But it still does need the labs. The science missions need the JPLs [Jet Propulsion Laboratory] of the world. To make the human experience right, we need the Johnson Space Centers of the world to be able to kind of use that gold mine of institutional knowledge.

“I would say, and it might be a little provocative, let’s have those smart brains look on the forward-thinking types of things, the really edge of science, planning the really exotic missions, figuring out how to get to planetary bodies we haven’t gotten to before, and staying there,” Limp said.

Mark it down

For the first decade after Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000, the company operated under the radar and seemed to move at a glacial pace. It launched its first small rocket in 2006 to an altitude of less than 300 feet and reached space with the suborbital New Shepard booster in 2015. Blue Origin finally reached orbit in January of this year on the debut test flight of its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket. Meanwhile, Blue Origin inked a deal with United Launch Alliance to supply a version of its New Glenn main engine to power that company’s Vulcan rocket.

Blue Origin’s Blue Moon MK1 lander, seen in the center, is taller than NASA’s Apollo lunar lander, currently the largest spacecraft to have landed on the Moon. Blue Moon MK2 is even larger, but all three landers are dwarfed in size by SpaceX’s Starship, NASA’s other Artemis lunar lander. Credit: Blue Origin

The next big mission for Blue Origin will be the first flight of its Blue Moon lander. The first version of Blue Moon, called MK1, will launch on a New Glenn rocket later this year and attempt to become the largest spacecraft to ever land on the Moon. This demonstration, without anyone onboard, is fully funded by Blue Origin, Limp said.

A future human-rated version, called MK2, is under development with the assistance of NASA. It will be larger and will require refueling to reach the lunar surface. Blue Moon MK1 can make a landing on one tank.

These are tangible achievements that would be the envy of any space industry startup not named SpaceX. But Musk’s rocket company left Blue Origin in the dust as it broke launch industry records repeatedly and began delivering NASA astronauts to the International Space Station in 2020. My colleague, Eric Berger, wrote a story in January describing Blue Origin’s culture. For much of its existence, one former employee said, Blue Origin had “zero incentive” to operate like SpaceX.

To ensure he would be in lock-step with his boss, Limp felt he had to ask a question that was on the minds of many industry insiders. He got the answer he wanted.

“The only question I really asked Jeff when I was talking about taking this job was, ‘What do you want Blue to be? Is it a hobby, or is it a business?'” Limp said. “And he had the right answer, which is, it’s a business, because I don’t know how to run a hobby, and I don’t think it’s sustainable.”

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 boss: Government should forget launch and focus on “exotic” missions Read More »

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China extends its reach into the Solar System with launch of asteroid mission

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Comet 311P/PanSTARRS was observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2013 with a set of six comet-like tails radiating from its main body. This object, also called P/2013 P5, is known as an active asteroid. Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA)

Tianwen-2’s mothership, with 11 scientific instruments, will commence the second phase of its mission after dropping off the asteroid specimens at Earth. The probe’s next journey will bring it near an enigma in the asteroid belt, named 311P/PanSTARRS, in the mid-2030s. This object is one in a rare class of objects known as active asteroids or main-belt comets, small worlds that have tails and comas like comets but loiter in orbits most commonly associated with asteroids. Tianwen-2 will be the first mission to see such an object up close.

Stepping into the Solar System

Until the last few years, China’s space program has primarily centered on the Moon as a destination for scientific exploration. The Moon remains the main target for China’s ambitions in space, with the goal of accomplishing a human lunar landing by 2030. But the country is looking farther afield, too.

With the Tianwen-1 mission in 2021, China became the second country to achieve a soft landing on Mars. After Tianwen-2, China will again go to Mars with the Tianwen-3 sample return mission, slated for launch in 2028.

Tianwen, which means “questions to heaven,” is the name given to China’s program of robotic Solar System exploration. Tianwen-3 has a chance to become the first mission to return pristine samples from Mars to Earth. At the same time, NASA’s plans for a Mars Sample Return mission are faltering.

China is looking at launching Tianwen-4 around 2029 to travel to Jupiter and enter orbit around Callisto, one of its four largest moons. In the 2030s, China’s roadmap includes a mission to return atmospheric samples from Venus to Earth, a Mars research station, and a probe to Neptune.

Meanwhile, NASA has sent spacecraft to study every planet in the Solar System and currently has spacecraft at or on the way to the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, a metal asteroid, and to interstellar space. Another US science mission, Dragonfly, is scheduled for launch in 2028 on a daring expedition to Saturn’s moon Titan.

But NASA’s science division is bracing for severe budget cuts proposed by President Donald Trump. In planetary science, the White House’s budget blueprint calls for canceling a joint US-European Mars Sample Return mission and several other projects, including the DAVINCI mission to Venus.

China extends its reach into the Solar System with launch of asteroid mission Read More »

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SpaceX may have solved one problem only to find more on latest Starship flight

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SpaceX’s ninth Starship survived launch, but engineers now have more problems to overcome.

An onboard camera shows the six Raptor engines on SpaceX’s Starship upper stage, roughly three minutes after launching from South Texas on Tuesday. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX made some progress on another test flight of the world’s most powerful rocket Tuesday, finally overcoming technical problems that plagued the program’s two previous launches.

But minutes into the mission, SpaceX’s Starship lost control as it cruised through space, then tumbled back into the atmosphere somewhere over the Indian Ocean nearly an hour after taking off from Starbase, Texas, the company’s privately owned spaceport near the US-Mexico border.

SpaceX’s next-generation rocket is designed to eventually ferry cargo and private and government crews between the Earth, the Moon, and Mars. The rocket is complex and gargantuan, wider and longer than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet, and after nearly two years of steady progress since its first test flight in 2023, this has been a year of setbacks for Starship.

During the rocket’s two previous test flights—each using an upgraded “Block 2” Starship design—problems in the ship’s propulsion system led to leaks during launch, eventually triggering an early shutdown of the rocket’s main engines. On both flights, the vehicle spun out of control and broke apart, spreading debris over an area near the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The good news is that that didn’t happen Tuesday. The ship’s main engines fired for their full duration, putting the vehicle on its expected trajectory toward a splashdown in the Indian Ocean. For a short time, it appeared the ship was on track for a successful flight.

“Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff, so big improvement over last flight! Also, no significant loss of heat shield tiles during ascent,” wrote Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, on X.

The bad news is that Tuesday’s test flight revealed more problems, preventing SpaceX from achieving the most important goals Musk outlined going into the launch.

“Leaks caused loss of main tank pressure during the coast and reentry phase,” Musk posted on X. “Lot of good data to review.”

With the loss of tank pressure, the rocket started slowly spinning as it coasted through the blackness of space more than 100 miles above the Earth. This loss of control spelled another premature end to a Starship test flight. Most notable among the flight’s unmet objectives was SpaceX’s desire to study the performance of the ship’s heat shield, which includes improved heat-absorbing tiles to better withstand the scorching temperatures of reentry back into the atmosphere.

“The most important thing is data on how to improve the tile design, so it’s basically data during the high heating, reentry phase in order to improve the tiles for the next iteration,” Musk told Ars Technica before Tuesday’s flight. “So we’ve got like a dozen or more tile experiments. We’re trying different coatings on tiles. We’re trying different fabrication techniques, different attachment techniques. We’re varying the gap filler for the tiles.”

Engineers are hungry for data on the changes to the heat shield, which can’t be fully tested on the ground. SpaceX officials hope the new tiles will be more robust than the ones flown on the first-generation, or Block 1, version of Starship, allowing future ships to land and quickly launch again, without the need for time-consuming inspections, refurbishment, and in some cases, tile replacements. This is a core tenet of SpaceX’s plans for Starship, which include delivering astronauts to the surface of the Moon, proliferating low-Earth orbit with refueling tankers, and eventually helping establish a settlement on Mars, all of which are predicated on rapid reusability of Starship and its Super Heavy booster.

Last year, SpaceX successfully landed three Starships in the Indian Ocean after they survived hellish reentries, but they came down with damaged heat shields. After an early end to Tuesday’s test flight, SpaceX’s heat shield engineers will have to wait a while longer to satiate their appetites. And the longer they have to wait, the longer the wait for other important Starship developmental tests, such as a full orbital flight, in-space refueling, and recovery and reuse of the ship itself, replicating what SpaceX has now accomplished with the Super Heavy booster.

Failing forward or falling short?

The ninth flight of Starship began with a booming departure from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site at 6: 35 pm CDT (7: 35 pm EDT; 23: 35 UTC) Tuesday.

After a brief hold to resolve last-minute technical glitches, SpaceX resumed the countdown clock to tick away the final seconds before liftoff. A gush of water poured over the deck of the launch pad just before 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines ignited on the rocket’s massive Super Heavy first stage booster. Once all 33 engines lit, the enormous stainless steel rocket—towering more than 400 feet (123 meters)—began to climb away from Starbase.

SpaceX’s Starship rocket, flying with a reused first-stage booster for the first time, climbs away from Starbase, Texas. Credit: SpaceX

Heading east, the Super Heavy booster produced more than twice the power of NASA’s Saturn V rocket, an icon of the Apollo Moon program, as it soared over the Gulf of Mexico. After two-and-a-half minutes, the Raptor engines switched off and the Super Heavy booster separated from Starship’s upper stage.

Six Raptor engines fired on the ship to continue pushing it into space. As the booster started maneuvering for an attempt to target an intact splashdown in the sea, the ship burned its engines more than six minutes, reaching a top speed of 16,462 mph (26,493 kilometers per hour), right in line with preflight predictions.

A member of SpaceX’s launch team declared “nominal orbit insertion” a little more than nine minutes into the flight, indicating the rocket reached its planned trajectory, just shy of the velocity required to enter a stable orbit around the Earth.

The flight profile was supposed to take Starship halfway around the world, with the mission culminating in a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean northwest of Australia. But a few minutes after engine shutdown, the ship started to diverge from SpaceX’s flight plan.

First, SpaceX aborted an attempt to release eight simulated Starlink Internet satellites in the first test of the Starship’s payload deployer. The cargo bay door would not fully open, and engineers called off the demonstration, according to Dan Huot, a member of SpaceX’s communications team who hosted the company’s live launch broadcast Tuesday.

That, alone, would not have been a big deal. However, a few minutes later, Huot made a more troubling announcement.

“We are in a little bit of a spin,” he said. “We did spring a leak in some of the fuel tank systems inside of Starship, which a lot of those are used for attitude control. So, at this point, we’ve essentially lost our attitude control with Starship.”

This eliminated any chance for a controlled reentry and an opportunity to thoroughly scrutinize the performance of Starship’s heat shield. The spin also prevented a brief restart of one of the ship’s Raptor engines in space.

“Not looking great for a lot of our on-orbit objectives for today,” Huot said.

SpaceX continued streaming live video from Starship as it soared over the Atlantic Ocean and Africa. Then, a blanket of super-heated plasma enveloped the vehicle as it plunged into the atmosphere. Still in a slow tumble, the ship started shedding scorched chunks of its skin before the screen went black. SpaceX lost contact with the vehicle around 46 minutes into the flight. The ship likely broke apart over the Indian Ocean, dropping debris into a remote swath of sea within its expected flight corridor.

Victories where you find them

Although the flight did not end as well as SpaceX officials hoped, the company made some tangible progress Tuesday. Most importantly, it broke the streak of back-to-back launch failures on Starship’s two most recent test flights in January and March.

SpaceX’s investigation earlier this year into a January 16 launch failure concluded vibrations likely triggered fuel leaks and fires in the ship’s engine compartment, causing an early shutdown of the rocket’s engines. Engineers said the vibrations were likely in resonance with the vehicle’s natural frequency, intensifying the shaking beyond the levels SpaceX predicted.

Engineers made fixes and launched the next Starship test flight March 6, but it again encountered trouble midway through the ship’s main engine burn. SpaceX said earlier this month that the inquiry into the March 6 failure found its most probable root cause was a hardware failure in one of the upper stage’s center engines, resulting in “inadvertent propellant mixing and ignition.”

In its official statement, the company was silent on the nature of the hardware failure but said engines for future test flights will receive additional preload on key joints, a new nitrogen purge system, and improvements to the propellant drain system. A new generation of Raptor engines, known as Raptor 3, should begin flying around the end of this year with additional improvements to address the failure mechanism, SpaceX said.

Another bright spot in Tuesday’s test flight was that it marked the first time SpaceX reused a Super Heavy booster from a prior launch. The booster used Tuesday previously launched on Starship’s seventh test flight in January before it was caught back at the launch pad and refurbished for another space shot.

Booster 14 comes in for the catch after flying to the edge of space on January 16. SpaceX flew this booster again Tuesday but did not attempt a catch. Credit: SpaceX

After releasing the Starship upper stage to continue its journey into space, the Super Heavy booster flipped around to fly tail-first and reignited 13 of its engines to begin boosting itself back toward the South Texas coast. On this test flight, SpaceX aimed the booster for a hard splashdown in the ocean just offshore from Starbase, rather than a mid-air catch back at the launch pad, which SpaceX accomplished on three of its four most recent test flights.

SpaceX made the change for a few reasons. First, engineers programmed the booster to fly at a higher angle of attack during its descent, increasing the amount of atmospheric drag on the vehicle compared to past flights. This change should reduce propellant usage on the booster’s landing burn, which occurs just before the rocket is caught by the launch pad’s mechanical arms, or “chopsticks,” on a recovery flight.

During the landing burn itself, engineers wanted to demonstrate the booster’s ability to respond to an engine failure on descent by using just two of the rocket’s 33 engines for the end of the burn, rather than the usual three. Instead, the rocket appeared to explode around the beginning of the landing burn before it could complete the final landing maneuver.

Before the explosion at the end of its flight, the booster appeared to fly as designed. Data displayed on SpaceX’s live broadcast of the launch showed all 33 of the rocket’s engines fired normally during its initial ascent from Texas, a reassuring sign for the reliability of the Super Heavy booster.

SpaceX kicked off the year with the ambition to launch as many as 25 Starship test flights in 2025, a goal that now seems to be unattainable. However, an X post by Musk on Tuesday night suggested a faster cadence of launches in the coming months. He said the next three Starships could launch at intervals of about once every three to four weeks. After that, SpaceX is expected to transition to a third-generation, or Block 3, Starship design with more changes.

It wasn’t immediately clear how long it might take SpaceX to correct whatever problems caused Tuesday’s test flight woes. The Starship vehicle for the next flight is already built and completed cryogenic prooftesting April 27. For the last few ships, SpaceX has completed this cryogenic testing milestone around one-and-a-half to three months prior to launch.

A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration said the agency is “actively working” with SpaceX in the aftermath of Tuesday’s test flight but did not say if the FAA will require SpaceX to conduct a formal mishap investigation.

Shana Diez, director of Starship engineering at SpaceX, chimed in with her own post on X. Based on preliminary data from Tuesday’s flight, she is optimistic the next test flight will fly soon. She said engineers still need to examine data to confirm none of the problems from Starship’s previous flight recurred on this launch but added that “all evidence points to a new failure mode” on Tuesday’s test flight.

SpaceX will also study what caused the Super Heavy booster to explode on descent before moving forward with another booster catch attempt at Starbase, she said.

“Feeling both relieved and a bit disappointed,” Diez wrote. “Could have gone better today but also could have gone much worse.”

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.

SpaceX may have solved one problem only to find more on latest Starship flight Read More »

faa:-airplanes-should-stay-far-away-from-spacex’s-next-starship-launch

FAA: Airplanes should stay far away from SpaceX’s next Starship launch

Commercial space, Federal Aviation Administration, launch, Science, Space, spacex, Starbase, starship, starship flight 9 / /

“The FAA is expanding the size of hazard areas both in the US and other countries.”

The Starship for SpaceX’s next test flight, known as Ship 35, on the move between the production site at Starbase (in background) and the Massey’s test facility for a static fire test. Credit: SpaceX

The Federal Aviation Administration gave the green light Thursday for SpaceX to launch the next test flight of its Starship mega-rocket as soon as next week, following two consecutive failures earlier this year.

The failures set back SpaceX’s Starship program by several months. The company aims to get the rocket’s development back on track with the upcoming launch, Starship’s ninth full-scale test flight since its debut in April 2023. Starship is central to SpaceX’s long-held ambition to send humans to Mars and is the vehicle NASA has selected to land astronauts on the Moon under the umbrella of the government’s Artemis program.

In a statement Thursday, the FAA said SpaceX is authorized to launch the next Starship test flight, known as Flight 9, after finding the company “meets all of the rigorous safety, environmental and other licensing requirements.”

SpaceX has not confirmed a target launch date for the next launch of Starship, but warning notices for pilots and mariners to steer clear of hazard areas in the Gulf of Mexico suggest the flight might happen as soon as the evening of Tuesday, May 27. The rocket will lift off from Starbase, Texas, SpaceX’s privately owned spaceport near the US-Mexico border.

This will be the third flight of SpaceX’s upgraded Block 2, or Version 2, Starship rocket. The first two flights of Starship Block 2—in January and March—did not go well. On both occasions, the rocket’s upper stage shut down its engines prematurely and the vehicle lost control, breaking apart in the upper atmosphere and spreading debris near the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Debris from Starship falls back into the atmosphere after Starship Flight 8 in this view over Hog Cay, Bahamas. Credit: GeneDoctorB via X

Investigators determined the cause of the January failure was a series of fuel leaks and fires in the ship’s aft compartment. The leaks were most likely triggered by vibrations that were more intense than anticipated, SpaceX said before Starship’s most recent flight in March. SpaceX has not announced the cause of the March failure, although the circumstances were similar to the mishap in January.

“The FAA conducted a comprehensive safety review of the SpaceX Starship Flight 8 mishap and determined that the company has satisfactorily addressed the causes of the mishap, and therefore, the Starship vehicle can return to flight,” the agency said. “The FAA will verify SpaceX implements all corrective actions.”

Flight safety

The flight profile for the next Starship launch will largely be a repeat of what SpaceX hoped to accomplish on the ill-fated tests earlier this year. If all goes according to plan, the rocket’s upper stage, or ship, will travel halfway around the world from Starbase, reaching an altitude of more than 100 miles before reentering the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean. A little more than an hour after liftoff, the ship will aim for a controlled splashdown in the ocean northwest of Australia.

Apart from overcoming the problems that afflicted the last two launches, one of the most important objectives for this flight is to test the performance of Starship’s heat shield. Starship Block 2 includes improved heat shield materials that could do better at protecting the ship from the superheated temperatures of reentry and, ultimately, make it easier to reuse the vehicle. The problems on the last two Starship test flights prevented the rocket from reaching the point where its heat shield could be tested.

Starship Block 2 also features redesigned flaps to better control the vehicle during its descent through the atmosphere. This version of Starship also has larger propellant tanks and reconfigured fuel feed lines for the ship’s six Raptor engines.

The FAA’s approval for Starship Flight 9 comes with some stipulations. The agency is expanding the size of hazard areas in the United States and in other countries based on an updated “flight safety analysis” from SpaceX and because SpaceX will reuse a previously flown first-stage booster—called Super Heavy—for the first time.

The aircraft hazard area for Starship Flight 9 extends approximately 1,600 nautical miles to the east from Starbase, Texas. Credit: Federal Aviation Administration

This flight-safety analysis takes into account the outcomes of previous flights, including accidents, population exposure risk, the probability of vehicle failure, and debris propagation and behavior, among other considerations. “The FAA uses this and other data to determine and implement measures to mitigate public risk,” the agency said.

All of this culminated in the FAA’s “return to flight determination,” which the agency says is based on public safety. The FAA’s primary concern with commercial space activity is ensuring rocket launches don’t endanger third parties. The agency also requires that SpaceX maintain at least $500 million in liability insurance to cover claims resulting from the launch and flight of Starship Flight 9, the same requirement the FAA levied for previous Starship test flights.

For the next launch, the FAA will establish an aircraft hazard area covering approximately 1,600 nautical miles extending eastward from Starbase, Texas, and through the Straits of Florida, including the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. This is an extension of the 885-nautical-mile hazard area the FAA established for the test flight in March. In order to minimize disruption to commercial and private air traffic, the FAA is requiring the launch window for Starship Flight 9 to be scheduled during “non-peak transit periods.”

The size of FAA-mandated airspace closures can expand or shrink based on the reliability of the launch vehicle. The failures of Starship earlier this year raised the probability of vehicle failure in the flight-safety analysis for Starship Flight 9, according to the FAA.

The expanded hazard area will force the closure of more than 70 established air routes across the Gulf of Mexico and now includes the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The FAA anticipates this will affect more than 175 flights, almost all of them on international connecting routes. For airline passengers traveling through this region, this will mean an average flight delay of approximately 40 minutes, and potentially up to two hours, the FAA said.

If SpaceX can reel off a series of successful Starship flights, the hazard areas will likely shrink in size. This will be important as SpaceX ramps up the Starship launch cadence. The FAA recently approved SpaceX to increase its Starship flight rate from five per year to 25 per year.

The agency said it is in “close contact and collaboration” with other nations with territory along or near Starship’s flight path, including the United Kingdom, Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas, Mexico, and Cuba.

Status report

Meanwhile, SpaceX’s hardware for Starship Flight 9 appears to be moving closer to launch. Engineers test-fired the Super Heavy booster, which SpaceX previously launched and recovered in January, last month on the launch pad in South Texas. On May 12, SpaceX fired the ship’s six Raptor engines for 60 seconds on a test stand near Starbase.

After the test-firing, ground crews rolled the ship back to the Starship production site a few miles away, only to return the vehicle to the test stand Wednesday for unspecified testing. SpaceX is expected to roll the ship back to the production site again before the end of the week.

The final steps before launch will involve separately transporting the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage from the production site to the launch pad. There, SpaceX will stack the ship on top of the booster. Once the two pieces are stacked together, the rocket will stand 404 feet (123.1 meters) tall.

If SpaceX moves forward with a launch attempt next Tuesday evening, the long-range outlook from the National Weather Service calls for a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms.

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.

FAA: Airplanes should stay far away from SpaceX’s next Starship launch Read More »