rocket report

Welcome to Edition 7.18 of the Rocket Report! One of the most intriguing bits of news this week is the rolling of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket out to its launch complex in Florida. With two months remaining in 2024, will the company make owner Jeff Bezos’ deadline for getting to orbit this year? We’ll have to see, as the Rocket Report is not prepared to endorse any timelines at the moment.

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

ESA selects four companies for reusable launch. The European Space Agency announced this week the selection of Rocket Factory Augsburg, The Exploration Company, ArianeGroup, and Isar Aerospace to develop reusable rocket technology, European Spaceflight reports. The four awardees are divided into two initiatives focused on the development of reusable rocket technology: the Technologies for High-thrust Reusable Space Transportation (THRUST!) project and the Boosters for European Space Transportation (BEST!) project. The awarded companies will now begin contract negotiations with ESA to further develop and test their solutions.

The best thrust anywhere … The THRUST! initiative aims to push forward the development of European liquid propulsion systems, and Rocket Factory Augsburg and The Exploration were selected to develop projects under this initiative. The BEST! project was launched to stimulate the development of future reusable rocket first stages or boosters, and ArianeGroup and Isar Aerospace were chosen for this. Europe has a number of initiatives now aimed at developing a reusable rocket, but it seems doubtful that a European rocket will launch into orbit in the 2020s and successfully return to Earth. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

UK startup pursues fully reusable rocket. Astron Systems intends to develop a fully reusable two-stage rocket to transport about 360 kilograms to low-Earth orbit, Space News reports. Founded in 2021 and located at the Harwell Science Campus in England, Astron is one of 12 startups in the fall 2024 class of the TechStars Space Accelerator. “We have a vision for the future in-orbit economy being this big thriving thing,” Astron co-founder Eddie Brown said. “Small satellites are the beating heart of the in-orbit economy today. There are a lot of customers that are crying out for better launch solutions.”

But they have a ways to go … The company seeks to build a methane-liquid oxygen rocket, but clearly it is starting small. Astron Systems has raised more than $600,000 to date, including private investment, grants from Innovate UK and ESA, and backing from Techstars Space. The company’s initial work is with pump technology and a torch igniter. The company’s optimistic forecast calls for a test launch in late 2027. We’ll pencil that date in rather than putting it down in ink, if that’s OK. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Avio to build rocket motors for US military. Arlington-headquartered Avio USA was incorporated in April 2022. At the time, Italy-based Avio stated that the wholly owned subsidiary would be used to “explore business opportunities in the US market.” By 2023, the company revealed that it had identified “a significant production capacity gap relative to the substantial acceleration in demand requirements” in the area of tactical propulsion. This week the Italian rocket maker said it had begun design work on its first US-based solid rocket motor production facility, European Spaceflight reports.

Demand is rising … Avio USA is evaluating a number of possible locations in multiple US states for the several-hundred-acre production facility. A decision on the location of the facility is expected in the first half of 2025. “We are seeing significant demand for our capabilities from our current customers in multiple product lines, and this facility will be critical in creating our production capacity so we can meet the needs of our current and future customers as an independent supplier,” said Avio USA CEO James Syring. Avio will join several US startups in a hurry to ramp up solid rocket motors for missiles as the conflict in Ukraine continues. In the immortal words of Megadeth: Peace Sells … but Who’s Buying? (submitted by Ken the Bin)

ULA assessing fairing issues. A little more than a year ago, a snippet of video that wasn’t supposed to go public made its way onto United Launch Alliance’s live broadcast of an Atlas V rocket launch carrying three classified surveillance satellites for the US Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office. The public saw video of the clamshell-like payload fairing falling away from the Atlas V rocket as it fired downrange from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on September 10, 2023. It wasn’t pretty. Numerous chunks of material, possibly insulation from the inner wall of the payload shroud’s two shells, fell off the fairing, Ars reports.

Issue still being looked at … We have heard murmurings about fairing issues on the Atlas V for a while now, but United Launch Alliance and Space Force officials have been tight-lipped. More than a year later, however, the company acknowledges it is still investigating the issue. A ULA spokesperson said the company continues to review data related to the fairing debris and will share information upon completion of the investigation. “We are working very closely with our customers and suppliers on the observations in advance of future launches to improve our capabilities,” the spokesperson said. “We have integrated some corrective actions and additional inspections of the hardware.” Payload fairing debris could pose a risk to sensitive components on the spacecraft that the shroud is supposed to protect.

China launches next space station crew. A Long March 2F rocket topped with the Shenzhou 19 crew spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Tuesday carrying a crew of three Chinese astronauts, Space.com reports. Aboard were commander Cai Xuzhe, 48, who was a member of the Shenzhou 14 mission, and rookie astronauts Song Lingdong, 34, a former air force pilot, and Wang Haoze, also 34, a spaceflight engineer. About six hours after the launch, the Shenzhou 19 spacecraft docked with the Tiangong space station.

Keeping the station on track … The astronaut trio is set to spend six months in orbit aboard Tiangong, conducting various experiments and embarking on several extravehicular activities, or spacewalks. Shenzhou 19 is the 33rd spaceflight mission under China’s human spaceflight program. These missions include uncrewed test flights, crewed missions, launching Tiangong modules and smaller space lab precursor missions, next-generation crew spacecraft test flights, and Tianzhou cargo and refueling missions. China intends to keep Tiangong, which has about 20 percent of the mass of the International Space Station, flying for at least a decade. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Firefly’s CEO to work “maniacally” to scale the company. Firefly’s previous CEO was in the job for less than two years before a shock exit in July after reported allegations of an inappropriate employee relationship. Now the company has a new top boss, Jason Kim, who left his job as chief executive of satellite-making subsidiary Millennium for Firefly. “I’m thrilled to be here,” Kim told CNBC in an interview. “I’m going to work maniacally to support this team so that we can achieve all of our visionary ideas.”

It starts with the engines … Kim is looking to fly more Alpha rockets and bring the Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV) online in 2026. Kim sees Firefly as having a key advantage—”an engine that works”—in its Reaver engines that power the Alpha rockets. And for MLV, Kim said Firefly took that “great engine technology” and “scaled it up to become Miranda, so you’re not starting from scratch” with a new engine. “We’re making huge strides on MLV,” Kim added. “We’ve had 50 Miranda engine tests already.” Although Alpha may not be reusable, the company has purposely designed the MLV for reusability. “We’re closer to how SpaceX tackled [rocket reuse],” Kim said. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

US Senator wants FAA to move faster. The Federal Aviation Administration must make “immediate changes” to the regulatory framework governing launch and re-entry, according to Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), a senior authorizer and appropriator who oversees the space sector, Payload reports. “Across the commercial space industry, concerns are abundant in every stage of FAA’s Office of Space Transportation of both its formal licensing process and its information pre-application review,” Moran wrote in a letter to FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker.

More funding may help … Referencing possible delays with NASA’s Artemis program, Moran called on the FAA to rapidly increase transparency and accountability, saying that America’s leadership in space depends on faster action. “It is irrational to think it often takes more time to complete licensing evaluations than actual rocket development and testing,” Moran wrote. The chief of the FAA’s space division, Kelvin Coleman, has previously said Congress could fix the issues with more funding. The  FAA’s Office of Space Transportation has an annual budget of $42 million.

Europe moves to address geo-return concerns in launch. In its most basic form, the European Space Agency’s geo-return policy ensures that companies in member states receive contracts proportional to their country’s financial contributions to ESA. While the policy does foster greater contributions to the agency, it can also add complexity to programs, requiring supply chains to be spread across multiple European countries. For commercial launch companies, this is almost certain to add cost to a public-private partnership with ESA.

No constraints … Now, European Spaceflight reports, ESA seeks to exempt a commercial launch competition from this geo-return policy. The program aims to incentivize the development of a diversified European commercial launch services market. ESA Director of Space Transportation Toni Tolker-Nielsen said, “There will be no constraints on geo-return in this request for proposals.” This would seem to be a positive step forward for private launch companies in Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, and elsewhere. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

What are the next steps for Starship? In a feature, Ars explores the roadmap for SpaceX and the Starship rocket over the next three to five years and the path toward landing NASA astronauts on the Moon. The capture of a Super Heavy booster on October 13 at the company’s Starbase facility in South Texas brings the company closer to such a higher flight rate. SpaceX proved its titanic booster does not need cumbersome landing legs and can eliminate days of processing time otherwise needed to move a landed rocket back to the launch site. Less mass and shorter turnarounds are huge wins for Starship.

A long road ahead … Among the key milestones are: an in-flight relight of a Raptor engine, returning a Starship upper stage to land, reflying a Super Heavy booster, performing one or more in-flight refueling demonstrations, flying a long-duration mission around the Moon (probably 100 days or longer), landing an uncrewed version of Starship on the Moon, and, finally, landing humans as part of the Artemis program. If all goes well, it should be possible for NASA to fulfill the initial promise of the Artemis program and land two astronauts on the surface of the Moon in 2028. This is two years later than NASA’s current goal of September 2026 but would still represent a herculean task by SpaceX and the space agency. If there are significant setbacks, such as failed tower catches or mishaps during fueling in space, the program will doubtlessly face more delays.

New Glenn first stage rolls to the launch site. Blue Origin took another significant step toward the launch of its large New Glenn rocket on Tuesday night by rolling the first stage of the vehicle to a launch site at Cape Canaveral, Florida, Ars reports. Moving the rocket to the launch site is a key sign that the first stage is almost ready for its much-anticipated debut. Development of the New Glenn rocket would bring a third commercial heavy-lift rocket into the US market, after SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and Starship vehicles. It would send another clear signal that the future of rocketry in the United States is commercially driven rather than government-led.

So when New Glenn? … The rocket must still undergo two key milestones: completing a wet dress rehearsal in which the vehicle will be fully fueled and its ground systems tested, followed by a hot-fire test during which the first stage’s seven BE-4 rocket engines will be ignited for several seconds. Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos has been pushing the company hard to launch New Glenn for the first time this year, and the schedule is getting tight. Blue Origin already had to stand down from an October launch attempt and delay the launch of a small Mars-bound payload for NASA called ESCAPADE. Ars estimates the rocket will launch no earlier than early- to mid-December if all goes well.

Next three launches

Nov. 3: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-77 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla. | 20: 57 UTC

Nov. 4: H3 | Kirameki 3 | Tanegashima Space Center, Japan | 05: 48 UTC

Nov. 4: Electron | Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes| Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand | 09: 30 UTC

Welcome to Edition 7.16 of the Rocket Report! Even several days later, it remains difficult to process the significance of what SpaceX achieved in South Texas last Sunday. The moment of seeing a rocket fall out of the sky and be captured by two arms felt historic to me, as historic as the company’s first drone ship landing in April 2016. What a time to be alive.

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

Surprise! Rocket Lab adds a last-minute mission. After signing a launch contract less than two months ago, Rocket Lab says it will launch a customer as early as Saturday from New Zealand on board its Electron launch vehicle. Rocket Lab added that the customer for the expedited mission, to be named “Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes,” is confidential. This is an impressive turnaround in launch times and will allow Rocket Lab to burnish its credentials for the US Space Force, which has prioritized “responsive” launch in recent years.

Rapid turnaround down under … The basic idea is that if an adversary were to take out assets in space, the military would like to be able to rapidly replace them. “This quick turnaround from contract to launch is not only a showcase of Electron’s capability, but also of the relentless and fast-paced execution by the experienced team behind it that continues to deliver trusted and reliable access to space for our customers,” Rocket Lab Chief Executive Peter Beck said in a statement. (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)

Canadian spaceport and rocket firm link up. A Canadian spaceport developer, Maritime Launch Services, says it has partnered with a Canadian rocket firm, Reaction Dynamics. Initially, Reaction Dynamics will attempt a suborbital launch from the Nova Scotia-based spaceport. This first mission will serve as a significant step toward enabling Canada’s first-ever orbital launch of a domestically developed rocket, Space Daily reports.

A homegrown effort … “For the first time, Canada will host its own homegrown rocket technology, launched from a Canadian-built commercial spaceport, offering launch vehicle and satellite customers the opportunity to reach space without leaving Canadian soil,” said Stephen Matier, president and CEO of Maritime Launch. Reaction Dynamics is developing the Aurora rocket, which uses hybrid-propulsion technology and is projected to have a payload capacity of 200 kg to low-Earth orbit. (submitted by Joey Schwartz and brianrhurley)

Sirius completes engine test campaign. French launch startup Sirius Space Services said Thursday that it had completed a hot fire test campaign of the thrust chamber for its STAR-1 rocket engine, European Spaceflight reports. During the campaign, the prototype completed two 60-second hot fire tests powered by liquid methane and liquid oxygen. The successful completion of the testing validates the design of the STAR-1 thrust chamber. Full-scale engine testing may begin during the second quarter of next year.

A lot of engines needed … Sirius Space Services is developing a range of three rockets that all use a modular booster system. Sirius 1 will be a two-stage single-stick rocket capable of delivering 175 kilograms to low-Earth orbit. Sirius 13 will feature two strap-on boosters and will have the capacity to deliver 600 kilograms. Finally, the Sirius 15 rocket will feature four boosters and will be capable of carrying payloads of up to 1,000 kilograms. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

SpaceX, California commission lock horns over launch rates. Last week the California Coastal Commission rejected a plan agreed to between SpaceX and the US Space Force to increase the number of launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base to as many as 50 annually, the Los Angeles Times reports. The commission voted 6–4 to block the request to increase from a maximum of 36 launches. In rejecting the plan, some members of the commission cited their concerns about Elon Musk, the owner of SpaceX. “We’re dealing with a company, the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race,” commission Chair Caryl Hart said.

Is this a free speech issue? … SpaceX responded to the dispute quickly, suing the California commission in federal court on Tuesday, Reuters reports. The company seeks an order that would bar the agency from regulating the company’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket launch program at Vandenberg. The lawsuit claims the commission, which oversees use of land and water within the state’s more than 1,000 miles of coastline, unfairly asserted regulatory powers. Musk’s lawsuit called any consideration of his public statements improper, violating speech rights protected by the US Constitution. (submitted by brianrhurley)

SpaceX launches 100th rocket of the year. SpaceX launched its 100th rocket of the year early Tuesday morning and followed it up with another liftoff just hours later, Space.com reports. SpaceX’s centenary mission of the year lifted off from Florida with a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 of the company’s Starlink Internet satellites aloft.

Mostly Falcon 9s … The company followed that milestone with another launch two hours later from the opposite US coast. SpaceX’s 101st liftoff of 2024 saw 20 more Starlinks soar to space from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The company has already exceeded its previous record for annual launches, 98, set last year. The company’s tally in 2023 included 91 Falcon 9s, five Falcon Heavies, and two Starships. This year the mix is similar. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Fifth launch of Starship a massive success. SpaceX accomplished a groundbreaking engineering feat Sunday when it launched the fifth test flight of its gigantic Starship rocket and then caught the booster back at the launch pad in Texas with mechanical arms seven minutes later, Ars reports. This achievement is the first of its kind, and it’s crucial for SpaceX’s vision of rapidly reusing the Starship rocket, enabling human expeditions to the Moon and Mars, routine access to space for mind-bogglingly massive payloads, and novel capabilities that no other company—or country—seems close to attaining.

Catching a rocket by its tail … High over the Gulf of Mexico, the first stage of the Starship rocket used its engines to reverse course and head back toward the Texas coastline. After reaching a peak altitude of 59 miles (96 kilometers), the Super Heavy booster began a supersonic descent before reigniting 13 engines for a final braking burn. The rocket then shifted down to just three engines for the fine maneuvering required to position the rocket in a hover over the launch pad. That’s when the launch pad’s tower, dubbed Mechazilla, ensnared the rocket in its two weight-bearing mechanical arms, colloquially known as “chopsticks.” The engines switched off, leaving the booster suspended perhaps 200 feet above the ground. The upper stage of the rocket, Starship, executed what appeared to be a nominal vertical landing into the Indian Ocean as part of its test flight.

Clipper launches on Falcon Heavy. NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft lifted off Monday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, Ars reports, kicking off a $5.2 billion robotic mission to explore one of the most promising locations in the Solar System for finding extraterrestrial life. Delayed several days due to Hurricane Milton, which passed through Central Florida late last week, the launch of Europa Clipper signaled the start of a five-and-a-half- year journey to Jupiter, where the spacecraft will settle into an orbit taking it repeatedly by one of the giant planet’s numerous moons.

Exploring oceans, saving money … There’s strong evidence of a global ocean of liquid water below Europa’s frozen crust, and Europa Clipper is going there to determine if it has the ingredients for life. “This is an epic mission,” said Curt Niebur, Europa Clipper’s program scientist at NASA Headquarters. “It’s a chance for us not to explore a world that might have been habitable billions of years ago, but a world that might be habitable today, right now.” The Clipper mission was originally supposed to launch on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, but it had to be moved off that vehicle because vibrations from the solid rocket motors could have damaged the spacecraft. The change to Falcon Heavy also saved the agency $2 billion.

ULA recovers pieces of shattered booster nozzle. When the exhaust nozzle on one of the Vulcan rocket’s strap-on boosters failed shortly after liftoff earlier this month, it scattered debris across the beachfront landscape just east of the launch pad on Florida’s Space Coast, Ars reports. United Launch Alliance, the company that builds and launches the Vulcan rocket, is investigating the cause of the booster anomaly before resuming Vulcan flights. Despite the nozzle failure, the rocket continued its climb and ended up reaching its planned trajectory heading into deep space.

Not clear what the schedule impacts will be … The nozzle fell off one of Vulcan’s two solid rocket boosters around 37 seconds after taking off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on October 4. A shower of sparks and debris fell away from the Vulcan rocket when the nozzle failed. Julie Arnold, a ULA spokesperson, confirmed to Ars that the company has retrieved some of the debris. “We recovered some small pieces of the GEM 63XL SRB nozzle that were liberated in the vicinity of the launch pad,” Arnold said. “The team is inspecting the hardware to aid in the investigation.” ULA has not publicly said what impacts there might be on the timeline for the next Vulcan launch, USSF-106, which had been due to occur before the end of this year.

Bloomberg calls for cancellation of the SLS rocket. In an op-ed that is critical of NASA’s Artemis Program, billionaire Michael Bloomberg—the founder of Bloomberg News and a former US Presidential candidate—called for cancellation of the Space Launch System rocket. “Each launch will likely cost at least $4 billion, quadruple initial estimates,” Bloomberg wrote. “This exceeds private-sector costs many times over, yet it can launch only about once every two years and—unlike SpaceX’s rockets—can’t be reused.”

NASA is falling behind … Bloomberg essentially is calling for the next administration to scrap all elements of the Artemis Program that are not essential to establishing and maintaining a presence on the surface of the Moon. “A celestial irony is that none of this is necessary,” he wrote. “A reusable SpaceX Starship will very likely be able to carry cargo and robots directly to the moon—no SLS, Orion, Gateway, Block 1B or ML-2 required—at a small fraction of the cost. Its successful landing of the Starship booster was a breakthrough that demonstrated how far beyond NASA it is moving.” None of the arguments that Bloomberg is advancing are new, but it is noteworthy to hear them from such a prominent person who is outside the usual orbit of space policy commentators.

Artemis II likely to be delayed. A new report from the US Government Accountability Office found that NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems program—this is, essentially, the office at Kennedy Space Center in Florida responsible for building ground infrastructure to support the Space Launch System rocket and Orion—is in danger of missing its schedule for Artemis II, according to Ars Technica. The new report, published Thursday, finds that the Exploration Ground Systems program had several months of schedule margin in its work toward a September 2025 launch date at the beginning of the year. But now, the program has allocated all of that margin to technical issues experienced during work on the rocket’s mobile launcher and pad testing.

Heat shield issue also a concern … NASA also has yet to provide any additional information on the status of its review of the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield. During the Artemis I mission that sent Orion beyond the Moon in late 2022, chunks of charred material cracked and chipped away from Orion’s heat shield during reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. Once the spacecraft landed, engineers found more than 100 locations where the stresses of reentry damaged the heat shield. To prepare for the Artemis II launch next September, Artemis officials had previously said they planned to begin stacking operations of the rocket in September of this year. But so far, this activity remains on hold pending a decision on the heat shield issue.

Next three launches

Oct. 18: Falcon 9 | Starlink 8-19 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla. | 19: 31 UTC

Oct. 19: Electron | Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes | Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand | 10: 30 UTC

Oct. 20: Falcon 9 | OneWeb no. 20 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 05: 09 UTC

Welcome to Edition 7.15 of the Rocket Report! It’s a big week for big rockets, with SpaceX potentially launching its next Starship test flight and a Falcon Heavy rocket with NASA’s Europa Clipper mission this weekend. And a week ago, United Launch Alliance flew its second Vulcan rocket, which lost one of its booster nozzles in midair and amazingly kept going to achieve a successful mission. Are you not entertained?

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.

PLD Space is aiming high. Spanish launch provider PLD Space has revealed a family of new rockets that it plans to introduce beyond its Miura 5 rocket, which is expected to make its inaugural flight in 2025, European Spaceflight reports. The company also revealed that it was working on a crew capsule called Lince (Spanish for Lynx). PLD Space introduced its Miura Next, Miura Next Heavy, and Miura Next Super Heavy launch vehicles, designed in single stick, triple core, and quintuple core configurations with reusable boosters. At the high end of the rocket family’s performance, the Miura Next Super Heavy could deliver up to 53 metric tons (nearly 117,000 pounds) of payload to low-Earth orbit. The Lince capsule could become Europe’s first human-rated crew transportation spacecraft.

Still a year away from reaching space … These are lofty ambitions for a company that has yet to launch anything to space, but it’s good to think big. PLD Space launched a high-altitude test flight of its Miura 1 rocket last year, but it didn’t cross the boundary of space. The first launch campaign for Miura 5, PLD Space’s orbital-class rocket sized for small satellites, is on course to begin by the end of 2025, the company said. The Miura Next family would begin flying by 2030, followed by the heavier rockets a few years later. In April, PLD Space said it had raised 120 million euros ($131 million) from private investors and the Spanish government. This is probably enough to get Miura 5 to the launch pad, but PLD Space will need a lot of technical and financing successes to bring its follow-on vehicles online. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)

Impulse Space wins Space Force contract. Fresh on the heels of a massive funding round, Impulse Space has landed a $34.5 million contract from the Space Force for two ultra-mobile spacecraft missions, TechCrunch reports. Under the Space Force’s Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) program, the two missions will demonstrate how highly maneuverable spacecraft can help the military rapidly respond to threats in space. Both missions will use Impulse’s Mira orbital transfer vehicle, which can host experiments and payloads while moving into different orbits around the Earth.

Looking for an advantage … Mira completed its first test flight earlier this year. The payloads on the two Space Force demonstration flights will perform space domain awareness missions, the military service said in a statement. The first mission, called Victus Surgo, will combine the Mira transfer vehicle with Impulse’s higher-power Helios cryogenic methane-fueled kick stage on its first use in orbit. Helios will boost Mira into a high-altitude geostationary transfer orbit after launching on a Falcon 9 rocket. The second mission, called Victus Salo, will send a second Mira spacecraft into low-Earth orbit on a SpaceX rideshare mission. Impulse was founded by rocket scientist Tom Mueller, who was a founding employee at SpaceX before leaving in 2020. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

The launch campaign begins for Vega C’s return to flight. Days after a crucial test-firing of its redesigned second stage motor, a European Vega C rocket is now being stacked on its launch pad in French Guiana for a return to flight mission scheduled for December 3. Photos released by the French space agency, CNES, show the Vega C’s solid-fueled first stage moving into position on the launch pad. The Vega C launcher is an upgraded version of the Vega rocket that completed its career with a successful launch in September.

A lot of t(h)rust … Vega C made a successful debut in July 2022, then failed on its second flight five months later, destroying a pair of high-value commercial Earth-imaging satellites owned by Airbus. Engineers traced the failure to the second stage motor’s nozzle, prompting a redesign that grounded the Vega C rocket for two years. There is a queue of European space missions waiting for launch on Vega C, and first to go will be the Sentinel 1C radar imaging satellite for the European Commission’s flagship Copernicus program.

Australian launch company rehearses countdown. Gilmour Space still thinks it has a chance to conduct the maiden launch of its Eris rocket sometime this year, despite no launch license from the Australian Space Agency (ASA), having to go hunting for more money, and a wet dress rehearsal throwing up issues that will take several weeks to fix, Space & Defense Tech and Security News reports. Gilmour’s Eris rocket, capable of hauling cargoes up to 672 pounds (305 kilograms) to orbit, would become the first homegrown Australian-built orbital-class rocket.

WDR … The Australian Space Agency has worked on Gilmour’s launch license for around two years, but has yet to give the company the green light to fly the Eris rocket, despite approving licenses for two companies operating privately owned launch ranges elsewhere in Australia. At the beginning of the year, Gilmour targeted a first launch of the Eris rocket in March, but there were delays in getting the vehicle to the launch pad. The rocket went vertical for the first time in April to begin a series of ground tests, culminating in the launch rehearsal at the end of September, in which the company loaded propellants into the rocket and ran the countdown to T-10 seconds. The test uncovered valve and software issues Gilmour must fix before it can fly Eris. (submitted by mryall)

Falcon 9 launches European asteroid mission. The European Space Agency’s Hera mission lifted off Monday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, heading into the Solar System to investigate an asteroid smashed by NASA two years ago, Ars reports. It will take two years for Hera to travel to asteroids Didymos and Dimorphos, a binary pair, and survey the aftermath of the impact by NASA’s DART spacecraft on Dimorphos in September 2022. DART was NASA’s first planetary defense experiment, demonstrating how a kinetic impactor could knock an asteroid off course if it was on a path to hit Earth. Fortunately, these two asteroids are harmless, but DART proved a spacecraft could deflect an asteroid, if necessary. Coming in at high speed, DART got only a fleeting glimpse of Didymos and Dimorphos, so Hera will take more precise measurements of the asteroids’ interior structure, mass, and orbit to determine exactly how effective DART was.

Falcon soars again … The liftoff Monday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station was the first flight of a Falcon 9 in nine days, since an upper stage anomaly steered the rocket off its intended reentry corridor after an otherwise successful launch. The Federal Aviation Administration grounded the Falcon 9 while SpaceX investigated the problem, but the regulator approved the launch of Hera because the Falcon 9’s upper stage won’t come back to Earth. Instead, it departed into deep space along with the Hera asteroid probe. As of Thursday, all other commercial Falcon 9 missions remain grounded. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Emiratis go with Japan. A UAE mission to travel to the asteroid belt reached a milestone on Wednesday, when an agreement was signed to provide services for the 2028 launch of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Explorer spacecraft, The National reports. Emirati officials selected the Japanese H3 rocket from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) to launch the asteroid explorer. The UAE is a repeat customer for MHI, which also launched the Emirati Hope spacecraft toward Mars in 2020. The mission will see the Mohammed Bin Rashid Explorer perform close flybys of six asteroids to gather data before landing on a seventh asteroid, Justitia.

H3 racking up wins … Japan’s new H3 rocket is taking a slice of the international commercial launch market after achieving back-to-back successful flights this year. The H3, which replaces Japan’s workhorse H-IIA rocket, is primarily intended to ensure Japanese autonomous access to space for national security missions, scientific probes, and resupply flights to the International Space Station. But, somewhat surprisingly, the H3 now has several customers outside of Japan, including the UAE, Eutelsat, and Inmarsat. Perhaps some satellite operators, eager for someone to compete with SpaceX in the launch business, are turning to the H3 as an alternative to United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan, Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket, or Blue Origin’s New Glenn. All of these rockets are under pressure to launch numerous payloads for their domestic governments and Amazon’s Kuiper megaconstellation.

China launches mystery satellite. China launched a new communications satellite toward geostationary orbit Thursday, although its precise role remains undisclosed​, Space News reports. The satellite lifted off aboard a Long March 3B rocket, and China’s leading state-owned aerospace contractor identified the payload as High orbit Internet satellite-03 (Weixing Hulianwan Gaogui-03). This is the third satellite in this series, following launches in February and August. The lack of publicly available information raises speculation about its potential uses, which could include military applications.

Shortfall … This was China’s 47th space launch of the year, well short of the 100 missions Chinese officials originally projected for 2024. This launch rate is on pace to come close to China’s numbers the last three years. Around 30 of these 100 projected launches were supposed to be with rockets from Chinese commercial startups. China’s commercial launch industry encountered a setback in June, when a rocket broke free of its restraints during a first stage static fire test, sending the fully fueled booster on an uncontrolled flight near populated areas before a fiery crash to the ground.

Vulcan’s second flight was successful but not perfect. United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, under contract for dozens of flights for the US military and Amazon’s Kuiper broadband network, lifted off from Florida on its second test flight October 4, suffered an anomaly with one of its strap-on boosters, and still achieved a successful mission, Ars reports. This test flight, known as Cert-2, was the second certification mission for the new Vulcan rocket, a milestone that paves the way for the Space Force to clear ULA’s new rocket to begin launching national security satellites in the coming months.

Anomalous plume … What happened 37 seconds after launch was startling and impressive. The exhaust nozzle from one of Vulcan’s two strap-on solid rocket boosters failed and fell off the vehicle, creating a shower of sparks and debris. The launcher visibly tilted along its axis due to asymmetrical thrust from the twin boosters, but Vulcan’s guidance system corrected its trajectory, and the rocket’s BE-4 engines vectored their exhaust to keep the rocket on course. The engines burned somewhat longer than planned to make up for the shortfall in power from the damaged booster, and the rocket still reached its target orbit. However, ULA and Northrop Grumman, the booster manufacturer, must determine what happened with the nozzle before Vulcan can fly again. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Starship could launch this weekend. We may not have to wait as long as we thought for the next test flight of SpaceX’s Starship rocket. The world’s most powerful launcher could fly again from South Texas as soon as Sunday, assuming the Federal Aviation Administration grants approval, Ars reports. The last public statement released from the FAA suggested the agency didn’t expect to determine whether to approve a commercial launch license for SpaceX’s next Starship test flight before late November. There’s some optimism at SpaceX that the FAA might issue a launch license much sooner, perhaps in time for Starship to fly this weekend.

Going for the catch … “The fifth flight test of Starship will aim to take another step towards full and rapid reusability,” SpaceX wrote in an update posted on its website. “The primary objectives will be attempting the first ever return to launch site and catch of the Super Heavy booster and another Starship reentry and landing burn, aiming for an on-target splashdown of Starship in the Indian Ocean.” For the Starship upper stage, this means it will follow pretty much the same trajectory as the last test flight in June. But the most exciting thing about the next flight is the attempt to catch the Super Heavy booster, which will come back to the launch site in Texas at supersonic speed before braking to a hover over the launch pad. Then, mechanical arms, or “chopsticks,” will try to grapple the rocket in midair.

Europa Clipper is ready to fly. As soon as this weekend, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will lift off from Kennedy Space Center, carrying NASA’s $4.25 billion Europa Clipper spacecraft, Ars reports. This mission is unlikely to definitively answer the question of whether life exists in the liquid water ocean below the icy crust of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, but it will tell us whether it could, and it will answer so many more questions. The best part is the unknown wonders it will discover. We cannot begin to guess at those, but we can be certain that if all goes well, Clipper will be a thrilling and breathtaking mission. Europa Clipper will zip by Europa 49 times in the early 2030s, probing the frozen world with a sophisticated suite of instruments to yield the best-ever data about any moon of another planet.

Delayed for weather … The launch of Europa Clipper was supposed to happen Thursday, but NASA and SpaceX suspended launch preparations earlier this week as Hurricane Milton approached Florida. The spacecraft is already attached to the Falcon Heavy rocket inside SpaceX’s hangar. Once teams are cleared to return to the space center for work after the storm, they will ready Falcon Heavy to roll to the launch pad. NASA says the launch is currently targeted for no earlier than Sunday.

Next three launches

Oct. 13: Starship/Super Heavy | Flight 5 | Starbase, Texas | 12: 00 UTC

Oct. 13: New Shepard | NS-27 uncrewed flight | Launch Site One, Texas | 13: 00 UTC

Oct. 13: Falcon Heavy | Europa Clipper | Kennedy Space Center, Florida | 16: 12 UTC

Welcome to Edition 7.14 of the Rocket Report! For readers who don’t know, my second book was published last week. It’s titled Reentry, and tells the story behind the story of SpaceX’s development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft. The early reviews are great, and it made USA Today’s bestseller list this week. If you’re interested in rockets, and since you’re reading this newsletter we already know the answer to that, the book is probably up your alley.

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

Vega C cleared for next launch in November. Italian rocket firm Avio successfully tested a redesigned Zefiro-40 solid rocket motor for the second time on Thursday, the European Space Agency said. This second firing follows an initial firing test of the motor in May 2024 and concludes the qualification tests for the new engine nozzle design of the Zefiro-40. This rocket motor powers the second stage of the Vega C rocket.

Flight three almost ready … The redesign of the motor was necessitated by the failure of a Vega C rocket in December 2022, which was just the second flight of the launch vehicle. Then, in June 2023, a test to re-certify the motor for flight also failed. Now that the second-stage issue appears to be resolved, Vega C is on the launch calendar for November of this year, although there’s the possibility the third mission of the rocket could slip a bit further. The rocket will be carrying the Sentinel-1C satellite to Sun-synchronous orbit. (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)

Impulse Space raises $150 million. Los Angeles-based space startup Impulse Space, which is led by renowned rocket scientist Tom Mueller, has raised $150 million in a new fundraising round led by venture capital firm Founders Fund, CNBC reports. Impulse is scaling a product line of orbital transfer vehicles, and so far is building two, the smaller Mira and the larger Helios. While rockets get satellites and payloads into orbit, like an airplane carrying passengers to a metro area, space tugs deliver them to specific destinations, like taxis taking those passengers home from the airport.

Taking the next step after launch … Mueller, who founded Impulse Space three years ago, said the funds will fuel growth of the company. “This means that we’re sufficiently funded through the development of Helios and the upgraded version Mira and out past the first flights of both of these products,” Mueller told the publication. Impulse flew its first mission, called LEO Express-1, with a Mira vehicle carrying and deploying a small satellite, last November. In Mueller’s view, while SpaceX reduced the cost to launch mass to orbit, the in-space delivery systems on the market are lacking. (submitted by Tom Nelson and Ken the Bin)

Polish company receives ESA support. Did you know there is a launch startup in Poland? Until this week, I confess I did not. However, that changed when the European Space Agency awarded 2.4 million euros to Poland’s SpaceForest for further development of its Perun rocket. SpaceForest has developed an 11.5-meter-tall sounding rocket capable of carrying payloads of up to 50 kilograms to an altitude of 150 kilometers, European Spaceflight reports.

Boosting up commercial companies … To date, the company has completed two test flights, one reaching an altitude of 22 kilometers and another topping out at 13 kilometers. With the new funding from ESA, SpaceForest will implement upgrades to the combustion chamber of its in-house developed SF1000 paraffin-powered hybrid rocket engine. ESA awarded the funding as part of the agency’s Boost! initiative. Adopted by member states in 2019, Boost! aims to foster the development of new commercial space transportation services. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)

A new take on a kinetic launch system. Longshot Space is developing a straight-line kinetic launch system that will gradually accelerate payloads to hypersonic speeds before launching them to orbit, TechCrunch reports. The startup is betting it can achieve very, very low costs to orbit compared to a rocket, possibly as low as $10 per kilogram. The company raised $1.5 million in a pre-seed round in April 2023 and now, nearly 18 months later, Longshot closed a little over $5 million in combined venture capital and funding from the US Air Force’s TACFI program.

Pulling some serious Gs … The new capital will be used to build a large, 500-meter-long gun in the Nevada desert to push 100-kilogram payloads to Mach 5. The system has to be so long in order to keep acceleration forces low, which is better for both the vehicle and payload. For eventual space missions, Longshot is aiming to keep the maximum gravitational forces to 500–600 times the force of gravity. The company’s name serves a dual purpose, as its technology requires a longshot to reach space, and its prospects for success are probably a longshot. Nevertheless, it’s great to see someone trying new ideas. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Falcon 9 rocket upper stage misfires. SpaceX is investigating a problem with the Falcon 9 rocket’s upper stage that caused it to reenter the atmosphere and fall into the sea outside of its intended disposal area after a launch last Saturday with a two-person crew heading to the International Space Station, Ars reports. The upper stage malfunction occurred after the Falcon 9 successfully deployed SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov on SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission. Hague and Gorbunov safely arrived at the space station Sunday to begin a five-month stay at the orbiting research complex.

Returning to flight shortly? … Safety warnings issued to mariners and pilots before the launch indicated the Falcon 9’s upper stage was supposed to fall somewhere in a narrow band stretching from southwest to northeast in the South Pacific east of New Zealand. Most of the rocket was expected to burn up during reentry, but SpaceX targeted a remote part of the ocean for disposal because some debris was likely to survive and reach the sea. This is the third time SpaceX has grounded the Falcon 9 rocket in less than three months, ending a remarkable run of flawless launches. A return to flight is expected as early as October 7 with the European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft.

New Zealand seeks to reduce rocket regulations. New Zealand plans to implement a new “red tape-cutting” strategy for space and aviation by the end of 2025, the New Zealand Herald reports. “We have committed to having a world-class regulatory environment by the end of 2025,” Space Minister Judith Collins told the NZ Aerospace Summit recently. “To do that we’re introducing a light-touch regulatory approach that will significantly free up innovators to test their technology and ideas.”

Kiwis have a different attitude … The goal of reducing regulations is to allow companies to focus more on innovation and less on paperwork. New Zealand officials are motivated by concerns that Australia may seek to lure some of its space and aviation industries. Among the space companies with a significant presence in New Zealand are Rocket Lab, Dawn Aerospace, as well as smaller firms such as Astrix Astronautics. The move comes as US-based firms such as SpaceX, Varda, and others are pushing the country’s launch regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration, to be more nimble.

H2A nears the end of the road. Japan launched the classified IGS-Radar 8 satellite early Thursday with the second-to-last H-2A rocket, Space News reports. Developed and operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the H-2A rocket debuted in 2001 and has flown 49 times with a single failure, suffered in 2003. It has been a reliable medium-lift launch vehicle for Japan’s national space interests, as well as a handful of commercial space customers.

The rocket’s 50th launch will be its last … The final H-2A core stage is now completed and is scheduled for shipment to the Tanegashima Space Center. That launch, expected in late 2024, will carry the Global Observing SATellite for Greenhouse gases and Water cycle satellite. The H3 will succeed the H-2A. The new generation H3 had a troubled start, with its first flight in March 2023 suffering a second-stage engine failure. However, the new rocket has since flown successfully twice. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Russians can invest in SpaceX now? Da. One of the odder stories this week concerns a Russian broker apparently offering access to privately held shares of SpaceX. An article in the Russian newspaper Kommersant suggests that a Moscow-based financial services company, Finam Holdings, managed to purchase a number of shares from a large foreign investment fund. The article says the minimum investment for Russians interested in buying into SpaceX is $10,000.

On bonds and broomsticks … Honestly, I have no idea about the legality of all this, but it sure smells funny. SpaceX, of course, periodically sells shares of the privately held company to investors. In addition, employees who receive shares in the company can sometimes sell their holdings. Given the existing sanctions on Russia due to the war on Ukraine and the potential for additional sanctions, it seems like these shareholders are definitely taking some risk.

ULA chief “supremely confident” in Vulcan’s second launch. The second flight of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, planned for Friday morning, has a primary goal of validating the launcher’s reliability for delivering critical US military satellites to orbit. Tory Bruno, ULA’s chief executive, told reporters Wednesday that he is “supremely confident” the Vulcan rocket will succeed in accomplishing that objective, Ars reports. “As I come up on Cert-2, I’m pretty darn confident I’m going to have a good day on Friday, knock on wood,” Bruno said. “These are very powerful, complicated machines.”

A lengthy manifest to fly … The Vulcan launcher, a replacement for ULA’s Atlas V and Delta IV rockets, is on contract to haul the majority of the US military’s most expensive national security satellites into orbit over the next several years. If Friday’s test flight goes well, ULA is on track to launch at least one—and perhaps two—operational missions for the Space Force by the end of this year. The Space Force has already booked 25 launches on ULA’s Vulcan rocket for military payloads and spy satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office. Including the launch Friday, ULA has 70 Vulcan rockets in its backlog, mostly for the Space Force, the NRO, and Amazon’s Kuiper satellite broadband network.

NASA’s mobile launcher is on the move. NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program at Kennedy Space Center in Florida began moving the mobile launcher 1 from Launch Complex 39B along a 4.2-mile stretch back to the Vehicle Assembly Building this week. First motion of the mobile launcher, atop NASA’s crawler-transporter 2, occurred early on the morning of October 3, the space agency confirmed. Teams rolled the mobile launcher out to Kennedy’s Pad 39B in August 2023 for upgrades and a series of ground demonstration tests in preparation for the Artemis II mission.

Stacking operations when? … After arriving outside the Vehicle Assembly Building later on Thursday, the launch tower will be moved into High Bay 3 on Friday. This is all in preparation for stacking the Space Launch System rocket for the Artemis II mission, which is nominally scheduled for September 2025 but may slip further. NASA has not publicly said when stacking operations will begin, and this depends on when the space agency makes a final decision on whether to fly the Orion spacecraft with its heat shield as-is or adopt a different plan. Stacking will take several months.

Next three launches

Oct. 4: Vulcan | Cert-2 mission | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 10: 00 UTC

Oct. 7: Falcon 9 | Hera | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 14: 52 UTC

Oct. 9: Falcon 9 | OneWeb-20 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 06: 03 UTC