Enlarge/ Landspace’s reusable rocket test vehicle lifts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Wednesday, September 11, 2024.
Welcome to Edition 7.11 of the Rocket Report! Outside of companies owned by American billionaires, the most imminent advancements in reusable rockets are coming from China’s quasi-commercial launch industry. This industry is no longer nascent. After initially relying on solid-fueled rocket motors apparently derived from Chinese military missiles, China’s privately funded launch firms are testing larger launchers, with varying degrees of success, and now performing hop tests reminiscent of SpaceX’s Grasshopper and F9R Dev1 programs more than a decade ago.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Landspace hops closer to a reusable rocket. Chinese private space startup Landspace has completed a 10-kilometer (33,000-foot) vertical takeoff and vertical landing test on its Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3) reusable rocket testbed, including a mid-flight engine reignition at near supersonic conditions, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. The 18.3-meter (60-foot) vehicle took off from the Jiuquan launch base in northwestern China, ascended to 10,002 meters, and then made a vertical descent and achieved an on-target propulsive landing 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) from the launch pad. Notably, the rocket’s methane-fueled variable-thrust engine intentionally shutdown in flight, then reignited for descent, as engines would operate on future full-scale booster flybacks. The test booster used grid fins and cold gas thrusters to control itself when its main engine was dormant, according to Landspace.
“All indicators met the expected design” … Landspace hailed the test as a major milestone in the company’s road to flying its next rocket, the Zhuque-3, as soon as next year. With nine methane-fueled main engines, the Zhuque-3 will initially be able to deliver 21 metric tons (46,300 pounds) of payload into low-Earth orbit with its booster flying in expendable mode. In 2026, Landspace aims to begin recovering Zhuque-3 first-stage boosters for reuse. Landspace is one of several Chinese companies working seriously on reusable rocket designs. Another Chinese firm, Deep Blue Aerospace, says it plans a 100-kilometer (62-mile) suborbital test of a reusable booster soon, ahead of the first flight of its medium-class Nebula-1 rocket next year. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
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Isar Aerospace sets low bar for success on first launch. Daniel Metzler, CEO of German launch startup Isar Aerospace, stated that the first flight of the Spectrum rocket would be a success if it didn’t destroy the launch site, European Spaceflight reports. During an interview at the Handelsblatt innovation conference, Metzler was asked what he would consider a successful inaugural flight of Spectrum. “For me, the first flight will be a success if we don’t blow up the launch site,” explained Metzler. “That would probably be the thing that would set us back the most in terms of technology and time.” This tempering of expectations sounds remarkably similar to statements made by Elon Musk about SpaceX’s first flight of the Starship rocket last year.
In the catbird seat? … Isar Aerospace could be in a position to become the first in a new crop of European commercial launch companies to attempt its first orbital flight. Another German company, Rocket Factory Augsburg, recently gave up on a possible launch this year after the booster for its first launch caught fire and collapsed during a test at a launch site in Scotland. Isar plans to launch its two-stage Spectrum rocket, designed to carry up to 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) of payload into low-Earth orbit, from Andøya Spaceport in Norway. Isar hasn’t publicized any schedule for the first flight of Spectrum, but there are indications the publicity-shy company is testing hardware at the Norwegian spaceport. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
FAA to introduce new orbital debris rules. The Federal Aviation Administration is moving ahead with efforts to develop rules for the disposal of upper stages as another Centaur upper stage breaks apart in orbit, Space News reports. The FAA released draft regulations on the matter for public comment one year ago, and the head of the agency’s commercial spaceflight division recently said the rules are a “high priority for our organization.” The rules would direct launch operators to dispose of upper stages in one of five ways, from controlled reentries to placement in graveyard or “disposal” orbits not commonly used by operational satellites. One change the FAA might make to the draft rules is to reduce the required timeline for an uncontrolled reentry of a disposed upper stage from no more than 25 years to a shorter timeline. “We got a lot of comments that said it should be a lot less,” said Kelvin Coleman, head of the FAA’s commercial spaceflight office. “We’re taking that into consideration.”
Upper stages are a problem … Several recent breakups involving spent upper stages in orbit have highlighted the concern that dead rocket bodies could create unnecessary space junk. Last month, the upper stage from a Chinese Long March 6A disintegrated in low-Earth orbit, creating at least 300 pieces of space debris. More recently, a Centaur upper stage from a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket broke apart in a much higher orbit, resulting in more than 40 pieces of debris. This was the fourth time one of ULA’s Centaur upper stages has broken up since 2018. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Enlarge/ Boeing’s uncrewed Starliner spaceraft backs away from the International Space Station moments after undocking on September 6, 2024.
NASA
Nearly a decade ago to the day, I stood in the international terminal of Houston’s main airport checking my phone. As I waited to board a flight for Moscow, an announcement from NASA was imminent, with the agency due to make its selections for private companies that would transport astronauts to the International Space Station.
Then, just before boarding the direct flight to Moscow, a news release from NASA popped into my inbox about its Commercial Crew Program. The space agency, under a fixed price agreement, agreed to pay Boeing $4.2 billion to develop the Starliner spacecraft; SpaceX would receive $2.6 billion for the development of its Crew Dragon vehicle.
At the time, the Space Shuttle had been retired for three years, and NASA’s astronauts had to fly to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz spacecraft. “Today, we are one step closer to launching our astronauts from US soil on American spacecraft and ending the nation’s sole reliance on Russia by 2017,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in the release.
I knew this only too well. As the space reporter for the Houston Chronicle, I was traveling with NASA officials to Russia to visit Star City, where astronauts train, and see Roscosmos’ mission control facilities. From there, we flew to Kazakhstan to tour the spaceport in Baikonur and observe the launch of the Expedition 41 crew to the space station. The mission included two Russian astronauts and NASA’s Butch Wilmore. I wrote about this as the fifth part of my Adrift series on the state of America’s space program.
A decade later, it all seems surreal. I cannot imagine, as I did a decade ago, standing near soldiers in Moscow watching a “Peace March” of thousands of protestors through the Russian capital city. There is no room for dissent in Russia today. The airport we used to fly from Moscow to Kazakhstan, Domodedovo, has been attacked by Ukrainian drones. I almost certainly can never go back to Russia, especially after being branded a “war criminal” by the country’s space boss.
But history turns in interesting ways. Ten years after his Soyuz flight from Kazakhstan, Wilmore launched from Florida on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. Last weekend, this Boeing spacecraft came back to Earth without Wilmore and his copilot Suni Williams on board. Here we were once again: Wilmore flying in space and me thinking and writing about the future of NASA’s human spaceflight programs.
I couldn’t help but wonder: After all that happened in the last decade, has the Commercial Crew Program been a success?
Boeing becomes a no-show
Commercial Crew was a bold bet by NASA that won the space agency many critics. Could private companies really step up and provide a service that only nations had before?
NASA’s two selections, Boeing and SpaceX, did not make that 2017 target for their initial crewed flights. For a few years, Congress lagged in funding the program, and during the second half of the 2010s, each of the companies ran into significant technical problems. SpaceX overcame serious issues with its parachutes and an exploding spacecraft in 2019 to triumphantly reach orbit in the summer of 2020 with its Demo-2 mission, flying NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to and from the space station.
Since then, SpaceX has completed seven operational missions to the station, carrying astronauts from the United States, Europe, Japan, Russia, the Middle East, and elsewhere into orbit. A crew from the eighth mission is on the station right now, and the ninth Crew Dragon mission will launch later this month to bring Wilmore and Williams back to Earth. Crew Dragon has been nothing short of a smashing success for SpaceX and the United States, establishing a vital lifeline at a time when—amid deteriorating relations between America and Russia—NASA reliance on Soyuz likely would have been untenable.
Starliner has faced a more difficult road. Its first uncrewed test flight in late 2019 was cut short early after serious software problems. Afterward, NASA designated the flight as a “high visibility close call” and said Boeing would need to fly a second uncrewed test flight. This mission in 2022 was more successful, but lingering concerns and issues with flammable tape and parachutes delayed the first crew flight until June of this year. The fate of Starliner’s third flight this summer, and its intermittently failing thrusters that ultimately led to its crew needing an alternative ride back to Earth, has been well documented.
Enlarge/ Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft after landing Friday night at White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico.
Boeing
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft sailed to a smooth landing in the New Mexico desert Friday night, an auspicious end to an otherwise disappointing three-month test flight that left the capsule’s two-person crew stuck in orbit until next year.
Cushioned by airbags, the Boeing crew capsule descended under three parachutes toward an on-target landing at 10: 01 pm local time Friday (12: 01 am EDT Saturday) at White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico. From the outside, the landing appeared just as it would have if the spacecraft brought home NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who became the first people to launch on a Starliner capsule on June 5.
But Starliner’s cockpit was empty as it flew back to Earth Friday night. Last month, NASA managers decided to keep Wilmore and Williams on the International Space Station (ISS) until next year after agency officials determined it was too risky for the astronauts to return to the ground on Boeing’s spaceship. Instead of coming home on Starliner, Wilmore and Williams will fly back to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in February. NASA has incorporated the Starliner duo into the space station’s long-term crew.
The Starliner spacecraft began the journey home by backing away from its docking port at the space station at 6: 04 pm EDT (22: 04 UTC), one day after astronauts closed hatches to prepare for the ship’s departure. The capsule fired thrusters to quickly back away from the complex, setting up for a deorbit burn to guide Starliner on a trajectory toward its landing site. Then, Starliner jettisoned its disposable service module to burn up over the Pacific Ocean, while the crew module, with a vacant cockpit, took aim on New Mexico.
After streaking through the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean and Mexico, Starliner deployed three main parachutes to slow its descent, then a ring of six airbags inflated around the bottom of the spacecraft to dampen the jolt of touchdown. This was the third time a Starliner capsule has flown in space, and the second time the spacecraft fell short of achieving all of its objectives.
Not the desired outcome
“I’m happy to report Starliner did really well today in the undock, deorbit, and landing sequence,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, which manages a contract worth up to $4.6 billion for Boeing to develop, test, and fly a series of Starliner crew missions to the ISS.
While officials were pleased with Starliner’s landing, the celebration was tinged with disappointment.
“From a human perspective, all of us feel happy about the successful landing, but then there’s a piece of us that we wish it would have been the way we had planned it,” Stich said. “We had planned to have the mission land with Butch and Suni onboard. I think there are, depending on who you are on the team, different emotions associated with that, and I think it’s going to take a little time to work through that.”
Nevertheless, Stich said NASA made the right call last month when officials decided to complete the Starliner test flight without astronauts in the spacecraft.
“We made the decision to have an uncrewed flight based on what we knew at the time, and based on our knowledge of the thrusters and based on the modeling that we had,” Stich said. “If we’d had a model that would have predicted what we saw tonight perfectly, yeah, it looks like an easy decision to go say, ‘We could have had a crew tonight.’ But we didn’t have that.”
Boeing’s Starliner managers insisted the ship was safe to bring the astronauts home. It might be tempting to conclude the successful landing Friday night vindicated Boeing’s views on the thruster problems. However, he spacecraft’s propulsion system, provided by Aerojet Rocketdyne, clearly did not work as intended during the flight. NASA had the option of bringing Wilmore and Williams back to Earth on a different, flight-proven spacecraft, so they took it.
“It’s awfully hard for the team,” Stich said. “It’s hard for me, when we sit here and have a successful landing, to be in that position. But it was a test flight, and we didn’t have confidence, with certainty, of the thruster performance.”
Enlarge/ In this infrared view, Starliner descends under its three main parachutes moments before touchdown at White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico.
NASA
As Starliner approached the space station in June, five of 28 control thrusters on Starliner’s service module failed, forcing Wilmore to take manual control as ground teams sorted out the problem. Eventually, engineers recovered four of the five thrusters, but NASA’s decision makers were unable to convince themselves the same problem wouldn’t reappear, or get worse, when the spacecraft departed the space station and headed for reentry and landing.
Engineers later determined the control jets lost thrust due to overheating, which can cause Teflon seals in valves to swell and deform, starving the thrusters of propellant. Telemetry data beamed back to the mission controllers from Starliner showed higher-than-expected temperatures on two of the service module thrusters during the flight back to Earth Friday night, but they continued working.
Ground teams also detected five small helium leaks on Starliner’s propulsion system soon after its launch in June. NASA and Boeing officials were aware of one of the leaks before the launch, but decided to go ahead with the test flight. Starliner was still leaking helium when the spacecraft undocked from the station Friday, but the leak rate remained within safety tolerances, according to Stich.
A couple of fresh technical problems cropped up as Starliner cruised back to Earth. One of 12 control jets on the crew module failed to ignite at any time during Starliner’s flight home. These are separate thrusters from the small engines that caused trouble earlier in the Starliner mission. There was also a brief glitch in Starliner’s navigation system during reentry.
Where to go from here?
Three NASA managers, including Stich, took questions from reporters in a press conference early Saturday following Starliner’s landing. Two Boeing officials were also supposed to be on the panel, but they canceled at the last minute. Boeing didn’t explain their absence, and the company has not made any officials available to answer questions since NASA chose to end the Starliner test flight without the crew aboard.
“We view the data and the uncertainty that’s there differently than Boeing does,” said Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator, in an August 24 press conference announcing the agency’s decision on how to end the Starliner test flight. It’s unusual for NASA officials to publicly discuss how their opinions differ from those of their contractors.
Joel Montalbano, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for space operations, said Saturday that Boeing deferred to the agency to discuss the Starliner mission in the post-landing press conference.
Here’s the only quote from a Boeing official on Starliner’s return to Earth. It came in the form of a three-paragraph written statement Boeing emailed to reporters about a half-hour after Starliner’s landing: “I want to recognize the work the Starliner teams did to ensure a successful and safe undocking, deorbit, re-entry and landing,” said Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of Boeing’s commercial crew program. “We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program.”
Nappi’s statement doesn’t answer one of the most important questions reporters would have asked anyone from Boeing if they participated in Saturday morning’s press conference: Does Boeing still have a long-term commitment to the Starliner program?
So far, the only indications of Boeing’s future plans for Starliner have come from second-hand anecdotes relayed by NASA officials. Boeing has been silent on the matter. The company has reported nearly $1.6 billion in financial charges to pay for previous delays and cost overruns on the Starliner program, and Boeing will again be on the hook to pay to fix the problems Starliner encountered in space over the last three months.
Montalbano said Boeing’s Starliner managers met with ground teams at mission control in Houston following the craft’s landing. “The Boeing managers came into the control room and congratulated the team, talked to the NASA team, so Boeing is committed to continue their work with us,” he said.
Enlarge/ Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft fires thrusters during departure from the International Space Station on Friday.
NASA
NASA isn’t ready to give up on Starliner. A fundamental tenet of NASA’s commercial crew program is to foster the development of two independent vehicles to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, and eventually commercial outposts in low-Earth orbit. NASA awarded multibillion-dollar contracts to Boeing and SpaceX in 2014 to complete development of their Starliner and Crew Dragon spaceships.
SpaceX’s Dragon started flying astronauts in 2020. NASA would like to have another US spacecraft for crew rotation flights to support the ISS. If Boeing had more success with this Starliner test flight, NASA expected to formally certify the spacecraft for operational crew flights beginning next year. Once that happens, Starliner will enter a rotation with SpaceX’s Dragon to transport crews to and from the station in six-month increments.
Stich said Saturday that NASA has not determined whether the agency will require Boeing launch another Starliner test flight before certifying the spacecraft for regular crew rotation missions. “It’ll take a little time to determine the path forward, but today we saw the vehicle perform really well,” he said.
On to Starliner-1?
But some of Stich’s other statements Saturday suggested NASA would like to proceed with certifying Starliner and flying the next mission with a full crew complement of four astronauts. NASA calls Boeing’s first operational crew mission Starliner-1. It’s the first of at least three and potentially up to six crew rotation missions on Boeing’s contract.
“It’s great to have the spacecraft back, and we’re now focused on Starliner-1,” Stich said.
Before that happens, NASA and Boeing engineers must resolve the thruster problems and helium leaks that plagued the test flight this summer. Stich said teams are studying several ways to improve the reliability of Starliner’s thrusters, including hardware modifications and procedural changes. This will probably push back the next crew flight of Starliner, whether it’s Starliner-1 or another test flight, until the end of next year or 2026, although NASA officials have not laid out a schedule.
The overheating thrusters are located inside four doghouse-shaped propulsion pods around the perimeter of Starliner’s service module. It turns out the doghouses retain heat like a thermos—something NASA and Boeing didn’t fully appreciate before this mission—and the thrusters don’t have time to cool down when the spacecraft fires its control jets in rapid pulses. It might help if Boeing removes some of the insulating thermal blankets from the doghouses, Stich said.
The easiest method of resolving the problem of Starliner’s overheating thrusters would be to change the rate and duration of thruster firings.
“What we would like to do is try not to change the thruster. I think that is the best path,” Stich said. “There thrusters have shown resilience and have shown that they perform well, as long as we keep their temperatures down and don’t fire them in a manner that causes the temperatures to go up.”
There’s one thing from this summer’s test flight that might, counterintuitively, help NASA certify the Starliner spacecraft to begin operational flights with its next mission. Rather than staying at the space station for eight days, Starliner remained docked at the research lab for three months, half of the duration of a full-up crew rotation flight. Despite the setbacks, Stich estimated the test flight achieved about 85 to 90 percent of its objectives.
“There’s a lot of learning that happens in that three months that is invaluable for an increment mission,” Stich said. “So, in some ways, the mission overachieved some objectives, in terms of being there for extra time. Not having the crew onboard, obviously, there are some things that we lack in terms of Butch and Suni’s test pilot expertise, and how the vehicle performed, what they saw in the cockpit. We won’t have that data, but we still have the wealth of data from the spacecraft itself, so that will go toward the mission objectives and the certification.”
Enlarge/ The second stage of the New Glenn rocket rolls to the launch pad on Tuesday.
Blue Origin
Welcome to Edition 7.10 of the Rocket Report! It has been a big week for seeing new hardware from Blue Origin. We’ve observed the second stage of New Glenn rolling out to its launch pad in Florida, and the rocket’s first stage recovery ship, Jacklyn, arriving at a nearby port. It looks like the pieces are finally coming into place for the debut launch of the massive new rocket.
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 rocket makes its final flight. The final flight of Europe’s Vega rocket lifted off Wednesday night from French Guiana, carrying an important environmental monitoring satellite for the European Union’s flagship Copernicus program, Ars reports. About an hour after liftoff, the Vega rocket’s upper stage released Sentinel-2C into an on-target orbit. Then, Sentinel-2C radioed its status to ground controllers, confirming the satellite was healthy in space. The Vega rocket will be replaced by the larger Vega-C rocket, with a more powerful booster stage and a wider payload fairing. One of the primary purposes of the Vega-C will be to launch future Copernicus satellites for Europe.
A mixed record of commercial success … “I think it was a great success,” said Giulio Ranzo, Avio’s CEO, in an interview with Ars a few hours before Wednesday night’s mission. “It was our first launcher. It was our first experience as a major player in the launcher domain.” However, in a dozen years of service, the Vega rocket never really took off in the commercial launch market. It averaged about two flights per year and primarily deployed satellites for the European Space Agency and other European government agencies, which prefer launching their payloads on European rockets.
ABL Space lays off staff. Launch vehicle developer ABL Space Systems has laid off a significant portion of its workforce, citing the need to reduce costs after the loss of a rocket in a static-fire test, Space News reports. In a post on LinkedIn on August 30, Harry O’Hanley, chief executive of ABL, said the company was laying off an unspecified number of people. The layoffs came after the company’s second RS1 rocket was lost in a fire after a static-fire test at the Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska on Kodiak Island on July 19.
Era of easy money ends … O’Hanley said in the email that the company had been working to reduce costs at the company even ahead of that test, citing changes in the market and access to capital. The company had raised several hundred million dollars, including $200 million in October 2021 and $170 million in March 2021. Hanley wrote that starting in 2023, “we cut costs and positioned the company for leaner operations with smaller teams, restrained hiring, and more conservative spending.” That was working, he said, until the static-fire incident. (submitted by brianrhurley and Ken the Bin)
The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.
So many un-spac-tacular results. A recent feature in Space News reviewed how the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, process has gone for several new space firms. Fortunes have been decidedly mixed for the space businesses that merged with publicly traded shell companies in search of capital as COVID-19 ravaged the economy, the publication says.
Launch does not fare well … “Wildly missed revenue projections from most of the class in their eagerness to drum up investor support for their SPAC merger have not helped their reputation,” the author, Jason Rainbow, writes. The list includes four launch companies: Virgin Galactic, Virgin Orbit, Astra, and Rocket Lab. Of these, Virgin Orbit has gone bankrupt, and Astra’s results were so disastrous that it went private again. Then there’s Virgin Galactic, a company whose shares publicly trade at $7, down nearly 90 percent from its peak during the pandemic. Only Rocket Lab gets a gold star for its post-SPAC performance.
New investor suit filed against Branson over Virgin Galactic. A newly unsealed lawsuit alleges that Richard Branson exploited bogus hype about the capabilities of Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft to make $1 billion worth of illegal insider stock sales, Bloomberg Law reports. A shareholder sued Branson, saying he spent years misleading the public about the readiness of Virgin Galactic’s flagship space tourism vessel, Unity, then dumped “massive portions of his stock” across 2020 and 2021. The sales included $300 million in August 2021, shortly after Branson flew on the spaceship. Branson founded Virgin Galactic about two decades ago.
Branson says suit is meritless … “Despite the near misses, loss of life, and questionable safety record, Branson was determined to be the first billionaire in space” so he could “secure billionaire bragging rights” and try to bail out a travel business empire that lost nearly $1.9 billion during the COVID-19 pandemic, the suit says. Branson and Virgin Galactic disputed the court claims in separate statements Wednesday. Branson called the claims meritless through a spokesperson, saying he would “vigorously defend against them.” The case involves shareholder derivative claims, which are technically brought on a corporation’s behalf against its leaders or owners.
MaiaSpace working toward stage testing. French launch firm MaiaSpace has announced that it is preparing to conduct the first hot fire test of the upper stage of its Maia rocket in 2025, European Spaceflight reports. The company is developing a partially reusable two-stage rocket called Maia that will be capable of delivering payloads of up to 1,500 kilograms when launched in an expandable configuration. For both of its stages, the rocket will use Prometheus rocket engines, which are being developed by ArianeGroup under a European Space Agency contract.
Is it new space or old space? … MaiaSpace is an interesting company. It positions itself as a launch startup, but it is also a wholly owned subsidiary of ArianeGroup, which is as traditional a launch company as can be. The rocket’s first stage will essentially be the Themis reusable booster demonstrator, which is also being developed by ArianeGroup under an ESA contract. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Enlarge/ Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft sits atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket before liftoff in June to begin the Crew Flight Test.
NASA is ready for Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, stricken with thruster problems and helium leaks, to leave the International Space Station as soon as Friday, wrapping up a disappointing test flight that has clouded the long-term future of the Starliner program.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who launched aboard Starliner on June 5, closed the spacecraft’s hatch Thursday in preparation for departure Friday. But it wasn’t what they envisioned when they left Earth on Starliner three months ago. Instead of closing the hatch from a position in Starliner’s cockpit, they latched the front door to the spacecraft from the space station’s side of the docking port.
The Starliner spacecraft is set to undock from the International Space Station at 6: 04 pm EDT (22: 04 UTC) Friday. If all goes according to plan, Starliner will ignite its braking rockets at 11: 17 pm EDT (03: 17 UTC) for a minute-long burn to target a parachute-assisted, airbag-cushioned landing at White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico, at 12: 03 am EDT (04: 03 UTC) Saturday.
The Starliner mission set to conclude this weekend was the spacecraft’s first test flight with astronauts, running seven years behind Boeing’s original schedule. But due to technical problems with the spacecraft, it won’t come home with the two astronauts who flew it into orbit back in June, leaving some of the test flight’s objectives incomplete.
This outcome is, without question, a setback for NASA and Boeing, which must resolve two major problems in Starliner’s propulsion system—supplied by Aerojet Rocketdyne—before the capsule can fly with people again. NASA officials haven’t said whether they will require Boeing to launch another Starliner test flight before certifying the spacecraft for the first of up to six operational crew missions on Boeing’s contract.
A noncommittal from NASA
For over a decade, the space agency has worked with Boeing and SpaceX to develop two independent vehicles to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX launched its first Dragon spacecraft with astronauts in May 2020, and six months later, NASA cleared SpaceX to begin flying regular six-month space station crew rotation missions.
Officially, NASA has penciled in Starliner’s first operational mission for August 2025. But the agency set that schedule before realizing Boeing and Aerojet Rocketdyne would need to redesign seals and perhaps other elements in Starliner’s propulsion system.
No one knows how long that will take, and NASA hasn’t decided if it will require Boeing to launch another test flight before formally certifying Starliner for operational missions. If Starliner performs flawlessly after undocking and successfully lands this weekend, perhaps NASA engineers can convince themselves Starliner is good to go for crew rotation flights once Boeing resolves the thruster problems and helium leaks.
In any event, the schedule for launching an operational Starliner crew flight in less than a year seems improbable. Aside from the decision on another test flight, the agency also must decide whether it will order any more operational Starliner missions from Boeing. These “post-certification missions” will transport crews of four astronauts between Earth and the ISS, orbiting roughly 260 miles (420 kilometers) above the planet.
NASA has only given Boeing the “Authority To Proceed” for three of its six potential operational Starliner missions. This milestone, known as ATP, is a decision point in contracting lingo where the customer—in this case, NASA—places a firm order for a deliverable. NASA has previously said it awards these task orders about two to three years prior to a mission’s launch.
Josh Finch, a NASA spokesperson, told Ars that the agency hasn’t made any decisions on whether to commit to any more operational Starliner missions from Boeing beyond the three already on the books.
“NASA’s goal remains to certify the Starliner system for crew transportation to the International Space Station,” Finch said in a written response to questions from Ars. “NASA looks forward to its continued work with Boeing to complete certification efforts after Starliner’s uncrewed return. Decisions and timing on issuing future authorizations are on the work ahead.”
This means NASA’s near-term focus is on certifying Starliner so that Boeing can start executing its commercial crew contract. The space agency hasn’t determined when or if it will authorize Boeing to prepare for any Starliner missions beyond the three already on the books.
When it awarded commercial crew contracts to SpaceX and Boeing in 2014, NASA pledged to buy at least two operational crew flights from each company. The initial contracts from a decade ago had options for as many as six crew rotation flights to the ISS after certification.
Since then, NASA has extended SpaceX’s commercial crew contract to cover as many as 14 Dragon missions with astronauts, and SpaceX has already launched eight of them. The main reason for this contract extension was to cover NASA’s needs for crew transportation after delays with Boeing’s Starliner, which was originally supposed to alternate with SpaceX’s Dragon for human flights every six months.
Enlarge/ Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is set to undock from the International Space Station on Friday evening.
NASA
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft will gently back away from the International Space Station Friday evening, then fire its balky thrusters to rapidly depart the vicinity of the orbiting lab and its nine-person crew.
NASA asked Boeing to adjust Starliner’s departure sequence to get away from the space station faster and reduce the workload on the thrusters to reduce the risk of overheating, which caused some of the control jets to drop offline as the spacecraft approached the outpost for docking in June.
The action begins at 6: 04 pm EDT (22: 04 UTC) on Friday, when hooks in the docking mechanism connecting Starliner with the International Space Station (ISS) will open, and springs will nudge the spacecraft away its mooring on the forward end of the massive research complex.
Around 90 seconds later, a set of forward-facing thrusters on Starliner’s service module will fire in a series of 12 pulses over a few minutes to drive the spacecraft farther away from the space station. These maneuvers will send Starliner on a trajectory over the top of the ISS, then behind it until it is time for the spacecraft to perform a deorbit burn at 11: 17 pm EDT (03: 17 UTC) to target landing at White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico, shortly after midnight EDT (10 pm local time at White Sands).
How to watch, and what to watch for
The two videos embedded below will show NASA TV’s live coverage of the undocking and landing of Starliner.
Starliner is leaving its two-person crew behind on the space station after NASA officials decided last month they did not have enough confidence in the spacecraft’s reaction control system (RCS) thrusters, used to make exact changes to the capsule’s trajectory and orientation in orbit. Five of the 28 RCS thrusters on Starliner’s service module failed during the craft’s rendezvous with the space station three months ago. Subsequent investigations showed overheating could cause Teflon seals in a poppet valve to swell, restricting the flow of propellant to the thrusters.
Engineers recovered four of the five thrusters after they temporarily stopped working, but NASA officials couldn’t be sure the thrusters would not overheat again on the trip home. NASA decided it was too risky for Starliner to come home with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who launched on Boeing’s crew test flight on June 5, becoming the first people to fly on the commercial capsule. They will remain aboard the station until February, when they will return to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
The original flight plan, had Wilmore and Williams been aboard Starliner for the trip home, called for the spacecraft to make a gentler departure from the ISS, allowing engineers to fully check out the performance of its navigation sensors and test the craft’s ability to loiter in the vicinity of the station for photographic surveys of its exterior.
“In this case, what we’re doing is the break-out burn, which will be a series of 12 burns, each not very large, about 0.1 meters per second (0.2 mph) and that’s just to take the Starliner away from the station, and then immediately start going up and away, and eventually it’ll curve around to the top and deorbit from above the station a few orbits later,” said Anthony Vareha, NASA’s flight director overseeing ISS operations during Starliner’s undocking sequence.
Astronauts won’t be inside Starliner’s cockpit to take manual control in the event of a major problem, so NASA managers want the spacecraft to get away from the space station as quickly as possible.
On this path, Starliner will exit the so-called approach ellipsoid, a 2.5-by-1.25-by-1.25-mile (4-by-2-by-2-kilometer) invisible boundary around the orbiting laboratory, about 20 to 25 minutes after undocking, NASA officials said. That’s less than half the time Starliner would normally take to leave the vicinity of the ISS.
“It’s a quicker way to get away from the station, with less stress on the thrusters,” said Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager. “Essentially, once we open the hooks, the springs will push Starliner away and then we’ll do some really short thruster firings to put us on a trajectory that will take us above the station and behind, we’ll be opening to a nice range to where we can execute the deorbit burn.”
In the unlikely event of a more significant series of thruster failures, the springs that push Starliner away from the station should be enough to ensure there’s no risk of collision, according to Vareha.
“Then, after that, we really are going to just stay in some very benign attitudes and not fire the the thrusters very much at all,” Stich said.
Starliner will need to use the RCS thrusters again to point itself in the proper direction to fire four larger rocket engines for the deorbit burn. Once this burn is complete, the RCS thrusters will reorient the spacecraft to jettison the service module to burn up in the atmosphere. The reusable crew module relies on a separate set of thrusters during reentry.
Finally, the capsule will approach the landing zone in New Mexico from the southwest, flying over the Pacific Ocean and Mexico before deploying three main parachutes and airbags to cushion its landing at White Sands. Boeing and NASA teams there will meet the spacecraft and secure it for a road voyage back to Kennedy Space Center in Florida for refurbishment.
Meanwhile, engineers must resolve the causes of the thruster problems and helium leaks that plagued the Starliner test flight before it can fly astronauts again.
Enlarge/ The second stage of the New Glenn rocket rolled to the launch site this week.
Blue Origin
NASA and Blue Origin announced Friday that they have agreed to delay the launch of the ESCAPADE mission to Mars until at least the spring of 2025.
The decision to stand down from a launch attempt in mid-October was driven by a deadline to begin loading hypergolic propellant on the two small ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft. While it is theoretically possible to offload fuel from these vehicles for a future launch attempt, multiple sources told Ars that such an activity would incur significant risk to the spacecraft.
Forced to make a call on whether to fuel, NASA decided not to. Although the two spacecraft were otherwise ready for launch, it was not clear the New Glenn rocket would be similarly ready to go.
Waiting on the rocket
NASA procured the debut launch of the New Glenn rocket, which was developed by Blue Origin, for a significant discount. The mission’s managers, University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, always understood there were timeline risks with launching on New Glenn.
Blue Origin appears to have worked with some urgency this year to prepare the massive rocket for its initial launch. However, when the company missed a key target of hot firing the rocket’s upper stage by the end of August, NASA delayed fueling of the ESCAPADE mission. Now, with the closing of a Mars launch window next month, NASA will not fuel the spacecraft until next spring, at the earliest.
Founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin successfully rolled the New Glenn second stage to its launch pad at Launch Complex-36 in Florida on Tuesday. The company is now targeting Monday, September 9, for a hot fire test of the second stage.
At the same time, preparations for the rocket’s first stage are nearing completion. All seven of the rocket’s BE-7 engines have arrived at the launch site following acceptance testing. Engineers and technicians are presently attaching the engines to the first stage of the vehicle.
Blue Origin will now pivot to launching a prototype of its Blue Ring transfer vehicle on the debut launch of New Glenn, with the intent of testing the electronics, avionics, and other systems on the vehicle. Blue Origin is targeting the first half of November for this launch. This test flight will also serve as the first of three “certification” flights for New Glenn, which will allow the vehicle to become eligible to carry national security payloads for the US Space Force.
A sense of urgency
It’s nearly been a year since Bezos tapped a former Amazon executive, Dave Limp, to lead Blue Origin. Bezos tasked the company’s new chief executive with injecting a sense of purpose toward getting New Glenn flying as soon as possible. Bezos has made a launch this year a high priority.
In an email to Blue Origin employees on Friday, Limp expressed that sense of urgency.
“We can’t take our foot off the pedal here,” Limp wrote. “Everyone’s work to get us to NG-1 flight this year is critical and I’m so appreciative of everyone’s relentless dedication to make this happen.”
As for ESCAPADE, the mission could launch in the spring of 2025. Although the “Mars window” only opens every 18 to 24 months, there are complex trajectories by which a payload launched in the spring of 2025 could reach the red planet. It’s also possible that NASA and Blue Origin could ultimately wait until the next Mars window opens in November 2026 to launch the mission.
Enlarge/ A “selfie” photo of China’s Zhurong rover and the Tianwen-1 landing platform on Mars in 2021.
China plans to launch two heavy-lift Long March 5 rockets with elements of the Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission in 2028, the mission’s chief designer said Thursday.
In a presentation at a Chinese space exploration conference, the chief designer of China’s robotic Mars sample return project described the mission’s high-level design and outlined how the mission will collect samples from the Martian surface. Reports from the talk published on Chinese social media and by state-run news agencies were short on technical details and did not discuss any of the preparations for the mission.
Public pronouncements by Chinese officials on future space missions typically come true, but China is embarking on challenging efforts to explore the Moon and Mars. China aims to land astronauts on the lunar surface by 2030 in a step toward eventually building a Moon base called the International Lunar Research Station.
Liu Jizhong, chief designer of the Tianwen-3 mission, did not say when China could have Mars samples back on Earth. In past updates on the Tianwen-3 mission, the launch date has alternated between 2028 and 2030, and officials previously suggested the round-trip mission would take about three years. This would suggest Mars rocks could return to Earth around 2031, assuming an on-time launch in 2028.
NASA, meanwhile, is in the middle of revamping its architecture for a Mars sample return mission in cooperation with the European Space Agency. In June, NASA tapped seven companies, including SpaceX and Blue Origin, to study ways to return Mars rocks to Earth for less than $11 billion and before 2040, the cost and schedule for NASA’s existing plan for Mars sample return.
That is too expensive and too long to wait for Mars sample return, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in April. Mars sample return is the highest priority for NASA’s planetary science division and has been the subject of planning for decades. The Perseverance rover currently on Mars is gathering several dozen specimens of rock powder, soil, and Martian air in cigar-shaped titanium tubes for eventual return to Earth.
This means China has a shot at becoming the first country to bring pristine samples from Mars back to Earth, and China doesn’t intend to stop there.
“If all the missions go as planned, China is likely to become the first country to return samples from Mars,” said Wu Weiren, chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program, in a July interview with Chinese state television. “And we will explore giant planets, such as Jupiter. We will also explore some of the asteroids, including sample return missions from an asteroid, and build an asteroid defense system.”
The asteroid sample return mission is known as Tianwen-2, and is scheduled for launch next year. Tianwen means “questions to heaven.”
China doesn’t have a mission currently on Mars gathering material for its Tianwen-3 sample return mission. The country’s first Mars mission, Tianwen-1, landed on the red planet in May 2021 and deployed a rover named Zhurong. China’s space agency hasn’t released any update on the rover since 2022, suggesting it may have succumbed to the harsh Martian winter.
So, the Tianwen-3 mission must carry everything it needs to land on Mars, collect samples, package them for return to Earth, and then launch them from the Martian surface back into space. Then, the sample carrier will rendezvous with a return vehicle in orbit around Mars. Once the return spacecraft has the samples, it will break out of Mars orbit, fly across the Solar System, and release a reentry capsule to bring the Mars specimens to the Earth.
All of the kit for the Tianwen-3 mission will launch on two Long March 5 rockets, the most powerful operational launcher in China’s fleet. One Long March 5 will launch the lander and ascent vehicle, and another will propel the return spacecraft and Earth reentry capsule toward Mars.
Liu, Tianwen-3’s chief designer, said an attempt to retrieve samples from Mars is the most technically challenging space exploration mission since the Apollo program, according to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency. Liu said China will adhere to international agreements on planetary protection to safeguard Mars, Earth, and the samples themselves from contamination. The top scientific goal of the Tianwen-3 mission is to search for signs of life, he said.
Tianwen-3 will collect samples with a robotic arm and a subsurface drill, and Chinese officials previously said the mission may carry a helicopter and a mobile robot to capture more diverse Martian materials farther away from the stationary lander.
Liu said China is open to putting international payloads on Tianwen-3 and will collaborate with international scientists to analyze the Martian samples the mission returns to Earth. China is making lunar samples returned by the Chang’e 5 mission available for analysis by international researchers, and Chinese officials have said they anticipate a similar process to loan out samples from the far side of the Moon brought home by the Chang’e 6 mission earlier this year.
Enlarge/ The Artemis II Orion spacecraft being prepared for tests at NASA’S Kennedy Space Center in Florida in June 2024.
NASA / Rad Sinyak
Now that NASA has resolved the question of the Starliner spacecraft and its two crew members on the International Space Station, the agency faces another high-stakes human spaceflight decision.
The choice concerns the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield and whether NASA will make any changes before the Artemis II mission that will make a lunar flyby. Although Starliner has garnered a lot of media attention, this will be an even higher-profile decision for NASA, with higher consequences—four astronauts will be on board, and hundreds of millions, if not billions of people, will be watching humanity’s first deep space mission in more than five decades.
The issue is the safety of the heat shield, located at the base of the capsule, which protects Orion’s crew during its return to Earth. During the Artemis I mission that sent Orion beyond the Moon in late 2022, without astronauts on board, 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.
After assessing the issue for more than a year, NASA convened an “independent review team” to conduct its analysis of NASA’s work. Initially, this review team’s work was due to be completed in June, but its deliberations continued throughout much of the summer, and it only recently concluded.
The team’s findings are not public yet, but NASA essentially faces two choices with the heat shield: It can fly Artemis II with a similar heat shield that Orion used on Artemis I, or the agency can revamp the design and construct a new heat shield, likely delaying Artemis II from its September 2025 launch date for multiple years.
What they’re saying
In recent comments, NASA officials have been relatively tight-lipped when asked how the heat shield issue will be resolved:
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, in an interview with Ars, in early August: “They are still deciding. I’m very confident [in a launch date of September 2025] unless there is the problem with the heat shield. Obviously, that would be a big hit. But I have no indication at this point that the final recommendation is going to be to go with another heat shield.”
NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free, in conversation with Ars, in late August: “That’s on a good path right now.”
NASA Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development, Catherine Koerner, in an interview with Ars in mid-August: “The entire trade space is open. But as far as the actual Artemis II mission, right now, we’re still holding to the September ’25 launch date, knowing that we still have a lot of work to do to close out the heat shield investigation.”
NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Moon to Mars Program Amit Kshatriya to the NASA Advisory Committee in late August: “The independent review team has just wrapped up their analysis, so I expect that to close out. We should have a disposition there in terms of how they incorporate those findings.”
In summary, the Independent Review Team’s work is done, and it has begun to brief NASA officials. A final decision will then be made by NASA’s senior leadership.
What happens now
In preparation for Artemis II, the Orion spacecraft underwent thermal and vacuum testing this year before it will be stacked onto the Space Launch System rocket. Initially, NASA planned to begin the stacking process this month but ultimately delayed this until there was clarity on the heat shield question. The shield is already attached to the spacecraft.
Most people Ars spoke to believe NASA will likely fly with the heat shield as is. Sources have indicated that NASA engineers believe the best way to preserve the heat shield during Artemis II is by changing its trajectory through Earth’s atmosphere.
The inspector general’s report May 1 included new images of Orion’s heat shield.
NASA Inspector General
During Artemis I, the spacecraft followed a “skip” reentry profile, in which Orion dipped into the atmosphere, skipped back into space, and then made a final descent into the atmosphere. This allowed for precise control over Orion’s splashdown location and reduced g-forces on the vehicle. There are other options, including a ballistic reentry, with a steeper trajectory that is harder on the crew in terms of gravitational forces, and a direct reentry, which involves a miniature skip.
A steeper trajectory would allow Orion’s heat shield to be exposed to atmospheric heating and air resistance for a shorter period of time. NASA engineers believe that the cracking issues observed during Artemis I were due to the duration of exposure to atmospheric heating. So less time—theoretically—means that there would be less damage observed during the reentry of Orion during Artemis II.
Enlarge/ Image of the New Glenn second stage on its mobile test stand.
Blue Origin
Blue Origin plans to enter the final phase of its launch preparations for the New Glenn rocket on Monday by rolling the vehicle’s second stage to Launch Complex 36 in Florida. Pending weather and other final considerations, a rollout could occur as early as Monday afternoon.
This is the flight version of the vehicle, with the exception of a fixed adaptor for weather protection during a test campaign. The launch company is targeting a hot fire test of the upper stage, which is powered by two BE-3U engines, within the next week or so.
The launch company, founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, is closing in on the debut launch of the massive New Glenn rocket, which will be one of the most powerful launch vehicles in the world. With a fully reusable first stage, New Glenn has a lift capacity of 45 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.
A tight launch window
NASA has contracted with Blue Origin for the first launch of New Glenn, seeking to boost two relatively small spacecraft to Mars. These ESCAPADE orbiters have a tight launch window, from October 13 to October 21. Managed by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, the ESCAPADE spacecraft will analyze the Martian magnetic field.
It is an open question as to whether Blue Origin can integrate, test, and launch ESCAPADE within the launch window, which opens in less than six weeks. Between now and then the company must successfully test fire the second stage, and then roll the first stage out to the company’s facilities at the Cape Canaveral launch complex.
The company’s plan is to mate the second and first stages of the rocket, and add the payload fairing with the spacecraft inside of it, before conducting a short hot fire test of the first stage. If all goes well, Blue Origin plans to attempt a launch during the October window for ESCAPADE. These spacecraft arrived at the company’s launch facilities a couple of weeks ago.
This seems like an ambitious timeline for the new rocket, as final integration of stages is often where issues are discovered with new launch vehicles. However, Blue Origin has found a new sense or urgency under chief executive Dave Limp, who joined the company in December—hence the frenetic activity with the second stage over the Labor Day holiday weekend in the United States.
The road to commercial heavy lift
Limp led devices and services at Amazon for more than a decade, which included oversight of the Project Kuiper satellite project. In his nine months at Blue Origin, he has prioritized completion and launch of the New Glenn rocket amid a large portfolio of projects at the company.
New Glenn will join SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and Starship rockets as privately developed, heavy lift rockets. Its debut will confirm the trend in US spaceflight toward commercial developed large rockets that can be reused. Both Bezos and SpaceX founder Elon Musk have identified lower cost, rapidly reusable rockets as a key to expanding human activity in outer space. Bezos would like to see mining and other destructive industrial activities moved off world in order to preserve the natural vitality of Earth.
Whether it launches ESCAPADE next month, or some other payload on its debut flight after October, New Glenn will attempt an ambitious drone ship landing of the first stage on its debut launch. Success is unlikely—SpaceX did not manage to land its first Falcon 9 at sea until the 23rd launch of this rocket.
However, Bezos and Blue Origin are determined to gather all of the data possible from New Glenn’s initial flight in order to reach reusability of the larger booster as soon as possible. The attempt, whether successful or not, should make for compelling viewing.
Enlarge/ Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is seen docked at the International Space Station on June 13.
On Saturday NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore noticed some strange noises emanating from a speaker inside the Starliner spacecraft.
“I’ve got a question about Starliner,” Wilmore radioed down to Mission Control, at Johnson Space Center in Houston. “There’s a strange noise coming through the speaker … I don’t know what’s making it.”
Wilmore said he was not sure if there was some oddity in the connection between the station and the spacecraft causing the noise, or something else. He asked the flight controllers in Houston to see if they could listen to the audio inside the spacecraft. A few minutes later, Mission Control radioed back that they were linked via “hardline” to listen to audio inside Starliner, which has now been docked to the International Space Station for nearly three months.
Wilmore, apparently floating in Starliner, then put his microphone up to the speaker inside Starliner. Shortly thereafter, there was an audible pinging that was quite distinctive. “Alright Butch, that one came through,” Mission control radioed up to Wilmore. “It was kind of like a pulsing noise, almost like a sonar ping.”
“I’ll do it one more time, and I’ll let y’all scratch your heads and see if you can figure out what’s going on,” Wilmore replied. The odd, sonar-like audio then repeated itself. “Alright, over to you. Call us if you figure it out.”
A space oddity
A recording of this audio, and Wilmore’s conversation with Mission Control, was captured and shared by a Michigan-based meteorologist named Rob Dale.
It was not immediately clear what was causing the odd, and somewhat eerie noise. As Starliner flies to the space station, it maintains communications with the space station via a radio frequency system. Once docked, however, there is a hardline umbilical that carries audio.
Astronauts notice such oddities in space from time to time. For example, during China’s first human spaceflight int 2003, astronaut Yang Liwei said he heard what sounded like an iron bucket being knocked by a wooden hammer while in orbit. Later, scientists realized the noise was due to small deformations in the spacecraft due to a difference in pressure between its inner and outer walls.
This weekend’s sonar-like noises most likely have a benign cause, and Wilmore certainly did not sound frazzled. But the odd noises are worth noting given the challenges that Boeing and NASA have had with the debut crewed flight of Starliner, including substantial helium leaks in flight, and failing thrusters. NASA announced a week ago that, due to uncertainty about the flyability of Starliner, it would come home without its original crew of Wilmore and Suni Williams.
Starliner is now due to fly back autonomously to Earth on Friday, September 6. Wilmore and Williams will return to Earth next February, flying aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft scheduled to launch with just two astronauts later this month.
Enlarge/ The first stage of the RFA One rocket collapses on its launch pad in Scotland after an aborted test-firing.
Welcome to Edition 7.09 of the Rocket Report! When will SpaceX launch the next test flight of Starship? It certainly doesn’t look to be imminent, with SpaceX ground teams in Texas feverishly working to beef up the launch pad in preparation for an attempt to catch the rocket’s massive Super Heavy booster when it returns to the launch site on the next flight. Meanwhile, the FAA is reviewing SpaceX’s proposal to recover the booster on land for the first time. And on Thursday, a NASA official monitoring SpaceX’s Starship effort said the next test flight was scheduled for launch in the “fall,” suggesting it could be a month or more away. Also, we’ve listed the next three launches as “TBD” (To Be Determined) because SpaceX is waiting for FAA approval to resume Falcon 9 launches following a booster landing failure this week, and the Polaris Dawn mission is on hold due to an unfavorable weather forecast.
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.
Firefly has a new chief executive. Jason Kim, former head of Boeing-owned satellite-maker Millennium Space Systems, has been appointed CEO of Firefly Aerospace effective October 1, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. Kim joins Firefly as the ambitious space transportation startup, which has raised close to $600 million from investors since its 2021 founding, looks to launch a commercial lunar lander for NASA before the end of the year. Firefly is also working on a medium-lift rocket in partnership with Northrop Grumman, with the goal of competing for missions to resupply the International Space Station and launch payloads for the US military and commercial customers.
Kim brings national security chops … At Millennium, Kim shepherded several national security space missions to completion, including Victus Nox, a responsive satellite and launch mission for the US Space Force. Millennium manufactured the satellite for the Victus Nox mission, and Firefly Aerospace successfully launched it on an Alpha rocket just 27 hours after receiving the launch order from the military. This required Millennium and Firefly to integrate the satellite with the Alpha rocket on short notice. Kim replaces Bill Weber, who left the CEO role at Firefly in July after allegations he had an improper relationship with a female employee.
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New Shepard flies again. Blue Origin launched six passengers, including a NASA-sponsored researcher and the youngest woman to fly in space, on a sub-orbital trip out of the lower atmosphere Thursday in the company’s eighth crewed spaceflight, CBS News reports. University of Florida researcher Rob Ferl, philanthropist Nicolina Elrick, adventurer Eugene Grin, Vanderbilt University cardiologist Elman Jahangir, American-Israeli entrepreneur Ephraim Rabin, and University of North Carolina senior Karsen Kitchen lifted off from Jeff Bezos’ West Texas launch site on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. Kitchen became the youngest woman to fly higher than 100 kilometers (62 miles), and Ferl was the first NASA-funded researcher to fly on a suborbital rocket. Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, its competitor in the suborbital human spaceflight market, have long touted their vehicles’ ability to support human-tended research in microgravity.
Three good chutes … This was Blue Origin’s first New Shepard flight since May 19, when one of the crew capsule’s three main parachutes failed to open fully on the descent. The passengers on that flight were fine, and Blue Origin says the capsule can return safely with just a single parachute if two fail. Blue Origin said it identified the cause of the parachute issue on the May flight, but didn’t offer details other than that the investigation “focused on the dis-reefing system that transitions the parachutes from the reefed to the disreefed state that did not function as designed on one of the three parachutes on NS-25,” Space News reports.
ABL’s rocket test failure damaged ground systems. A fiery malfunction on an Alaska launch pad last month not only destroyed the RS1 rocket ABL Space Systems was preparing for launch, but also damaged some ground systems at the site, ABL said in an update posted on X. The company said a fire developed “external to RS1’s base” after the booster’s 11 engines shut down during an aborted test-firing at Kodiak Island, Alaska. The fire was fed by fuel leaks from two of the engines, and ABL’s launch team was able to use water and inert gases to suppress the fire for more than 11 minutes. But the remote launch site doesn’t have a direct water supply, and mobile water tanks ran dry, causing the fire to grow until the rocket collapsed. ABL said a majority of the plumbing and electrical connections to the launch mount were damaged, but the launch mount’s structure, flame deflector, and other equipment were unharmed.
Few details on next steps … ABL published a detailed update on its investigation into the test failure, and its openness is worth noting. Engineers found two of the engines—the ones that leaked and fueled the fire—experienced “combustion instability” during their startup sequence. ABL said it believes differences in this RS1 rocket, called a Block 2 design, resulted in a higher-energy startup than expected. The company will return its damaged ground support equipment from Alaska to a facility in Long Beach, California, for refurbishment, and ABL says its next RS1 rocket is “well into production.” But the company didn’t share any information on corrective actions or a timeline for implementing them and returning to the launch pad with RS1. ABL aims to compete with other, more established small satellite launch companies like Rocket Lab and Firefly Aerospace, but its RS1 rocket hasn’t made it far from the launch pad. ABL’s first orbital launch attempt in January 2023 ended when the RS1 rocket lost power and fell back on its launch pad.
