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Welcome to Edition 8.38 of the Rocket Report! The big news this week concerned the third launch of the New Glenn rocket. The first 15 minutes of the flight were exhilarating for Blue Origin, seeing a previously flown rocket take flight and then triumphantly land on a barge at sea. But then the highest of highs was ed by the company’s first loss of an orbital payload, the AST SpaceMobile satellite being injected into a low orbit due to an upper stage failure. We’ve heard it was due to a valve problem, but that would be no scoop as it seems it’s always the valves that fail in this industry.
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.
Canada’s spaceport plans are not without critics. About a month ago, the Canadian National Defense Minister, David McGuinty, announced an “historic investment” of $200 million over 10 years to Maritime Launch Services for the lease of a dedicated “space launch pad” in Nova Scotia. But some local residents, including Marie Lumsden, are pushing back. Writing in the Halifax Examiner, Lumsden s a photo of a small concrete pad at the end of a gravel road (the entirety of the spaceport). The residents have formed a group, Action Against the Canso Spaceport, because they have “genuine concerns about this project and the people behind it.”
A litany of concerns … The article outlines some of the organization’s concerns about the spaceport, Maritime Launch Services, and a “revolving door” of team members. There are also questions about an environmental assessment by the Nova Scotia Environment and Climate Change regarding the environmental risks of launching a Ukrainian rocket with a mix of UDMH/LOX/kerosene fuels. “This project was approved by an utterly inappropriate and broken environmental assessment process whose outcome, despite the outcry of NSECC staff, is determined by lobbyists, unscrupulous proponents, and their friends in high political places,” Lumsden. (submitted by Adapheon)
Rocket Lab launches “origami” satellite. An Electron rocket on Thursday launched the Japanese space agency’s Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration-4 mission, which aims to test advanced space tech developed by startups and universities, The Independent reports. Among the payloads was a small 10 cm cube that unfolds to a 2.5-meter array.
A lot of unfolding … Rocket Lab’s name for the mission, its second for JAXA, was “Kakushin Rising.” JAXA describes the 10cm cube as “an unprecedentedly lightweight and highly packable deployable array antenna for space, with antenna elements attached to a two-layer deployable membrane that can be folded using origami techniques.” It sounds pretty cool.
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Astrobotic tests rotating detonation engine. Astrobotic on Thursday announced the successful hot fire testing of its Chakram rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Two Chakram engine prototypes completed eight successful hot-fire tests, accumulating more than 470 seconds of total run time without any discernible damage to the engine hardware, the company said. The campaign included a 300-second continuous burn, which is believed to have set the record for the longest duration hot firing of an RDRE engine to date.
Plans to incorporate over time … During testing, each engine produced more than 4,000 pounds of thrust, making Chakram one of the most powerful such engines ever demonstrated. This successful test campaign represents an important milestone in Astrobotic’s development of rotating detonation rocket engines to improve the performance and payload capacity of its spacecraft. Astrobotic plans to incorporate this state-of-the-art propulsion technology into future vehicles, including Griffin-class lunar landers, Xodiac- and Xogdor-class reusable rockets, and an orbital transfer vehicle currently in development.
SpaceX eyes financial future as an AI company. Reuters reviewed the forthcoming S-1 regulatory filing for SpaceX, in which companies disclose their financials and key risks before going public, and there were some eye-opening details. SpaceX estimates that its total addressable market—the maximum revenue a company could generate if it captured every customer in a particular market—could be as much as $28.5 trillion.
But where money does that come from? … SpaceX expects more than 90 percent of that market, or $26.5 trillion, to stem from the AI sector. The vast majority of that, $22.7 trillion, could come from AI for businesses. The company is moving ahead with an IPO expected this summer targeting a valuation of roughly $1.75 trillion and seeking to raise about $75 billion, which would make it the largest initial public offering in history. “We believe we have identified the largest actionable total addressable market in human history,” according to the filing.
Falcon boosters have now landed 600 times. SpaceX completed its 600th Falcon booster landing during a Starlink mission Sunday, Spaceflight Now reports. The Starlink 17-22 mission added another 25 broadband Internet satellites into the company’s low Earth orbit constellation that consists of more than 10,200 spacecraft.
Don’t forget the hard-working ships … SpaceX used Falcon 9 first stage booster B1097, which was flying for the seventh time. It previously launched Sentinel-6B, Twilight, and five previous batches of Starlink satellites. A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, B1097 landed on the SpaceX drone ship, “Of Course I Still Love You.” It was the 191st landing on this vessel. Another droneship, “Just Read the Instructions,” will now be dedicated to supporting Starship operations.
Two steps forward, one step back for New Glenn. The third flight of Blue Origin’s heavy-lift New Glenn launcher began Sunday with the company’s first successful reflight of an orbital-class booster, but ended with a setback for Jeff Bezos’ flagship rocket, Ars reports. After the launch, the booster settled onto the ship for a smoky but on-target touchdown less than 10 minutes after liftoff. The landing marked the end of the second flight for this booster, a stunning success for the company.
Second-stage issues … But Blue Origin could not celebrate the achievement for long. Within a couple of hours, it became clear that something went wrong with the mission’s remaining milestones. Blue Origin confirmed New Glenn’s upper stage missed its aim and released its payload, a cellular broadband communications satellite for AST SpaceMobile, into an inaccurate orbit. The satellite later reentered Earth’s atmosphere. The second stage issue will force Blue Origin to stand down New Glenn at a time when NASA needs the vehicle to ramp up operations to support the Artemis Program.
Vulcan issue proves costly to Northrop. Northrop Grumman said Tuesday it had taken a $71 million charge due to an anomaly with a solid rocket booster that grounded the Vulcan Centaur rocket, Space News reports. The problem occurred on a February 12 launch, when one of four GEM 63XL boosters attached to the rocket shed debris about 65 seconds after liftoff.
Payloads waiting to go to space … After the mission, which concluded successfully, United Launch Alliance called the incident a “significant performance anomaly” that would need to be investigated prior to Vulcan’s next flight. This was the second time in four Vulcan missions that a solid rocket booster suffered an issue. The problems have delayed the launch of several payloads for the US Space Force. For more on this, read on.
Space Force may use Vulcan for lower-risk missions. Amid an ongoing investigation into a solid rocket motor anomaly that grounded United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket for US national security missions, the Space Force is exploring options to use the heavy-lift launch vehicle for less complex missions, Aviation Week reports. Since the issue is restricted to the Northrop Grumman-built solid rocket motor, the service is considering flying Vulcan without those boosters, Col. Eric Zarybnisky, acting program acquisition executive for space access, said.
No solids, no problem … The Space Force could launch certain missions without solid rocket boosters that carry lower mass or are bound for lower orbits. For example, the service could launch an upcoming Space Development Agency mission on Vulcan, Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant, Space Systems Command chief, told reporters in a separate briefing. “Essentially, if it doesn’t rely on a solid, there’s no reason why we can’t launch, and I’m committed to supporting that and keeping that mission going,” he said. The Space Force has switched four GPS III missions from a Vulcan rocket to a SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle since December 2024
NASA rolls out Artemis III core stage. NASA said this week it has rolled out the core stage of the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that will launch the crewed Artemis III mission in 2027. The stage departed from the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans on Monday for shipment to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Using highly specialized transporters, engineers maneuvered the top four-fifths of the SLS core stage, the section containing the liquid hydrogen tank, liquid oxygen tank, intertank, and forward skirt, from inside NASA Michoud to the agency’s Pegasus barge.
Launching sometime in 2027 … After the core stage arrives at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, teams will complete the stage outfitting and vertical integration, and the agency’s Exploration Ground Systems Program will stack the rocket’s components in preparation for launch. Next year’s Artemis III mission will launch astronauts to Earth’s orbit aboard the Orion spacecraft on top of SLS to test rendezvous and docking capabilities between Orion and commercial spacecraft needed to land Artemis IV astronauts on the Moon in 2028.
Next three launches
April 25: Long March 6 | Unknown payload | Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, China | 12:15 UTC
April 25: Soyuz 2.1a | Progress MS-34 | Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan | 22:21 UTC
April 26: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17=16 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 14:00 UTC
Eric Berger Senior Space Editor
Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston.
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Arstechnica.com
