Rocket Report: Astra warns of “imminent” bankruptcy; Falcon Heavy launch delay

Welcome to Edition 6.33 of the Rocket Report! If you check the "next three launches" list below you'll see that all three are for Falcon 9 rockets. That's not the first time this has happened this year, nor will it likely be the last. It's starting to look like SpaceX might actually come close to its target of 150 launches this year—a remarkable cadence.

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.

India building a second spaceport. The Indian Space Research Organisation, ISRO, has received the go-ahead to construct a new spaceport in Tamil Nadu, with which it aims to help private players launch small rockets, Tech Crunch reports. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the spaceport, located on an island named Kulasekharapatnam off the southern state of Tamil Nadu. This will be the country's second spaceport after the space agency’s existing Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

Easier path to the poles ... The spaceport will be dedicated to launching smaller launch vehicles and will be ready in about two years. Spread over 2,350 acres, the Kulasekharapatnam spaceport will help save propellant for small rocket launches, as the port can launch rockets directly south over the Indian Ocean without requiring crossing landmasses. This is unlike the existing launch site at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, which adds more fuel requirement for launching into a polar orbit as rockets need to follow a curved path to the south to avoid Sri Lanka’s landmass. (submitted by Joey S-IVB)

Astra founders warn of "imminent bankruptcy." The founders of satellite propulsion and launch vehicle company Astra have sharply cut their offer to take the company private, warning of “imminent bankruptcy” if the company doesn’t accept their new proposal, Space News reports. In a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Tuesday, Astra released a letter sent three days earlier to a special committee of the company’s board of directors from Chris Kemp and Adam London, the chief executive and chief technology officer, slashing by two-thirds their offer to buy outstanding shares of the publicly traded company.

Pray I don't alter it further ... In November, Kemp and London proposed to buy Astra shares at $1.50, approximately double their price at the time they announced the deal. In the new proposal, they are offering only $0.50 per share. Kemp and London cited several reasons for cutting the share price. They included continued cash burn by the company since they tendered the original offer and higher “non-operating expenses” as the company used multiple third-party advisers to assess options. Under the revised proposal, Kemp and London said they anticipated raising $45 million overall to take Astra private, of which $7.7 million would go to shareholders. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

RFA reveals plans for SaxaVord spaceport. An environmental report published by the UK Civil Aviation Authority has provided greater insight into Rocket Factory Augsburg’s proposed operations at SaxaVord Spaceport in Scotland, European Spaceflight reports. The report details a plan for RFA to conduct up to 10 launches per year from SaxaVord, which would account for one-third of the spaceport’s total budget of 30 orbital launches per year.

More engines, please ... Because of the local bird population, RFA will be unable to conduct launches or static fire tests between mid-May and the end of June. The company will also be limited to a maximum of two launches per month. The rocket's design is also changing. Significantly, the 21-meter first stage will now be equipped with 13 Helix engines producing 1,300 kilonewtons of thrust instead of just nine engines, as previously stated by the company. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Firefly expanding rapidly in Central Texas. The company held a ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday celebrating the expansion of its rocket production facility from 92,000 to 207,000 sq ft to support its “launch, land, orbit” initiatives, Payload reports. There is a lot happening at the company that, to date, has built the Alpha rocket. In one building, engineers were fine-tuning the company’s next-generation Miranda engine. A short walk to the next building revealed the construction of the new Medium Launch Vehicle/Antares 330 rocket. Nearby, the Elytra spacecraft was being developed, and down the road, engineers were putting the finishing touches on the Blue Ghost lunar lander.

Recycling the MLV ... Of most interest to a newsletter about rockets is the new rocket. The Medium Launch Vehicle will incorporate a new first stage built by Firefly, with seven Miranda engines. It will be capable of lifting 16 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. And reuse is in the cards—eventually. "Anyone who comes into this market that doesn’t have reusability on their roadmap is a doomed program," said Adam Oakes, Firefly’s VP of launch vehicles. A debut launch is possible as early as 2025. (submitted by EllPeaTea, Ken the Bin, and Jay500001)

Rocket Lab pushing for first Neutron launch. Rocket Lab says it could launch its first Neutron rocket before the end of the year, Space News reports. "Right now, we have a schedule that closes for a launch by the end of the year," Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab, said of Neutron during an earnings call on Wednesday. "But, we’ve got a lot of testing to get through." Beck outlined the progress the company was making on various components of Neutron, such as avionics and structures, as well as the construction of Neutron’s launch pad, Launch Complex 3 on Wallops Island, Virginia.

An aspirational schedule ... However, the company has yet to start hot-fire tests of the Archimedes engine that will power Neutron. Beck said Rocket Lab was completing a test stand for Archimedes at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, allowing it "to support an engine by the end of March," but did not disclose when the company expected to start firing the engine on the stand. Later in the call, Adam Spice, Rocket Lab’s chief financial officer, acknowledged a Neutron launch by the end of the year was a “green-light schedule” where there are no problems in the vehicle’s development. I'd be pleasantly surprised if Neutron launches in 2025. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)

Starliner launch is near. We've heard this before, but Boeing appears to be a couple of months from finally launching astronauts into orbit aboard the commercial CST-100 Starliner crew capsule on an Atlas V rocket, Ars reports. It was about two months prior to this mission's previous launch date last July when Boeing and NASA officials decided to put a hold on launch preparations. During their final reviews to certify Starliner for flight nearly a year ago, engineers discovered two technical issues that somehow escaped detection for years. One of these issues involved parts of Starliner's parachute deployment system that did not meet required safety specifications, and another entailed flammable tape inside the spacecraft.

April, probably ... "We’ve worked through a number of issues that delayed the launch from last summer and closed those out," said Steve Stich, manager of NASA's commercial crew program. "We had a successful parachute test in early January, with some modifications to the parachute system to improve the strength of those parachutes. That went well. We reviewed that data." The launch is currently scheduled for April 26, according to NASA's internal schedule. But this launch date is likely to slip a couple of days due to scheduling issues unrelated to Starliner's readiness.

FAA closes Starship "mishap" investigation. A little more than three months after the most recent launch of a Starship vehicle, which ended with both the booster and upper stage being lost in flight, the Federal Aviation Administration has closed its investigation of the mishap, Ars reports. SpaceX must still submit additional information to the FAA, which is responsible for the safety of people and property on the ground before the agency completes its review of an application to launch Starship for a third time. Early to mid-March seems likely for this attempt.

SpaceX also discusses failures during second flight ... In conjunction with Monday's announcement, SpaceX released details for the first time of what happened to cause the November 18 launch to go awry. The Super Heavy booster was lost when one of its engines failed "energetically" during a burn to make a controlled reentry through Earth's atmosphere. The Starship upper stage was lost due to a vent of excess liquid oxygen that resulted in a "combustion event."

Space Force wants to see a good cadence from ULA and Blue. The assistant secretary of the Air Force in charge of Space Force acquisitions, Frank Calvelli, said this week that a top concern for his office this year is the launch tempo of United Launch Alliance. "I think it’s going to be really important for us to watch two amazing companies: ULA and Blue Origin," Calvelli said, according to Space News. "They need to scale." Speaking at the National Security Space Association’s Defense and Intelligence Space Conference, Calvelli applauded the successful inaugural launch last month of ULA’s new Vulcan rocket but emphasized the need for the company to adapt swiftly to a faster-paced launch schedule.

Next step, certification ... The Space Force official noted that ULA is projecting to launch Vulcan at least once a month and ramp up to two launches per month by 2025. Calvelli said that would be a “dramatic change in the culture” of ULA, which has flown only six rockets a year on average over the past five years. Vulcan has to complete one more successful launch to get certified for national security missions. ULA said it expects to be certified before year’s end. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

NASA, SpaceX test Starship docking system. As part of the initial Artemis missions to the Moon, SpaceX's Starship rocket will need to dock with NASA's Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit. The space agency said this week that NASA and SpaceX recently performed qualification testing for the docking system that will help make that possible. The docking system tests for Starship were conducted at the Johnson Space Center over 10 days using a system that simulates contact dynamics between two spacecraft in orbit.

Orion and Gateway ... The testing included more than 200 docking scenarios with various approach angles and speeds. These real-world results using full-scale hardware will validate computer models of the Moon lander’s docking system. This dynamic testing demonstrated that the Starship system could perform a “soft capture” while in the active docking role. Based on SpaceX’s flight-proven Dragon 2 docking system used on missions to the International Space Station, the Starship docking system can be configured to connect the lander to Orion or Gateway. (submitted by Jay500001)

Northrop completes booster segment. Northrop Grumman Corporation completed the first Booster Obsolescence and Life Extension (BOLE) motor segment for the next-generation Space Launch System solid rocket booster. The first BOLE demonstration test is scheduled for this year, featuring a full-scale static test with all five segments integrated and horizontally fired in a test bay.

Boosting the boosters ... BOLE adds nearly five metric tons of payload capacity for SLS Block 2 Moon and Mars missions above the enhancements already in work for the SLS Block 1B configuration slated to fly on Artemis IV. The new solid rocket boosters will be used on Block 2, possibly beginning with Artemis IX, when all the recovered and refurbished shuttle-era steel cases have been expended. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Falcon Heavy launch delayed. NASA and SpaceX are now targeting no earlier than May 2024 for the launch of the fourth and final satellite in NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) -R Series, the space agency said Tuesday. The new date allows for additional testing and preparation of a new Falcon Heavy center core booster after a liquid oxygen leak was discovered during routine new booster testing. 

Keeping an eye on the weather ... Lockheed Martin designs, builds, and tests the GOES-R series satellites. L3Harris Technologies provides the primary instrument, the Advanced Baseline Imager, along with the ground system, which includes the antenna system for data reception. (submitted by EllPeaTea)     

Next three launches

March 3: Falcon 9 | Crew-8 | Kennedy Space Center, Fla. | 03:16 UTC

March 3: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-41 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla. | 11:19 UTC

March 4: Falcon 9 | Transporter 10 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 20:04 UTC