Rocket Report: China leaps into rocket reuse; 19 people are currently in orbit

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)

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)

South Korea aspires to have a reusable rocket. The chief of South Korea’s newly established space agency recently unveiled a set of ambitious mid- and long-term projects, including developing a partially reusable rocket capable of sending 1 kilogram of payload to low-Earth orbit for less than $1,000 by the mid-2030s, Space News reports. Yoon Young-bin, administrator of the Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA), didn't offer many details about the new rocket, but he has previously said South Korea planned to develop a small reusable launcher with the capability to send up to 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of payload into orbit.

Can it be done? ... South Korea's plan to develop a light-class partially reusable rocket runs counter to the strategies of nearly every other launch company in the world, which see little economic benefit in reusing boosters for a small orbital-class rocket. Rocket Lab is the only company experimenting with a small reusable booster on its light-class Electron rocket, but officials there are more focused on developing a much larger medium-class partially reusable launch vehicle. Yoon's target of launching a kilogram of payload for $1,000—less than the per-kilogram cost for launching on a SpaceX Falcon 9—on such a small rocket seems a little dubious. Most officials in the launch segment agree it's easier to realize such low costs by aggregating many payloads on a more powerful rocket. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

bluShift test-fires rocket engine in Maine. The small startup rocket company bluShift Aerospace test-fired its newest engine on September 6 on a test stand at an airport in Brunswick, Maine, Maine Public Broadcasting reports. The hybrid rocket engine burns nontoxic, carbon-neutral, bio-derived solid fuel, according to bluShift. Called the Modular Adaptable Rocket Engine for Vehicle Launch (MAREVL), the engine burned for approximately 60 seconds. This was the longest firing by the MAREVL engine, following a previous 20-second burn that reached a peak power setting of 20,000 pounds of thrust. "Tonight’s test represents a major leap toward commercialization of bluShift’s suborbital launch services and represents our unshakable belief that we can bring a more earth-friendly and cost-effective approach to space launch," said Sascha Deri, bluShift's founder and CEO, in a statement.

Aiming for suborbital flights ... Earlier this year, bluShift Aerospace raised $2.3 million from private investors and the Small Business Administration, adding to nearly $4 million in investment the company attracted in earlier rounds, Mainebiz reported in June. bluShift is a modest company, with only about a dozen employees, and it has taken 10 years from its founding in 2014 to achieve a full-duration hot-fire test of its main engine. The company aspires to launch a commercial suborbital rocket next year and eventually wants to field a small satellite launcher. (submitted by Jenming)

SpaceX launches record-setting astronaut mission. A Falcon 9 rocket streaked into the black predawn sky above Florida on Tuesday, carrying four people on the most ambitious private human spaceflight to date, Ars reports. The crew of the Polaris Dawn mission, led by a billionaire pilot named Jared Isaacman, soared to an orbit stretching to an altitude of some 870 miles (1,400 kilometers), higher than any human has flown since the last Apollo mission returned from the Moon in 1972. The five-day flight involves science experiments investigating human health in space, tests of a Starlink terminal on the Dragon spacecraft, public outreach events, and most significantly, the first purely private spacewalk in history.

Walking in the sky ... This spacewalk occurred early Thursday, when Isaacman and one of his crewmates, SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, opened the Dragon spacecraft's forward hatch, floated through the opening, and peered out into the blackness of space. Two other crew members, Scott "Kidd" Poteet and Anna Menon, remained inside Dragon. The capsule doesn't have a separate airlock, so the entire spacecraft was depressurized for the excursion, and all four commercial astronauts wore a newly designed SpaceX-built spacesuit to protect them from the vacuum of space. One of the major goals of the spacewalk was to demonstrate the functionality and mobility of the suit.

Soyuz crew launched to the International Space Station. A NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, launching to the International Space Station aboard a Soyuz ferry ship for a six-month tour of duty, CBS News reports. Space station veteran Donald Pettit, NASA's oldest active-duty astronaut at 69, Soyuz commander Aleksey Ovchinin, and cosmonaut Ivan Vagner blasted off atop a Soyuz-2.1a rocket and reached the space station a little more than three hours later. They will replace two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut who have lived on the station since March and are due to return to Earth later this month.

A human spaceflight record ... The launch boosted the total number of people in orbit at one time to a record 19, flying on four different spacecraft: nine aboard the space station, four aboard the Polaris Dawn Crew Dragon, three aboard China's space station, and three aboard the Soyuz. The previous record was 17 people in orbit at one time, a mark that was set for just one day in May 2023. Pettit, who first flew to the space station in 2002, remarked in a preflight interview on the changes he's observed in human spaceflight since then. "I think space is a hopping place right now," he said. "It is starting to open up like the Wild West, and I think we are going to see an incredible expansion of humans living and working in an orbital environment."

Starship grounded until no earlier than November. The Federal Aviation Administration doesn't expect to approve a launch license for the next test flight of the Starship rocket until at least late November, Ars reports. This is more than two months later than the mid-September timeframe the FAA previously targeted for a decision on a launch license. SpaceX says the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage for the next launch—the fifth full-scale test flight of the Starship program—have been ready to launch since the first week of August. In a sharply worded statement released Tuesday, SpaceX blamed the regulatory delay on "issues ranging from the frivolous to the patently absurd." SpaceX has been fined by the Environmental Protection Agency for environmental violations at the Starship launch site in Texas, which the company denies.

FAA pushes back … One day later, the FAA issued its own statement on the matter. The federal regulator, which is responsible for ensuring launch companies don't endanger public safety and don't unnecessarily damage the environment, said SpaceX already has a Starship launch license it could use for the next flight if the company employed the same vehicle configuration and mission profile. But SpaceX follows an iterative development cycle, with each test flight building on the prior mission. There are modifications to both the rocket and the profile for the next flight, including SpaceX's first attempt to catch the Super Heavy booster back on the launch pad in Texas. This "triggered a more in-depth review" by the FAA, the agency said. "In addition, SpaceX submitted new information in mid-August detailing how the environmental impact of Flight 5 will cover a larger area than previously reviewed. This requires the FAA to consult with other agencies."

NASA pulls Mars probes off New Glenn's first flight. NASA and Blue Origin say that they have agreed to delay the launch of the ESCAPADE mission to Mars until at least spring of 2025, Ars reports. Forced to make a call on whether to fuel the twin ESCAPADE spacecraft, NASA decided not to. Although the two spacecraft were otherwise ready for launch, it was not clear Blue Origin's first heavy-lift New Glenn rocket would be similarly ready to go. 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.

Blue Origin's pivot … 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 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. 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.

Europa Clipper cleared for final launch preps. NASA officials met Monday and approved plans to fuel the Europa Clipper spacecraft for liftoff as soon as October 10 to begin a nearly $5.2 billion flagship mission to explore Jupiter's most enigmatic icy moon. For a while earlier this summer, it looked like Europa Clipper might miss its launch window this year. In May, engineers raised concerns that transistors installed throughout the spacecraft might be susceptible to damage from radiation, an omnipresent threat for any probe whipping its way around Jupiter. Further reviews indicated the spacecraft's transistors can withstand radiation doses around Jupiter without any changes to Europa Clipper's mission profile.

Falcon Heavy ready and waiting ... Europa Clipper will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This will be the first flight of a Falcon Heavy with a payload heading for another planet. Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever built for Solar System exploration, and at some 6 metric tons (13,000 pounds), it will require the full power of the Falcon Heavy to begin its journey toward Jupiter. This means all three Falcon Heavy first stage boosters will drop into the Atlantic Ocean and won't be recovered.

Next three launches

Sept. 13: Falcon 9 | Starlink 9-6 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 01:45 UTC

Sept. 15: Falcon 9 | Galileo FOC FM26 & FM32 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 22:57 UTC

Sept. 16: Electron | Kinéis Killed The RadIOT Star | Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand | 23:02 UTC