Rocket Report: Delta IV’s grand finale; Angara flies another dummy payload

Welcome to Edition 6.39 of the Rocket Report! The big news this week came from United Launch Alliance, and the final mission of its Delta IV Heavy rocket. Both Stephen and I had thoughts about this launch, which is bittersweet, and we expressed them in stories linked below. It's been a little less than 20 years since this big rocket debuted, and interesting to think how very much the launch industry has changed since then.

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.

Rocket Lab to reuse flight tank. On Wednesday Rocket Lab said it is returning a previously flown Electron rocket first stage tank to the production line for the first time in preparation for reflying the stage. The company characterized this as a "significant" milestone as it seeks to make Electron the world's first reusable small rocket. This stage was successfully launched and recovered as part of the ‘Four of a Kind’ mission earlier this year on January 31.

Iterating a path to reuse ... The stage will now undergo final fit out and rigorous qualification for reuse. "Our key priority in pushing this stage back into the standard production flow for the first time is to ensure our systems and qualification processes are fit for accepting pre-flown boosters at scale," said Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck. "If this stage successfully passes and is accepted for flight, we’ll consider opportunities for reflying it in the new year.” (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Virgin Orbit IP for sale on LinkedIn. In a post this week on the social networking site LinkedIn, former Virgin Orbit chief executive Dan Hart said that the Virgin Orbit IP library is being made available for licensing. "The flight-proven LauncherOne IP can accelerate launch and hypersonic system development schedules by years, and enable significant cost savings," Hart wrote. "The innovative designs can also offer component/subsystem providers immediate product line expansion."

Yours for a low, low price ... The IP library includes all manner of goodies, including an FAA-approved flight termination system, the Newton 3 and Newton 4 engines, avionics, structures, and more. Price for access to all IP is $3 million for a nonexclusive license, Hart said. I have no idea whether that's a good price or not.

Virgin Galactic countersues Boeing. Virgin Galactic has filed a countersuit against Boeing over a project to develop a new mothership aircraft, arguing in part that Boeing performed poorly, Space News reports. The suit, filed last week in the US District Court for the Central District of California, comes two weeks after Boeing filed suit against Virgin Galactic, alleging that Virgin refused to pay more than $25 million in invoices on the project and misappropriated trade secrets.

Citing Boeing's own record ... The dispute revolves around a project announced in 2022 to develop a new aircraft that would replace Virgin’s existing VMS Eve as an air-launch platform. Virgin, in its suit, claims that Boeing performed “shoddy and incomplete” work on the initial phases of the project. “Boeing’s failures with respect to its agreement with Virgin Galactic are consistent with Boeing’s record of poor quality control and mismanagement,” the complaint states. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Navy awards contract to Ursa Major. The rocket propulsion startup said Monday it has signed a contract with the United States Navy to develop and test solid fuel rocket engines in an effort to develop a next generation of solid rocket motor for the Navy's standard missile program, Reuters reports. The agreement is part of a series of prototype engine contracts being awarded by the US Navy as it seeks to expand the industrial base for manufacturing them.

Broadening the US supplier base ... The deal comes as the Navy is seeing a surge in missile demand due to the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Yemen and the war in Ukraine. "Our new approach to manufacturing solid rocket motors allows Ursa Major to quickly develop high-performing motors at scale, driving volume and cost efficiencies to address this critical national need," said Ursa Major Founder Joe Laurienti. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Ariane 6 debut may not be totally successful. Speaking during the Space Symposium this week, European Space Agency Director General Josef Aschbacher sought to temper expectations for the debut launch of the Ariane 6 rocket this summer. He explained that the debut flights of larger rockets have a 47 percent chance of experiencing a major anomaly, European Spaceflight reports.

Really can't afford to fail ... While Aschbacher is certainly correct that large rockets have a mixed record in their debuts, the Ariane 6 program has some major advantages. Its first and second stages both have elements of heritage hardware, and the P120C boosters have flown before. Moreover, as the product of a decade-long development program, with a large budget, it would be a major disappointment if Ariane 6 did not complete its first mission. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Digital age coming to US launch ranges. After years of kicking the can down the road on modernization, the US Space Force is now embarking on a comprehensive overhaul of the IT infrastructure used at mission control centers at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, Space News reports. "At Vandenberg, a lot of the infrastructure that’s there was put in place for the Space Shuttle. That’s how old it is," said retired US Air Force Col. Chad Davis, former director of the National Reconnaissance Office’s Office of Space Launch. "They’ve been Band-Aiding it through the years but have never really done any significant overhaul."

Catching up to high cadence ... The digital transformation is intended to enable high operational tempos. With commercial space companies like SpaceX rapidly driving up the launch cadence, these upgrades are long overdue, said Maj. Jason Lowry, deputy director of technology and innovation at the Space Systems Command’s Assured Access to Space program office. "We’re expanding very fast and we’re still using systems that were designed to support single digit launches per year, not triple digit launches per year," he said at a forum hosted by SpaceWERX, the Space Force’s technology arm. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

FAA has no plans to tax launch. A Federal Aviation Administration official said Wednesday that the Biden administration has no plans for the time being to levy taxes on commercial launches, similar to those on airlines, to address the launch industry’s impact on airspace, Space News reports. The Biden administration has previously broached the idea by saying that launch companies were getting a “tax-free ride” by not funding the FAA’s air traffic management work even as launches impose temporary airspace closures that affect aviation.

Still a ways to go ... However Kelvin Coleman, FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation, said that there are no current plans to seek a tax on commercial launches. "At this point, there is no concrete proposal in the president’s budget request," he said at the Space Symposium conference. "There are conversations, there’s things we talked about, but I think there’s still a ways to go before we see something concrete in that regard." The commercial launch industry privately reacted to the report about the tax proposal with surprise and dismay. (submitted by Jay500001)

SpaceX launches new line of rideshare missions. SpaceX launched the first in a new class of dedicated rideshare missions on Sunday, delivering 11 commercial and military satellites into mid-inclination orbits, Space News reports. Unlike SpaceX's existing Transporter missions, which launch payloads into Sun-synchronous orbits commonly used by remote-sensing satellites, the new Bandwagon missions are intended to send payloads to low-Earth orbits at inclinations of about 45 degrees.

Demand is high ... Bandwagon-1 carried 11 satellites, with the largest likely to be a “425 Project” satellite for South Korea’s military. SpaceX says it continues to see strong interest in its rideshare missions, both for Transporter and Bandwagon. “We heard loud and clear from customers they wanted these services,” Stephanie Bednarek, vice president of commercial sales at SpaceX, said during a panel at the Satellite 2024 conference last month. “It’s going great and we’re really happy.” (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)

Relativity remains "confident" in Terran R in 2026. That's according to Josh Brost, chief revenue officer at Relativity Space, which is developing the medium-lift Terran R rocket. He spoke to Space News at the Space Symposium, noting that construction of the vehicle's launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex-16 is underway.

Some help from the military ... Relativity is benefiting from close collaboration with the Space Force, Brost said, which is providing valuable input to ensure the reusable Terran-R can meet stringent requirements. “We are highly motivated by the feedback we continue to get from the Space Force and from customers,” said Brost. “There’s a strong feeling that there just aren’t enough choices or enough competition, particularly in the medium and heavy launch market.” (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Delta IV Heavy bows out in style. In a pair of long stories, Ars marked the final launch of the Delta IV Heavy rocket, built by United Launch Alliance. The first of these recounts the history of the Delta line of rockets and the origins of the Delta IV Heavy more than two decades ago. All but two of the Delta IV Heavy flights launched payloads for the Air Force or the National Reconnaissance Observatory. NASA used the Delta IV Heavy twice for important missions. In 2014, NASA's Orion crew spacecraft launched on a Delta IV Heavy for an unpiloted orbital test flight, and in 2018, NASA's Parker Solar Probe did so.

A fireball lighting the future ... A second article describes the spectacle of watching the massive rocket liftoff, as it always looked like it was about to blow up due to a fireball engulfing the vehicle. This was due to the deliberate ignition of excess hydrogen. Additionally, although it was tremendously expensive, the Delta IV Heavy offered a preview of what the world might look like with the advent of commercial heavy-lift rockets. There was a time, now about 20 years ago, when the Delta IV Heavy was considered the primary launch vehicle for the Orion spacecraft NASA was developing. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

SpaceX planning upgrades to Starship. As part of a 45-minute speech last weekend at the Starbase facility in South Texas, SpaceX founder Elon Musk spoke about the booster for Starship, the upper stage, and the company's plans to ultimately deliver millions of tons of cargo to Mars for a self-sustaining civilization. To meet the company's needs for the Moon and Mars, Ars reports, Starship will get bigger. It will do so primarily by expanding its length. Musk outlined the company's plans for a "Starship 2," capable of launching 100 tons to low-Earth orbit in fully reusable mode, and "Starship 3," with a capacity of 200 or more tons.

A bit bigger than the Falcon 1 ... If this seems unrealistic, consider that SpaceX performed four major block upgrades to the Falcon 9 rocket from 2010 to 2018, more than doubling its performance. The final Starship 3 vehicle will be about 500 feet (150 meters) tall, about 20 percent larger than the current vehicle. This will allow for additional propellant to increase lift capacity. Musk said the company should be able to launch Starships for less than the original price of the Falcon 1 rocket, which was $6 million. Starship would carry 400 times the payload, however.

Angara rocket launches from Vostochny. Russia successfully launched the Angara A5 rocket on a test flight Thursday from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Far East, Reuters reports. This was the third attempt after two last-second launch aborts. Russia began the Angara project shortly after the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union as a Russian-made launch vehicle that would ensure access to space even without the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which Russia rents from Kazakhstan.

Waiting for a long time ... However, progress has been slow. It seems like the vehicle has been in test mode forever. It has been nearly 10 years since Russia launched the first Angara test flights, and this was the fourth test flight of the heaviest version of Angara, A5. Presumably this is the last test flight of the vehicle, which is capable of lifting up to 24.5 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. (submitted by EllPeaTea and Jay50001)

Next three launches

April 13: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-49 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 01:22 UTC

April 15: Long March 2D | Unknown payload | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China | 04:10 UTC

April 17: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-51 | Kennedy Space Center, Florida | 21:24  UTC