Rocket Report: DOJ sues SpaceX; a look inside doomed Spaceport Camden

Welcome to Edition 6.08 of the Rocket Report! The US Department of Justice is taking SpaceX to court over allegations of hiring discrimination, but the government is relying more than ever on SpaceX's technical prowess. Once again, Elon Musk's social media posts are part of the story. This week, we also cover the successes and struggles of small rockets, where Rocket Lab is leading the pack.

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.

12 pm ET update: The list of upcoming launches at the bottom of the Rocket Report has been updated to reflect the Crew-7, Starlink 6-11, and H-IIA launch delays.

Rocket Lab re-flies engine after ocean splashdown. Rocket Lab launched its 40th Electron mission this week and achieved an important milestone in its quest to reuse orbital rockets, Ars reports. As part of the mission, the launch company reused a previously flown Rutherford engine on its first stage for the first time. In terms of orbital rockets, only NASA's space shuttle and SpaceX's Falcon 9 vehicles have demonstrated the capability of re-flying an engine. With Rutherford, Rocket Lab has now also flown a rocket engine that landed in the ocean for the first time.

Reuse no longer an anomaly ... What seems clear, with the re-flight of this engine, is that the industry's adoption of reusable rockets is accelerating. Whereas SpaceX was the anomaly in 2015 when it first landed an orbital booster and then flew a first stage for the second time in 2017, the company is now not alone. Nearly every commercial development program for medium- and heavy-lift rockets in the world today has a component of reusability, whether for the first-stage engines or for the entire vehicle itself. Rocket Lab is developing a new medium-class rocket called Neutron with recoverable and reusable booster stages. (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)

Astra's CEO says his company can weather current struggles. Chris Kemp, Astra's co-founder and CEO, recently spoke with Ars about the company's financial predicament. Astra has slowed development of its new small-class launch vehicle, called Rocket 4, and recently announced layoffs as it cuts expenditures, searches for money, and tries to boost its struggling stock price.

Astra is not Virgin Orbit ... Kemp argues that Astra finds itself in a different position than Virgin Orbit, a small satellite launch company that went bankrupt earlier this year. Astra has diversified and can lean on a separate source of revenue in a promising business building electric thrusters for small satellites. This business, which Astra calls spacecraft engines, was made possible by acquiring Apollo Fusion in 2021. "I could characterize the launch business at Astra as fighting for its survival, but I wouldn’t characterize Astra as fighting for its survival," Kemp says.

Another North Korean launch failure. The second flight of North Korea's Chollima 1 rocket faltered before reaching orbit Thursday with a small military spy satellite, Space News reports. The failure occurred during a third-stage flight on Thursday's mission, which came about three months after the first launch of the Chollima 1 failed in May during an earlier stage of flight. Debris from the Chollima 1 rocket crashed into an undisclosed location east of the Philippines, according to South Korea’s military. North Korea's state-run news agency said Thursday's launch failed "due to an error in the emergency blasting system," apparently a reference to the rocket's flight termination system or destruct mechanism.

Picking up the pieces ... South Korea's military said a search operation is underway, in collaboration with the US military, to retrieve debris from the rocket. The recovery will allow intelligence analysts to evaluate North Korea's space technology. South Korea's military said in July that debris recovered from the first Chollima 1 launch failure in May indicated that North Korean technology had "no military utility as a reconnaissance satellite at all." North Korea's state-run news agency said the country will make another satellite launch attempt in October.

A spaceport saga in Georgia. Officials in Camden County, Georgia, have tried to lure companies to launch rockets there for the better part of a decade. But faced with opposition from local residents citing environmental, safety, and funding concerns, the project never got off the ground. Voters rejected the project in a 2022 referendum. County officials still tried to move forward with the spaceport initiative after the failed referendum, but Georgia's Supreme Court ruled in February that the county had to abide by the voters' wishes.

Who benefitted from Spaceport Camden? ... The fallout from the spaceport project isn't over yet. Under pressure from lawsuits and from some of its own elected officials and residents, Camden County has started to release records about the $12 million in taxpayer money it spent on the canceled spaceport project, according to The Current, an independent news organization that covers coastal Georgia. That's a good chunk of change for a county with a population of about 55,000 people, and the county has nothing to show for it. Payments dating back to 2013 show contracts and service agreements between the county and spaceport consultants, lawyers, engineers, and publicists, among others.

European spaceplane testing on tap this fall. A demonstration vehicle developed by the German startup POLARIS Spaceplanes could be soaring over the waters of the Baltic Sea during a three-month window opening in September, European Spaceflight reports. POLARIS received approval from the German government to use restricted airspace over the Baltic Sea for atmospheric tests of the company's MIRA spaceplane demonstrator, a remote-controlled vehicle measuring about 4.25 meters long.

A comeback for aerospikes? ... The MIRA spaceplane is the fourth in a series of five demonstrator vehicles developed by POLARIS. POLARIS says MIRA will be the very first aerospace vehicle to be powered by a linear aerospike rocket engine during flight. Aerospike engines are rocket engines that are designed to operate efficiently at all altitudes. They've been around a while and would have been used on NASA's X-33 spaceplane and the proposed VentureStar single stage to orbit vehicle, both of which were canceled more than 20 years ago. The POLARIS demonstrators will be followed by AURORA, a multipurpose spaceplane and hypersonic transport system. With an initial test flight scheduled for 2026, AURORA will be capable of delivering up to 1,000 kilograms to low-Earth orbit using an expendable upper stage. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

The US government is suing SpaceX. The Justice Department announced Thursday it is suing SpaceX for allegedly discriminating against asylum seekers and refugees in hiring, Reuters reports. DOJ alleged in a statement that, from at least September 2018 to May 2022, "SpaceX routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status, in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act." The lawsuit alleges that SpaceX wrongly claimed federal regulations known as "export control laws" limited the company's hiring to only US citizens and lawful permanent residents, or "green card holders." Asylees and refugees stand on equal footing with US citizens and lawful permanent residents under export control laws and are permitted to access export-permitted information and materials, according to the Justice Department.

Elon Musk's social media posts are again under the microscope ... The lawsuit cited a June 2020 post on X, formerly called Twitter, by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to his then 36 million followers that said: "US law requires at least a green card to be hired at SpaceX, as rockets are advanced weapons technology." DOJ also alleges that SpaceX recruiters also "actively discouraged" asylees and refugees from seeking jobs at the company. These positions are not just engineers and managers who require advanced degrees but range from welders and crane operators to cooks and baristas, DOJ said. In the suit, the Justice Department says it is seeking "fair consideration and back pay for asylees and refugees who were deterred or denied employment at SpaceX," along with "civil penalties in an amount to be determined by the court and policy changes" at the company.

SpaceX launching astronauts again this week. An international crew of four from the United States, Denmark, Japan, and Russia will strap into a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft on top of a Falcon 9 rocket early Saturday for liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Ars reports. They're heading to the International Space Station for a half-year in orbit. Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX's vice president for build and flight reliability, said SpaceX and NASA managers cleared the Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket for the crew launch after discussing several technical issues, mostly involving valves.

Those pesky valves ... Faulty valves are a widespread concern across the space industry, responsible for lengthy delays in Boeing's Starliner crew capsule program and various other failures and malfunctions. SpaceX isn't immune to valve problems, but the company can recover from them more quickly. An isolation valve in the propulsion system of a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule became stuck during a June resupply mission to the space station, and a valve caused a liquid oxygen leak on a recent SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch. These issues didn't threaten the success of those missions and have now been resolved to the satisfaction of SpaceX and NASA managers before the upcoming astronaut launch.

Rocket Lab pushing ahead with Neutron rocket. Despite an enviable success record with its light-class Electron booster, Rocket Lab's future in the launch business lies with the medium-lift Neutron vehicle. Rocket Lab is still working toward a 2024 launch date for the first Neutron test flight, but the company's CEO, Peter Beck, recently told Ars he is realistic about the potential for delays, especially with the upcoming second-stage tank tests and development work to complete on the Archimedes engine. "The rubber is going to hit the road in the next six months after we get some of these big tests under our belt," Beck said. "We are certainly going to try to have something on the launch pad in 2024, but you know, it’s a rocket program."

Design changes ... Rocket Lab recently released an updated rendering of the Neutron rocket. It shows a slightly sleeker version of Neutron, with a more pointy nose, fins nearer to the top of the rocket, and much broader landing legs. These design changes will improve the aerodynamics of the reusable first-stage booster during its descent back through the atmosphere, optimize the performance of Neutron's single-use upper stage, and allow for more reliable barge landings of the first stage downrange from the launch site.

ULA set to launch first Atlas V rocket in 10 months. United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket, once a workhorse in the launch industry, hasn't flown since last November. But an Atlas V is being prepared for liftoff on August 29 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with a space surveillance payload for the National Reconnaissance Office and US Space Force. This is one of 19 Atlas V rockets left in ULA's inventory, most of which are reserved for launches of Amazon's Kuiper broadband constellation and Boeing's Starliner crew capsule. The Vulcan rocket will replace the Atlas V.

Silent Barker ... The payload on this Atlas V rocket will head into geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator, where it will monitor other objects in orbit to augment tracking coverage currently provided by ground-based sensors and satellites in low-Earth orbit. The semi-classified mission is designated NROL-107, or "SILENTBARKER." Ars will have a full report on this mission next week.

SpaceX launches 100th Starlink mission. After delays caused by Hurricane Hilary, SpaceX launched its 100th Starlink mission on Tuesday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, Spaceflight Now reports. A Falcon 9 rocket deployed 21 second-generation Starlink broadband satellites into orbit, and the Falcon 9's first-stage booster returned to landing on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean. This was the 100th Falcon 9 with the primary mission of deploying Starlink satellites since the first Starlink launch in 2019. A few more Falcon 9 launches have carried Starlink satellites as secondary payloads.

No slowing down ... SpaceX has now launched 4,983 Starlink satellites, including prototypes, according to Jonathan McDowell, a respected astrophysicist who tracks spaceflight activity. That number will rise above 5,000 with SpaceX's next Starlink launch on a Falcon 9 rocket, scheduled for Saturday night. McDowell's statistics indicate SpaceX has more than 4,600 Starlink satellites currently in orbit, while the rest have re-entered the atmosphere at the end of their operational lives. That's seven times more satellites than the second-biggest constellation of spacecraft in orbit, owned by OneWeb, but numbers aren't everything. OneWeb's satellites fly at higher altitudes and aren't focused on consumer-grade connectivity, meaning that the company requires fewer spacecraft for global Internet coverage. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Booster 9 back on the launch pad. SpaceX has moved the Super Heavy booster for the next Starship test flight back to its launch pad in South Texas for more testing. This may be the final time this Super Heavy rocket, numbered Booster 9, rolls out to the pad before the second full-scale test launch of the Starship rocket, NASA Spaceflight reports. SpaceX may be preparing for another static-fire test of the booster's 33 engines after some shut down prematurely during a previous test firing on August 6. While Super Heavy was back at the hangar, SpaceX installed a ring-shaped structure on top of the booster to enable a "hot staging" technique that will be used on the upcoming test flight.

Launch next month? ... A US Coast Guard notice to mariners to keep out of part of the Gulf of Mexico near SpaceX's launch site was published Wednesday, suggesting the Starship test launch could occur around September 8, but take that with a grain (a block?) of salt. One week ago, a similar notice to mariners suggested the launch might happen on August 31. These notices are just placeholders until SpaceX is ready for launch from a technical standpoint and the Federal Aviation Administration issues SpaceX a launch license after reviewing the company's investigation into the first Starship test flight in April. However, Ars believes there's a fair chance SpaceX could attempt a Starship launch in September. Stay tuned for more updates on Starship testing and the FAA's review. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

SLS launch platform on the move. NASA's repaired and upgraded mobile launch platform recently moved back to its launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center, Ars reports. This marks a transition from refurbishment after the launch of the Artemis I mission last year into preparations for Artemis II—the Moon program's first flight with astronauts. Repairs and upgrades to the mobile launch platform after the Artemis I launch are now largely complete, and NASA will now test the giant structure at the launch pad to make sure it's ready for stacking of the Space Launch System rocket early next year.

Roadmap ... The launch of the Artemis II mission to send astronauts around the far side of the Moon is officially scheduled for no sooner than November 2024, but it's likely to slip into 2025. Right now, NASA plans to start stacking the SLS rocket's solid-fueled boosters in February of next year, followed by stacking of the core stage around April, then install the upper stage. At that point, perhaps in summer or fall of 2024, NASA will either add the Orion crew capsule to the rocket and then roll the entire rocket to the pad for a countdown dress rehearsal or perform the cryogenic tanking test without the Orion spacecraft on top. That all depends on the readiness of the Orion spacecraft, which NASA says is currently driving the Artemis II launch schedule.

Next three launches

August 26: Falcon 9 | Crew-7 | Kennedy Space Center, Florida | 07:27 UTC

August 27: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-11 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 01:05 UTC

August 28: H-IIA | XRISM & SLIM | Tanegashima Space Center, Japan | 00:26 UTC