Rocket Report: Electron scoops up Virgin launch, ULA flies first 2023 mission

Welcome to Edition 5.43 of the Rocket Report! I am thrilled to announce that Stephen Clark is joining Ars Technica to cover space alongside me. You've already read some of his fine work here in the Rocket Report, as he has been the long-time editor of Spaceflight Now. But now, starting Monday, he'll be writing frequently for Ars and periodically authoring the Rocket Report. Accordingly, after next week, there will no longer be any breaks in this newsletter except for the year-end holidays.

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.

North Star moves from LauncherOne to Electron. Canada’s NorthStar Earth and Space has signed a multi-launch deal with Rocket Lab after Virgin Orbit’s bankruptcy scotched plans to deploy its space situational awareness satellites this summer, Space News reports. Rocket Lab will launch the venture’s first four satellites this fall on an Electron rocket, NorthStar said this week. Spire Global is providing the satellites, each the size of 16 CubeSats.

Wait, Electron has more capacity? ... NorthStar had planned to launch three satellites in its initial batch with Virgin Orbit before the air-launch company fell into bankruptcy in April. Using larger capacity on Electron to deploy more satellites to low-Earth orbit gives its SSA system greater coverage from the outset for early adopters, said NorthStar Chief Operating Officer David Saint-Germain. "We were able to change a negative into a positive," Saint-Germain said. It's interesting to hear that Electron had a larger capacity, as LauncherOne was advertised as having a capacity of 500 kg to low-Earth orbit, compared to 300 kg for Electron. Another reason for Virgin Orbit's troubles, no doubt. (submitted by Ken the Bin and Joey SIV-B)

Rocket Lab completes hypersonic flight. The launch company said this weekend that it successfully launched its first suborbital testbed launch vehicle, called HASTE (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron), for a confidential customer (i.e., almost certainly the US military). The inaugural launch occurred on June 17 from Launch Complex 2 at Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport within NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility.

Lots of tricks up its sleeve ... According to Rocket Lab, the HASTE suborbital launch vehicle is derived from the Electron rocket but has a modified kick stage for hypersonic payload deployment, a larger payload capacity of up to 700 kg, and options for tailored fairings to accommodate larger payloads, including air-breathing, ballistic re-entry, boost-glide, and space-based applications payloads. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

RFA to launch from French Guiana. German company Rocket Factory Augsburg announced this week that it signed a binding term sheet with the French space agency CNES to offer its launch services from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana. The company plans to start flying the RFA One rocket from the ELM-Diamant complex as its second launch site starting in 2025. Previously, RFA has said its debut launch will take place at the SaxaVord spaceport in the northern United Kingdom.

More flexibility beyond polar launches ... "By securing a launch site at the Diamant launch complex, this agreement allows RFA to offer GTO, MEO, GEO, and even lunar and interplanetary flight profiles to its customers," said Jörn Spurmann, chief commercial officer at RFA, in a news release. RFA is one of several launch companies competing in the commercial rocket industry in Europe. None of these companies has launched an orbital test flight, however. (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)

Argentina working on smallsat launcher. The Argentine space agency's development of a small rocket, known as Tronador II, has been an on-again, off-again process. But some progress has recently been made. This week the National Commission for Space Activities and the aerospace development company Veng announced the progress in completing the structural tank prototype of the first stage of the liquid-fueled Tronador II rocket.

Working toward a launch later this decade ... This milestone was carried out at the Punta Indio Space Center, Escenario Mundial reports. The stir-friction welded prototype is 3.5 meters long and 2.5 meters in diameter and made of aluminum 2219. The rocket program has a goal of beginning to launch small satellites from Argentina in 2030. (submitted by fedeng)

Firefly buys Virgin Orbit’s remaining assets. Representatives of the companies said that Firefly agreed to buy items that had not been sold at auction in May for $3.8 million, Space News reports. The assets, designated Segment 5 in bankruptcy proceedings, are the inventory at Virgin Orbit’s two facilities in Long Beach, California. That includes engines and other components built or in production for the LauncherOne vehicles that Virgin Orbit manufactured there. It also includes two engines in storage at a Virgin Orbit test site in Mojave, California.

Firefly won't be using all of the inventory ... “Firefly strategically bid and purchased the Virgin Orbit inventory for the significant cost savings on common off-the-shelf components that we use in our product lines, and the benefit of eliminated supply chain lead-times associated with critical flight components,” Firefly Aerospace said in a statement. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Are European startups pursuing reusable launch? In a newsletter this week, Europe in Space explored the extent to which European launch companies are developing reusable rockets. "Recovering and reusing small launch vehicles is by no means a simple task," the newsletter states. "Not only do recovery systems need to function as designed, but they need to do so without a significant payload cost. If the solution demands too steep a price on the payload capability of a vehicle, recovering and reusing that vehicle will simply not make sense. In larger vehicles that balance is far more forgiving. In microlaunchers that balance is on a knife’s edge."

A multiplicity of approaches ... What is exciting about this is that some of the companies have really innovative ideas. For example, Isar Aerospace may employ what is essentially an airship to recover the first stage of its Spectrum launch vehicle. MaiaSpace, meanwhile, is the only microlaunch startup pursuing reuse via propulsive landing directly akin to what SpaceX does with the Falcon 9 rocket. I think the bottom line here is that it's good that these companies are considering reuse, but the alligator closest to the boat is simply getting their rockets into space. Getting them back can be tackled down the line. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Skyrora tests new engine. UK-based rocket company Skyrora has started testing a new 3D-printed engine as it works toward its first commercial orbital launch, the BBC reports. The firm said it was carrying out "full duration" tests on an updated engine design and that this new model was 3D-printed by its Skyprint 2 machine, which Skyrora said halved production time and cut costs. The company is planning orbital launches with its Skyrora XL vehicle.

Hoping for better luck next time ... These will also take place from the SaxaVord Spaceport being developed in Shetland, subject to approval by the Civil Aviation Authority. Last October, Skyrora's first attempt to get to space ended shortly after liftoff when its Skylark L booster ditched in the sea. The company aimed to get its vehicle above 100 km in a flight from the Langanes peninsula in Iceland, but a technical problem saw the 11-meter-long rocket fall back into waters no more than 500 meters from the launch pad. (submitted by Tfargo04)

Officials unveil Ariane 6 roadmap. This week at the Paris Air Show, officials from Arianespace and other European entities discussed the forthcoming launch of the much-delayed Ariane 6 rocket. The briefing to "share the current status of the Ariane 6 program," however, did little of that beyond advertising the rocket's capabilities. Perhaps the newsiest thing was a graphic showing the remaining steps before the rocket takes flight.

Plenty of tests ahead ... There's a lot of work still to be done, including an additional hot fire test of the rocket's upper stage (no earlier than July), flight software qualification tests (which started this month), and assembly of the rocket on the launch pad (starting no earlier than November 2023). Unfortunately, none of the officials present hazarded a launch date. It certainly won't be this year. A good bet at this point is probably mid-2024.

US Rep. says launch companies should pay more. US Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.) is expected to introduce two amendments on the Spaceport of the Future, one of which would allow the military to recoup more launch costs from companies, Payload reports. His concern is being driven by the skyrocketing pace of launches out of both Patrick Space Force Base in Florida and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. In 2020, the Florida range supported 31 launches, according to Space Force. This year, the base is preparing for up to 87 launches, a number that’s only expected to keep growing.

Starts with an S, and ends with an X ... “When it was just ULA, the burden on the literal roads of bases [and] those indirect costs were not to the point of concern,” a spokesman for Carbajal said. “You can imagine that the Space Force has the concern [of] what is that going to mean for the literal range infrastructure—the roads, the bridges—that come with dragging massive rockets over them day by day.” Carbajal's district includes Vandenberg Space Force Base. If it passes and is included in the final legislation, the new charges will take effect when the bill becomes law. One would expect SpaceX to oppose this measure, as it would be most directly affected. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

ULA flies first rocket of 2023. Once the most formidable rocket company in the United States, and arguably the world, United Launch Alliance has had a really difficult start to this year. Its plans for the debut launch of Vulcan in the first half of 2023 were dashed by a serious accident with Vulcan's upper stage during a pressure test in late March. Then, its high-profile mission to launch crew on its Atlas V vehicle for the first time was delayed inevitably by Boeing's spacecraft issues. To summarize, United Launch Alliance has yet to launch a single rocket this year, Ars reports.

Big rocket, big launch ... Finally, this week, the company had a chance to start turning this narrative around. After a delay in April, the Delta IV Heavy rocket launched successfully early Thursday morning from Space Launch Complex 37B in Cape Canaveral, Florida. This NROL-68 mission carried a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. This was the penultimate flight of the rocket, and the final flight of the Delta IV Heavy rocket is likely to take place early next year from Cape Canaveral, again carrying a mission for the National Reconnaissance Office. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)

Delta's assembly line goes silent. Speaking of that final launch, United Launch Alliance has closed its Delta rocket assembly line in Alabama after the 389th and last Delta rocket rolled out of the factory for the journey to its launch base in Florida, Spaceflight Now reports. This will clear real estate in ULA’s sprawling manufacturing center for the next-generation Vulcan launch vehicle.

Down the river ... Gary Wentz, ULA’s vice president for government and commercial programs, said factory workers in Alabama wrapped up assembly and testing of the final Delta IV Heavy rocket earlier this year, soon before the company shipped the rocket hardware down the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers into the Gulf of Mexico for the trip to Florida’s Space Coast. “We’ve completed all the belts for hardware there in Decatur,” Wentz said. “We’re in the process of transitioning the factory to support higher rate production of the Vulcan hardware."

Next three launches

June 23: Falcon 9 | Starlink 5-12 | Cape Canaveral, Fla. | 13:56 UTC

June 27: Soyuz 2.1b | Meteor-M 2-3 | Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia | 11:34 UTC

July 1: Falcon 9 | Euclid space telescope | Cape Canaveral, Fla. | 15:14 UTC