Rocket Report: Firefly delivers for NASA; Polaris Dawn launching this month

Welcome to Edition 7.01 of the Rocket Report! We're compiling this week's report a day later than usual due to the Independence Day holiday. Ars is beginning its seventh year publishing this weekly roundup of rocket news, and there's a lot of it this week despite the holiday here in the United States. Worldwide, there were 122 launches that flew into Earth orbit or beyond in the first half of 2024, up from 91 in the same period last year.

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.

Firefly launches its fifth Alpha flight. Firefly Aerospace placed eight CubeSats into orbit on a mission funded by NASA on the first flight of the company’s Alpha rocket since an upper stage malfunction more than half a year ago, Space News reports. The two-stage Alpha rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California late Wednesday, two days after an issue with ground equipment aborted liftoff just before engine ignition. The eight CubeSats come from NASA centers and universities for a range of educational, research, and technology demonstration missions. This was the fifth flight of Firefly's Alpha rocket, capable of placing about a metric ton of payload into low-Earth orbit.

Anomaly resolution ... This was the fifth flight of an Alpha rocket since 2021 and the fourth Alpha flight to achieve orbit. But the last Alpha launch in December failed to place its Lockheed Martin payload into the proper orbit due to a problem during the relighting of its second-stage engine. On this week's launch, Alpha deployed its NASA-sponsored payloads after a single burn of the second stage, then completed a successful restart of the engine for a plane change maneuver. Engineers traced the problem on the last Alpha flight to a software error. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Two companies added to DoD's launch pool. Blue Origin and Stoke Space Technologies — neither of which has yet reached orbit — have been approved by the US Space Force to compete for future launches of small payloads, Breaking Defense reports. Blue Origin and Stoke Space join a roster of launch companies eligible to compete for launch task orders the Space Force puts up for bid through the Orbital Services Program-4 (OSP-4) contract. Under this contract, Space Systems Command buys launch services for payloads 400 pounds (180 kilograms) or greater, enabling launch from 12 to 24 months of the award of a task order. The OSP-4 contract has an "emphasis on small orbital launch capabilities and launch solutions for Tactically Responsive Space mission needs," said Lt. Col. Steve Hendershot, chief of Space Systems Command's small launch and targets division.

Italian startup test-fires small rocket. Italian rocket builder Sidereus Space Dynamics has completed the first integrated system test of its EOS rocket, European Spaceflight reports. This test occurred Sunday, culminating in a firing of the rocket's kerosene/liquid oxygen MR-5 main engine for approximately 11 seconds. The EOS rocket is a novel design, utilizing a single-stage-to-orbit architecture, with the reusable booster returning to Earth from orbit for recovery under a parafoil. The rocket stands less than 14 feet (4.2 meters) tall and will be capable of delivering about 29 pounds (13 kilograms) of payload to low-Earth orbit.

A lean operation ... After it completes integrated testing on the ground, the company will conduct the first low-altitude EOS test flights. Founded in 2019, Sidereus has raised 6.6 million euros ($7.1 million) to fund the development of the EOS rocket. While this is a fraction of the funding other European launch startups like Isar Aerospace, MaiaSpace, and Orbex have attracted, the Sidereus’s CEO, Mattia Barbarossa, has previously stated that the company intends to “reshape spaceflight in a fraction of the time and with limited resources.” (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)

"I want to break free." One of the most promising Chinese space startups, Space Pioneer, experienced a serious anomaly last weekend while testing the first stage of its Tianlong 3 rocket near the city of Gongyi, Ars reports. The rocket was undergoing a static fire test of the stage, in which a vehicle is clamped to a test stand while its engines are ignited, when the booster broke free. According to a statement from the company, the rocket was not sufficiently clamped down and blasted off from the test stand "due to a structural failure." The Tianlong 3 is a medium-lift rocket modeled on SpaceX's Falcon 9, with nine engines clustered on its first stage, and Space Pioneer aims to make the first stage recoverable and reusable eventually. But with this accident, Space Pioneer won't be achieving its goal of intentionally launching Tianlong 3 later this year.

"It's strange, but it's true" ... The videos of Tianlong 3's accidental ascent are remarkable, showing the rocket climbing several hundred meters into the sky before crashing explosively into a mountain about 1.5 kilometers from the test site. (See various angles of the accident here, on the social media site X, or on Weibo.) The statement from Space Pioneer sought to downplay the incident, saying it had implemented safety measures before the test, and there were no casualties as a result of the accident. "The test site is far away from the urban area of Gongyi," the company said. However, the test stand is located about 5 kilometers from downtown Gongyi, a city of about 800,000 people. (submitted by Ken the Bin, Marakai, and gizmo23)

Checking in on Firefly's reusable rocket. The new medium-lift rocket under development by Firefly Aerospace and Northrop Grumman will eventually incorporate a recoverable booster that will return to its launch site in Virginia for reuse, Ars reports. Firefly has previously suggested rocket reuse is on the roadmap for the new rocket—known, for now, only as the Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV)—but officials revealed new details of the plan during a recent visit by Ars to Firefly's rocket factory in rural Central Texas. MLV's first stage booster is designed for propulsive landings back at its launch site at Wallops Island, Virginia, and Firefly officials said they will begin experimenting with recovery techniques on MLV's first flight.

Necessary to compete ... "Northrop and Firefly have a similar perspective and that is, for that class of rocket, reusability is a requirement for a bunch of reasons," said Bill Weber, Firefly's CEO. "Economically, it becomes an advantage because we don't have to go build additional floor space... Similarly, the pricing structure for customers starts to get super competitive." Firefly and Northrop Grumman announced a partnership in 2022 to develop the MLV, which includes a kerosene-fueled first stage and second stage. Initially, though, Firefly will build MLV first stages to marry with Northrop's solid-fueled upper stage used on the Antares rocket to continue launching cargo to the International Space Station.

Eumetsat ditches Ariane 6. In a shocking announcement this week, the European intergovernmental organization responsible for launching and operating the continent's weather satellites has pulled its next mission off a future launch of Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket, Ars reports. Instead, the valuable MTG-S1 satellite will now reach geostationary orbit on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket in 2025. “This decision was driven by exceptional circumstances,” said Phil Evans, director general of the organization Eumetsat. “It does not compromise our standard policy of supporting European partners, and we look forward to a successful SpaceX launch for this masterpiece of European technology.”

Intriguing timing ... The decision, taken at a council meeting of Eumetsat's 30 member nations last week, comes shortly before the debut of the Ariane 6 rocket, scheduled for July 9. Outwardly, at least, this decision reflects a lack of confidence in the reliability of the Ariane 6, the ability of European companies ArianeGroup and Arianespace to produce future versions of the Ariane 6, or both. It comes not just on the eve of the long-awaited debut of the Ariane 6, but also at a time when European officials are trying to close ranks and ensure that satellites built in Europe get launched on European rockets. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

H3's first operational flight. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) successfully put an advanced Earth observation satellite into orbit via its new flagship H3 rocket on Monday, the Japan Times reports. The H3 rocket launched the Daichi 4 satellite, also known as ALOS-4, with a synthetic aperture radar instrument for all-weather observations of Earth's surface. “It was truly a perfect launch, a perfect 100 out of 100,” said Makoto Arita, the JAXA H3 project team manager. Japan's H3 rocket launched for the first time last year, following a decade of development, but it failed to reach orbit due to a malfunction on its second stage. A $200 million Earth observation satellite was lost on the doomed rocket. A second test flight of the H3 rocket in February was successful, and this time the launcher only carried small test payloads.

Entry into service ... This was the third flight of the expendable H3 rocket, and the first launch that Japan's space agency considered to be operational. The H3 will become the workhorse for Japan's space program over the next decade or more, launching scientific probes, spy satellites, and cargo missions to the International Space Station. It will fly about six times per year, according to JAXA, up from the cadence of three flights per year achieved by the H-IIA rocket, the vehicle the H3 will replace. There are two more H-IIA rockets left to fly later this year. (submitted by tsunam and Ken the Bin)

SpaceX wins new NASA launch contract. A small research satellite designed to study the violent processes behind the creation and destruction of chemical elements will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in 2027, Ars reports. The Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) mission features a gamma-ray telescope that will scan the sky to study gamma rays emitted by the explosions of massive stars and the end of their lives. These supernova explosions generate reactions that fuse new atomic nuclei, a process called nucleosynthesis, of heavier elements. NASA awarded SpaceX a firm-fixed-price contract valued at $69 million to launch the COSI mission, but the agency didn't have much of a decision to make in the COSI launch contract. The Falcon 9 is the only rocket certified by NASA that can launch a satellite with the mass of COSI into its desired orbit.

An unusual orbit ... COSI is a relatively small spacecraft, built by Northrop Grumman and weighing less than a ton, but it will ride alone into orbit on top of a Falcon 9 rocket. That's because COSI will operate in an unusual orbit about 340 miles (550 kilometers) over the equator, an orbit chosen to avoid interference from radiation over the South Atlantic Anomaly, the region where the inner Van Allen radiation belt comes closest to Earth’s surface. The Falcon 9 will deliver COSI directly into its operational orbit after taking off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and then will fire its upper stage in a sideways maneuver to make a turn at the equator. This type of maneuver—called a plane change— takes a lot of energy, or delta-V, on par with the delta-V required to put a heavier satellite into a much higher orbit. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Polaris Dawn launching later this month. The Polaris Dawn mission, an all-private spaceflight that will include the first commercial spacewalk, is scheduled for launch no earlier than July 31 from Florida's Space Coast, the group behind the mission announced on X. This is a few weeks later than the mission's previous target launch date of July 12, but officials didn't explain the delay. Jared Isaacman, a billionaire businessman and pilot who has flown in space before, will command the Polaris Dawn mission. Former US Air Force fighter pilot Scott Poteet and two SpaceX engineers, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, will also fly on Polaris Dawn.

Going higher ... The foursome of commercial astronauts will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft, reaching an altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers), higher than anyone has flown since the last Apollo mission in 1972. They will depressurize the Dragon spacecraft and Isaacman and Gillis will exit the capsule for a brief spacewalk, the first ever without involvement of a government space agency. The mission will last approximately five days.

SpaceX soon plans to catch a Super Heavy booster. In a short video released Thursday, possibly to celebrate the US Fourth of July holiday with the biggest rocket's red glare of them all, SpaceX provided new footage of the most recent test of its Starship launch vehicle. This flight of Starship on June 6 marked significant progress for SpaceX's mega-rocket, including an on-target splashdown of the rocket's Super Heavy booster in the Gulf of Mexico. At the end of the new highlights video, there is a simulated view showing Starship's first stage descending back toward the launch tower with the title "Flight 5." And then it fades out. This supports the idea that SpaceX is working toward attempting a Starship booster catch on its next flight test, which likely will occur later this summer, Ars reports. Doubtless, the company still has both technical and regulatory work before this can happen.

Beryl bearing down … Meanwhile, activities at the South Texas launch site may well be curtailed for a couple of days as Hurricane Beryl enters the Gulf of Mexico later on Friday and then tracks toward the Texas coast early next week. The center of Beryl is expected to pass near or north of the launch site late on Sunday night or Monday, bringing winds and surges. However, because Beryl is not expected to be a major hurricane in terms of wind speed, these impacts should not prove catastrophic to SpaceX facilities.

Not enough room for Starship? United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin are worried about SpaceX's plans to launch its enormous Starship rocket from Florida, Ars reports. In documents submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration last month, ULA and Blue Origin raised concerns about the impact of Starship launch operations on their own activities on Florida's Space Coast. Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' space company, urged the federal government to consider capping the number of Starship launches and landings, test-firings, and other operations, and limiting SpaceX's activities to particular times. ULA suggested the FAA consider outright denying SpaceX's proposal to launch Starship from Kennedy Space Center, supposedly out of concern it would have to evacuate its nearby launch pad for every Starship launch and landing.

A pattern of protest … It's understandable that ULA and Blue Origin wouldn't want to halt work at their launch pads for several Starship launches every week. But this isn't the first time SpaceX's top two rivals in the US launch industry have tried to block Elon Musk's space company from establishing a new launch site. In 2013, Blue Origin and SpaceX fought for rights to lease Launch Complex 39A from NASA after the retirement of the space shuttle. SpaceX won, signed a lease with NASA the next year, and began launching Falcon 9 rockets from the launch pad in 2017. Musk offered to let Blue Origin also use the launch pad if it could launch a human-rated spacecraft to the International Space Station within five years. This led to one of the most famous Elon Musk quotes in the long-running rivalry: "Frankly, I think we are more likely to discover unicorns dancing in the flame duct."

Next three launches

July 8: Falcon 9 | Türksat 6A | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 21:20 UTC

July 9: Falcon 9 | Starlink 9-3 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 02:46 UTC

July 9: Ariane 62 | Demo Flight | Guiana Space Center, French Guiana | 18:00 UTC