Rocket Report: Nova moving through test campaign; SpaceX IPO launches Friday

“If I needed to fly on another vehicle, what would that look like?”

Welcome to Edition 8.45 of the Rocket Report! Even though we are now two weeks removed from the catastrophic loss of the New Glenn rocket and its LC-36A launch pad, it continues to dominate discussion in the space community. This week, NASA said it nominally plans to fly Blue Origin’s test lander on New Glenn for the Artemis III mission, but officials quietly acknowledged that other launch vehicles, including Vulcan and the Falcon Heavy, could also get the job done. We’ll obviously be watching closely.

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.

Isar raises funding, announces new launch date. German launch startup Isar Aerospace announced this week that it had closed a 270 million euro Series D to “drive global scaling and ramp up serial production,” European Spaceflight reports. The company also said the previously delayed second launch attempt of its Spectrum rocket would now take place sometime between June 15 and June 21.

Seeking to scale … Isar Aerospace is developing a two-stage rocket called Spectrum, designed to deliver payloads of up to 1,000 kilograms to low-Earth orbit. The company launched its first Spectrum rocket in March 2025, with the flight ending in failure less than a minute after liftoff. The new funding shows the company is looking to a future of success. “Scaling hardware is arguably one of the most difficult tasks, and one that sets companies apart,” said Isar Aerospace CEO Daniel Metzler. “This funding will enable us to scale our automated production further.” (submitted by SvenErik1968)

Nova rocket making progress. Stoke Space completed “proto-qualification” of the first stage of its Nova rocket at its testing site in Moses Lake, Washington, in early June 2026, NASASpaceflight.com reports. This milestone paves the way for the debut of the medium-lift Nova vehicle targeted for the end of 2026. Stoke completed 46 structural verification tests of its first-stage flight article, in addition to testing critical fluid systems, avionics, and ground support systems during a three-week period.

Engine installation soon … The Nova vehicle features a 27.1-meter reusable first stage that will use return-to-launch-site or droneship landing capabilities for recovery. The engines have undergone hours of vertical hot-fire testing in the twin cell firing stand at the Moses Lake site. The vehicle will receive its engines in the coming months and then undergo further testing and verification before its eventual departure to Cape Canaveral for final vehicle integration and launch. (submitted by stefan_lec)

German company explores possibility of Oman launch. Oman’s commercial spaceport and German-based small launch provider HyImpulse have signed a letter of intent to explore future launch-related activities and a potential operational presence in the Sultanate of Oman, Space News reports. The agreement covers HyImpulse’s suborbital SR75 rocket as well as its orbital vehicle, SL1.

Location, location, location … Located on the east coast of Oman, overlooking the Indian Ocean, Etlaq Spaceport offers equatorial launch opportunities at a latitude of 18 degrees. “Oman offers an attractive geographic location with access to a broad range of trajectories and mission profiles, making it a compelling option for assessing future launch opportunities,” Christian Schmierer, CEO of the launch company, said.

Dutch sounding rocket launches from Canada. A rocket built by T-Minus Engineering BV of Delft, Netherlands, launched from a spaceport in Nova Scotia on Wednesday, The Globe and Mail reports. This was only the second launch hosted by Maritime Launch Services at its still largely undeveloped spaceport in eastern Canada. On hand for the launch was Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, fresh from his flight around the Moon as a member of NASA’s Artemis II mission.

Not a spaceflight yet … Although the small Barracuda hypersonic suborbital rocket is capable of reaching 100 km, this rocket did not do so due to an anomaly in the later stages of its flight. Engineers were still assessing the cause, which may have been an issue with the rocket’s stabilizing fins. Regardless, Canadian space boosters say the launch portends more good things to come from a country eager to develop its own orbital lift capability. (submitted by JoeyS-IVB)

Offshore is where the new action is at? Concerns that America’s launch infrastructure may not keep pace with rising demand are reviving interest in an unconventional workaround: sea-based rocket launch, Space News reports. Long viewed as a technically difficult niche with a history of commercial failure, companies and defense officials are giving offshore launch a second look as they search for ways to expand launch capacity in the US.

Seeking resiliency … A May report commissioned by the Commercial Space Federation warns that expanding satellite constellations could strain US launch infrastructure and force policymakers to consider “non-traditional” launch sites, including inland and sea-based spaceports. National security concerns are also at play as officials warn that space launch sites could become targets in an armed conflict. Mobile offshore launch systems potentially offer a more distributed and difficult-to-target alternative.

SpaceX IPO happens on Friday. I’ve received several messages from former SpaceX employees who plan to be in New York City on Friday to celebrate the debut of the company in the public markets. And why not? So many people at SpaceX worked so hard to make its launch and satellite business a success. In the coming months, as current and former employees can sell some of their shares, they will become millionaires. It is good to see them rewarded for their hard work.

What is the real value of SpaceX? The company will initially trade at a valuation of $1.75 trillion, which some analysts say is overvalued. Some of the best analyses of the financial ramifications of all this can be found in the DealBook newsletter, which notes that SpaceX is now essentially an AI company, and as such will have to spend heavily to catch up to Anthropic and OpenAI. Of course, if SpaceX can deliver data centers from space in a big way, it will ultimately hold a huge advantage over its competitors.

Falcon 9 reaches new reuse milestone. On Monday morning, a Falcon 9 first stage, designated B 1067, took to the skies to launch 29 Starlink Internet satellites into low-Earth orbit from Florida. Upon landing on the A Shortfall of Gravitas drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, the vehicle completed its 35th mission overall, retaining its title as fleet leader for SpaceX. Ars reports that the successful launch brings SpaceX closer to its most recently stated goal of qualifying its Falcon 9 first stage vehicles to support 40 missions each.

We take the Falcon 9 rocket for granted … It now launches so often—a few times a week—that its flights are a complete non-event. But in reality, the Falcon 9 rocket is the bedrock of SpaceX’s success today. And whatever one might think of the company’s impending IPO—whether it’s a financial boondoggle or a long-awaited opportunity for investors to own a piece of SpaceX—its valuation is largely due to the Falcon 9 vehicle. It is only due to the reuse of this rocket, and its deployment of the Starlink constellation, that SpaceX’s ambitious plans for Starlink and orbital data centers are credible.

More powerful Ariane 6 variant on tap. Arianespace has announced that the first Ariane 64 rocket equipped with its upgraded P160C solid-fuel boosters will launch on June 17. The rocket will carry 36 satellites to low-Earth orbit for Amazon, European Spaceflight reports. Since its introduction in July 2024, a total of seven Ariane 6 flights have been launched from the Guiana Space Centre’s ELA-4 launch site.

A 12 percent increase … The first five used the rocket’s two-booster configuration, while the two most recent flights used the more powerful four-booster configuration. All seven, however, used the P120C, the current generation of the rocket’s solid-fuel strap-on booster. In December 2025, the European Space Agency announced that it had fully qualified the upgraded P160C booster, which includes an additional 14 metric tons of solid propellant. The more powerful boosters allow the Ariane 6 rocket to carry four additional Amazon Leo satellites than previous launches.

NASA selects crew for Artemis III. The US space agency unveiled the crew for its Artemis III mission on Tuesday during an enthusiastic event at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Ars reports. The spaceflight will feature three launches, at least as currently envisioned: one each of NASA’s Space Launch System, Blue Origin’s New Glenn, and SpaceX’s Starship. During this spaceflight into low-Earth orbit, the Orion spacecraft will rendezvous and dock with lunar lander prototypes, one built by Blue Origin and the other by SpaceX.

See you next summer? … NASA chose an experienced, all-male crew with military backgrounds. The individuals were revealed inside a darkened Teague Auditorium where hundreds of friends, family members, and NASA employees cheered enthusiastically: NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, commander; ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, pilot; NASA astronaut Andre Douglas, mission specialist; and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, mission specialist. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Artemis III could launch as early as summer 2027, but much work remains before then.

But will New Glenn be ready? The Artemis III mission involves a lot of moving parts, the most significant of which is arguably a Blue Origin demonstration lander launching on a New Glenn rocket. Ars spoke with the Artemis program manager, Jeremy Parsons, to gather more information about this specific element of the mission. The nominal plan is to launch the test lander (essentially a crew module of the Blue Moon Mk2 vehicle) on New Glenn.

Dual path going forward … But of course, two weeks ago, the New Glenn rocket exploded on its launch pad in Florida, causing significant infrastructure damage there. Parsons said NASA is going to work closely with Blue Origin with the intent, for now, of launching on New Glenn. “It’s going to be a dual path,” Parsons said. “They’re really getting in and clearing out SLC-36 right now, and a lot of the key hardware is in really good shape. That being said, we’re going to be working with them hand in hand every single day, and we are bringing every assessment to bear. Like, if I needed to fly on another vehicle, what would that look like?” Vulcan and Falcon Heavy are options.

Amazon gets deadline reprieve. The Federal Communications Commission has waived a requirement for Amazon to launch half of its satellite broadband constellation by the end of July, a key regulatory reprieve that buys the tech giant time to get more of its spacecraft into orbit, Ars reports. It has been apparent for some time that Amazon would not meet the FCC’s requirement to launch half of its satellites—1,616 spacecraft—by the end of next month. Amazon filed an application in January requesting the FCC extend the deadline to July 2028 or waive it altogether. The commission decided on the latter option, removing any time limit for the 50 percent deployment milestone, but keeping the July 2029 deadline in place for the entire constellation.

Wanted: A road to space … Building satellites isn’t the biggest problem for Amazon Leo; it’s launching them. The company has stacks of satellites—each a little more than a half-ton in mass—awaiting rides to space on Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan launch vehicle. Both rockets are grounded after recent anomalies. Amazon has booked launches on other rockets, but none have the lift capacity to put as many satellites into orbit as Vulcan and New Glenn, each of which can deliver more than 40 Amazon Leo platforms to space in one go. United Launch Alliance’s soon-to-retire Atlas V rocket has done most of the heavy lifting for Amazon Leo to date, but just one more Atlas V is available to Amazon. It will launch in the coming weeks from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with 29 satellites.

Next three launches

June 12: H3 | H3-30 test flight | Tanegashima Space Center, Japan | 00:53 UTC

June 13: Falcon 9 | Starlink 10-54 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 12:27 UTC

June 15: Kinetica 1 | Unknown Payload | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China | 03:40 UTC

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Posted Saturday 13 June 2026 at 7:18 am AEST (my time).

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