Rocket Report: SpaceX salvages Starship wreckage; pessimism for Virgin Galactic

Welcome to Edition 7.13 of the Rocket Report! While regulators hold up the next flight of the world's largest rocket, there's a lot of news this week in the small launch sector—some good, some bad. Meanwhile, Hurricane Helene has delayed the launch of the next crew to the International Space Station.

As always, we welcome reader submissions. 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.

A Chinese rocket narrowly misses a landing. A Chinese space startup conducted what it called a "high-altitude" test flight of its Nebula-1 rocket on Sunday, launching the vehicle to an altitude of about 5 kilometers or so before attempting to land it back at the Ejin Banner Spaceport in Inner Mongolia. The test flight went well for about two and a half minutes before the vehicle experienced a problem just before landing and erupted into a fireball, Ars reports. The company said it learned a lot from the test, completing 10 of its 11 major objectives. It plans to attempt another high-altitude test flight as early as November. Deep Blue Aerospace is one of several Chinese aerospace startups seeking to emulate the success that US-based SpaceX has had with vertical takeoff and vertical landing of rockets.

The video is amazing ... This is not the first vertical rocket landing test by a Chinese company, but what sets Deep Blue Aerospace apart from its competitors is its transparency. Within hours the company released a detailed statement about the test flight, its objectives, and a preliminary review of what went wrong. In addition to this statement, the company released images and video—including that from nearby drones—that included the fiery landing attempt and its aftermath.

Russia's "super weapon" failed spectacularly. Late last week, Russia's military planned to launch a Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on a test flight from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. Imagery captured over the weekend from commercial satellites suggests the missile exploded before or during launch, Ars reports. This is at least the second time an RS-28 Sarmat missile has failed in less than two years, dealing a blow to the country's nuclear forces days after the head of the Russian legislature issued a veiled threat to use the missile against Europe if Western allies approved Ukraine's use of long-range weapons against Russia.

The secret is out ... Before the rise of the commercial space industry, knowledge of an accident like this one would be restricted to a small number of government officials. Commercial satellite imagery collected by Maxar and Planet show before-and-after views of the Sarmat missile silo at Plesetsk, a military base about 500 miles (800 kilometers) north of Moscow. The view from one of Maxar's imaging satellites Saturday revealed unmistakable damage at the launch site, with a large crater centered on the opening to the underground silo. The crater is roughly 200 feet (62 meters) wide, according to George Barros, a Russia and geospatial intelligence analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. "Extensive damage in and around the launch pad can be seen which suggests that the missile exploded shortly after ignition or launch," Barros wrote on X.

Wall Street pessimistic about Virgin Galactic. Morgan Stanley has significantly reduced its price target for Virgin Galactic, reflecting a more pessimistic outlook on the company's future, Investing.com reports. The investment bank slashed its target for the stock from $35 per share, citing ongoing challenges and a lack of near-term catalysts for the stock. The drastic price target adjustment comes amid Virgin Galactic's commercial flight hiatus, which is expected to last until approximately 2026, when the company aims to have its next-generation Delta-class spaceships ready to fly to suborbital space.

At a crossroads ... Virgin Galactic went public through a SPAC merger in 2019, but the company's stock price has been on a precipitous decline. Year to date, Virgin Galactic's stock price has fallen more than 87 percent and currently sits at roughly $6, not far off from Morgan Stanley's price target. Virgin Galactic doesn't have many near-term prospects for revenue after retiring its VSS Unity spaceplane in June.

Isar Aerospace confirms hot-fire testing is underway. German rocket builder Isar Aerospace is “currently performing hot fire tests of the first and second stages” that will be used for the inaugural flight of its Spectrum rocket, European Spaceflight reports. Founded in 2018, Isar's two-stage Spectrum rocket is designed to deliver payloads of up to 1,000 kilograms in low-Earth orbit. Isar has kept quiet about its technical progress, but a company spokesperson said all components for the first Spectrum rocket have arrived at Andøya Spaceport in Norway and "final preparations for the first test flight of Spectrum are in full swing."

Launch by the end of the year? ... European Spaceflight reported Isar's spokesperson did not specify a schedule for the first flight of the Spectrum rocket, but at a space conference earlier this month, the company's chief operating officer said teams were targeting the launch before the end of this year. Isar has a shot at becoming the first of a new wave of European launch startups to make an orbital launch attempt after another German company, Rocket Factory Augsburg, suffered a setback during hotfire testing in Scotland. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Firefly wins NASA launch contract. Firefly Aerospace won a contract to launch QuickSounder, a prototype for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s next generation of environmental satellites in low-Earth orbit, Space News reports. NASA awarded the contract to Texas-based Firefly on behalf of NOAA through the Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) launch services contract. Through VADR, NASA awards fixed-price contracts for launches of small satellites. This is pretty big news for Firefly, and it's the company's first VADR launch contract award from NASA. Previously, NASA awarded VADR launch contracts to SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Blue Origin, and Phantom Space.

Paving the way ... The QuickSounder mission is the first project in NOAA's Near Earth Orbit Network and will be a pathfinder for future polar-orbiting weather satellites. Southwest Research Institute is building the spacecraft, which will host NOAA’s Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder Engineering Development Unit. The launch of the QuickSounder mission is scheduled for no earlier than February 2026. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)

Japan backs Interstellar. The Japanese government has approved a small business innovation grant worth 4.63 billion yen ($32 million) to Interstellar Technologies, Payload reports. The SBIR grant is part of a Japanese government directive to achieve 30 domestic rocket launches per year by the early 2030s. While Japan already has domestic launch capabilities through Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the demand to get to space in the region far outstrips supply. The new grant follows a similar 2 billion yen ($13.8 million) SBIR award Japan's government approved for Interstellar last year. These awards are essentially seed funding to help the company develop its small satellite launcher, named the Zero. Interstellar has also found some success raising private capital, most recently a $21 million fundraising round announced in August.

Zeroing in on launch ... Interstellar has previously said it plans to launch the first Zero rocket in 2025, although the company hasn't provided any recent schedule updates. The two-stage Zero rocket will stand 105 feet (32 meters) tall with liquid-fueled engines burning methane and liquid oxygen. Zero's payload capacity will be approximately 1,760 pounds (800 kilograms) to low-Earth orbit, or 550 pounds (250 kilograms) to a Sun-synchronous polar orbit. Japan hosts a smaller number of launch startups than the United States, China, and even Europe, but the funding from the Japanese government suggests leaders there recognize the sector as a strategic asset. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

A new tenant in the Amazon. The French space agency CNES has selected reusable rocket developer MaiaSpace to use the former Soyuz launch pad in Kourou, French Guiana, after operations of the Russian rocket ceased following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. MaiaSpace, a subsidiary of ArianeGroup, is developing a two-stage rocket called Maia to deliver payloads of up to 3,300 pounds (1,500 kilograms) to low-Earth orbit in expendable mode. The rocket's first stage is designed for recovery and reuse, which will cut Maia's payload capacity. MaiaSpace targets its first launch of the Maia rocket in late 2025.

Time to get moving ... MaiaSpace CEO Yohann Leroy said in a statement that the company will invest several tens of millions of euros to modify the disused Soyuz launch pad for the Maia rocket. “The reuse of already existing launch pad infrastructures is perfectly in line with MaiaSpace’s approach to minimize as much as possible its environmental footprint, on Earth and in space,” Leroy said. “In addition, such a cost-effective solution will contribute to optimizing the level of its capital expenditures and therefore MaiaSpace’s business viability." Another European launch startup, Spain's PLD Space, plans to base its small satellite launcher at a separate launch pad at the Guiana Space Center, which is also home to Europe's legacy Ariane and Vega rocket families.

SpaceX's next crew mission readied for launch. NASA and SpaceX pushed ahead with planned prelaunch activities at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida Tuesday, even as the date of liftoff for the Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station was delayed due to expected impacts from Hurricane Helene, Spaceflight Now reports. The two-man crew for the Crew-9 mission—NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksander Gorbunov—put on their spacesuits and climbed inside SpaceX's Crew Dragon Freedom atop a Falcon 9 rocket Tuesday for a launch day dress rehearsal. After they exited the spacecraft, SpaceX's launch team loaded propellant into the Falcon 9 and fired its main engines for several seconds for a prelaunch hot-fire test.

Waiting on Helene ... After Tuesday's activities, SpaceX lowered the Falcon 9 rocket horizontally and moved it back inside a hangar for safekeeping as Hurricane Helene approached Florida's Gulf Coast. While the worst of the hurricane will be well west of Cape Canaveral, heavy rain and gusty winds are possible along the Space Coast. Once the storm passes, SpaceX will roll the Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon spacecraft back to the launch pad, raise the vehicle vertically, and prepare for a launch opportunity as soon as Saturday. Hague and Gorbunov are the only two crew members on this mission. NASA removed two other astronauts from the flight to make room for the Dragon capsule to bring home astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who flew to the station on Boeing's troubled Starliner spacecraft and remained in orbit after officials decided to return Starliner to Earth uncrewed. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Japanese spysat soars from Tanegashima. Japan launched the classified IGS-Radar 8 satellite early Thursday with the second-to-last H-IIA rocket, Space News reports. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries managed the launch from Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan. MHI confirmed a successful conclusion to the launch with deployment of the IGS-Radar 8 satellite in Sun-synchronous orbit. This new spacecraft will join a fleet of optical and radar reconnaissance satellites operated by Japan's Cabinet Satellite Information Center.

Nearing retirement ... This was the 49th flight of Japan's H-IIA rocket, a medium-lift launcher in service since 2001. There is just one H-IIA rocket left to fly, and it should launch later this year with a satellite to monitor greenhouse gases from space. The H-IIA has been a success for Japan, with just one failure on its record. It is being replaced by the H3 rocket, which has now launched three times—twice successfully. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

FAA-SpaceX dispute simmers. The clash between SpaceX and the Federal Aviation Administration escalated this week, with Elon Musk calling for the head of the federal regulator to resign after he defended the FAA's oversight and fines levied against the commercial launch company, Ars reports. The FAA has said it doesn't expect to determine whether to approve a launch license for SpaceX's next Starship test flight until late November, two months later than the agency previously communicated to Musk's launch company. And the FAA announced $633,000 in fines against SpaceX last week for alleged violations of its launch license during two Falcon 9 rocket flights last year. Michael Whitaker, the FAA administrator, discussed the hold-up in Starship launch approvals in a congressional hearing this week. SpaceX responded by saying all of Whitaker's statements were inaccurate.

Shotwell weighs in … Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder and CEO, has suggested a political motive for the FAA's scrutiny of SpaceX. Musk has endorsed former President Donald Trump in this year's presidential election. "America is being smothered by legions of regulators, often inept & politically-driven," Musk wrote on X, his social media platform, referring to the FAA. Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and chief operating officer, took a different tone in a hearing with Texas lawmakers in Austin this week. “We are not afraid of regulation," she said. "It helps keep businesses thriving as well as the community safe... All I'm saying is, as this business grows, you will probably enhance the regulatory environment, and there's just a caution that you really want to make sure that regulation doesn't impede progress."

Blue Origin test-fires its upper stage. Twenty days after it rolled out to Blue Origin's launch site in Florida, the second stage of the massive New Glenn rocket underwent a successful hot-fire test on Monday, Ars reports. The second stage—known as GS2 for Glenn stage 2—ignited for 15 seconds as part of the "risk reduction" hot-fire test, the company said. The two BE-3U engines, fueled by liquid oxygen and hydrogen and each producing 173,000 pounds of thrust, burned with a nearly transparent flame that approached a temperature of 6,000° Fahrenheit. This marked the first time that Blue Origin, a space company founded by Jeff Bezos more than two decades ago, has integrated and fired an orbital rocket stage. After the test, Blue Origin said it is still tracking toward a November launch of the New Glenn rocket.

Much to do … With this important milestone behind them, Blue Origin engineers have a lot of work to do if the company wants to keep its November launch date. Crucially, the company must complete assembly of the first stage and then roll this vehicle out from its assembly building a couple of miles to Launch Complex-36, along the Atlantic Ocean. Then, the first and second stages will be mated. This is a complex endeavor, and as it will be the first time technicians and engineers from Blue Origin attempt the procedure, they will undoubtedly find some issues that need to be addressed. After the vehicles are integrated, the combined stack is due to undergo a short hot-fire test. Following a review of this data, the company is expected to launch the vehicle.

NASA is ready to buy Vulcans. United Launch Alliance is free to compete for NASA contracts with its new Vulcan rocket after a successful test flight earlier this year, ending a period where SpaceX was the only company competing for rights to launch the agency's large science missions, Ars reports. For several years, ULA was unable to bid for NASA launch contracts after the company sold all of its remaining Atlas V rockets to other customers, primarily for Amazon's Project Kuiper Internet network. ULA could not submit its new Vulcan rocket, which will replace the Atlas V, for NASA to consider in future launch contracts until the Vulcan completed at least one successful flight. That happened in January.

Pending certification ... NASA has not yet formally certified the Vulcan rocket to launch one of the agency's science missions, but that would not stop NASA from selecting Vulcan for a contract. Some of NASA's next big science missions up for launch contract awards include the nuclear-powered Dragonfly mission to explore Saturn's moon Titan and an asteroid-hunting telescope named NEO Surveyor. The second Vulcan flight next month will move ULA's rocket toward certification by the Space Force and NASA.

SpaceX recovers pieces from last Starship flight. While it waits for FAA approval to launch the next Starship test flight, SpaceX has retrieved wreckage of the Super Heavy booster from the last Starship mission out of the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the San Antonio Express-News reports. SpaceX didn't reveal its plans ahead of time. A group of filmmakers and space enthusiasts noticed a 260-foot offshore services vessel, the HOS Ridgewind, was positioned over the location where the Super Heavy booster splashed down after launch June 6. This was the first time one of these enormous boosters survived descent and accomplished a soft splashdown in the water, clearing the way for SpaceX to try to return the rocket to land on the next flight.

From the deep ... Elon Musk posted a photo on X of a large section of the Super Heavy booster being raised from the Gulf of Mexico, appearing like a twisted mythological Kraken or leviathan. Or, as Musk wrote, "like the ruins of a futuristic, long-dead civilization." Many of the booster's 33 Raptor engines are still attached to the bottom part of the rocket, which the vessel transported back to the Port of Brownsville. SpaceX's motivation for retrieving the hardware from the ocean floor remains unclear.

Next three launches

Sept. 27: Long March 2D | Unknown Payload | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China | 10:35 UTC

Sept. 28: Falcon 9 | Crew-9 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 17:17 UTC

Sept. 30: Falcon 9 | OneWeb-20 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 06:49 UTC