Rocket Report: Starbase comes alive again; China launches four times

Welcome to Edition 6.04 of the Rocket Report! SpaceX has a Super Heavy booster on the launch pad in Texas a lot sooner than many thought. There was some pretty extensive damage at the launch site in the aftermath of the Starship test launch in April, but SpaceX made quick work with repairs and upgrades to beef up the pad. Meanwhile, SpaceX's Falcon 9 launcher, Rocket Lab's Electron, and China's rocket fleet show no signs of slowing down.

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.

9 a.m. EDT update: The list of upcoming launches at the bottom of the Rocket Report has been updated to reflect the successful liftoff of the Falcon 9 / Starlink 6-7 mission.

China's Galactic Energy launches sixth successful mission. Galactic Energy, one of several new Chinese startup launch companies, launched its sixth consecutive successful satellite delivery mission on July 22, Space News reports. The company's solid-fueled Ceres 1 rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan launch base in the Gobi Desert with two small satellites on board. Galactic Energy is also developing a medium-lift rocket named Pallas 1 that is designed to eventually be recoverable and reusable.

China's first VLEO satellite ... One of the satellites on Galactic Energy's sixth Ceres 1 rocket was Qiankun-1, developed by a Chinese commercial firm called C-Space. Qiankun-1 was described as China's first Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) satellite, aiming to test payloads for hyperspectral imagery, visible light remote sensing, and intelligent image processors. VLEO typically describes a region of space below an altitude of 450 kilometers (280 miles), where atmospheric drag requires spacecraft to regularly maintain their orbit to avoid re-entering the atmosphere. The advantages of VLEO satellites include lower-latency communications and higher-resolution imaging capabilities. (submitted by MarkW98 and Ken the Bin)

China launched three more orbital missions this week. Aside from Galactic Energy, three other Chinese rockets lofted payloads into orbit over the last week. A light-class Kuaizhou 1A rocket operated by Expace launched from Jiuquan on July 20 with four commercial meteorological satellites. Two Long March 2D rockets launched on July 23 and July 26, the first of which deployed a stackable flat-panel broadband satellite for the Chinese company GalaxySpace, among other payloads. The second Long March 2D launch of the week delivered three Chinese military spy satellites into orbit.

31-and-counting for Chinese launches this year ... Chinese rockets have launched 31 orbital missions this year, all successfully. The mission mix so far in 2023 has included many military satellite launches, flights by emerging small satellite launch companies, and a crew and cargo mission to China's Tiangong space station. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Rocket Lab gearing up to fly again. Less than two weeks since its last mission, Rocket Lab is preparing for another launch of its light-class Electron rocket from New Zealand no earlier than July 30. This mission will carry just one satellite, the first in a new generation of radar remote-sensing platforms built and owned by Capella Space. Rocket Lab will not attempt to recover the Electron's first-stage booster on this mission.

Building up launch cadence ... This launch will be Rocket Lab's eighth mission of the year and 40th overall. At the start of 2023, Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said he was targeting as many as 15 flights of the Electron rocket this year. Although the Electron is a small launcher designed to loft just a few hundred kilograms into orbit, it is the second-most flown US orbital launch vehicle since its debut in 2017, following SpaceX's Falcon 9.

ArianeGroup's reusable rocket subsidiary is moving slowly. A subsidiary of European space conglomerate ArianeGroup set up in early 2022 to develop a reusable micro-launcher apparently hasn't done a whole lot in its first year of operation. The company, named MaiaSpace, reported expenses of 3.49 million euros in its first year, nearly half of which was devoted to workforce and staffing costs, European Spaceflight reports. MaiaSpace is developing a small satellite launcher named Maia that is supposed to be ready to fly in 2026, powered by reusable methane-fueled Prometheus engines ArianeGroup is developing in partnership with the European Space Agency.

It'll cost a lot more than that ... MaiaSpace reported its accomplishments in the first year of operations included hiring staff, completing high-level vehicle design, establishing international partnerships, implementing industrial facilities, and delivering a full-scale stage prototype model. It wouldn't be expected for MaiaSpace to make a ton of progress in its first year, but ArianeGroup will need to put a lot more resources into MaiaSpace for it to achieve its goal of launching the new rocket in 2026. We'll see what Year 2 brings for MaiaSpace to get a better idea of the seriousness of this effort. (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)

A serious step toward space-based nuclear propulsion. NASA announced on July 26 that it is partnering with the US Department of Defense to launch a nuclear-powered rocket engine into space as early as 2027, Ars reports. The US space agency will invest about $300 million in the project to develop a next-generation propulsion system for in-space transportation, and the government has selected Lockheed Martin and BWX Technologies as contractors for the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program. "NASA is looking to go to Mars with this system," said Anthony Calomino, an engineer at NASA who is leading the agency's space nuclear propulsion technology program. "And this test is really going to give us that foundation."

Nuclear option ... Traditional chemical propulsion is great for blasting rockets off the surface of the Earth, but such machines are terribly inefficient for moving around the Solar System. Nuclear thermal propulsion is one alternative that could offer a more efficient means of rocket transport in deep space. NASA will take the lead in overseeing the development of the nuclear engine for the DRACO test vehicle, DARPA will manage the overall program and take responsibility for mission operations and regulatory issues, and the Space Force will arrange for the launch on a Vulcan or Falcon 9 rocket.

Next SpaceX crew launch slips two days. The launch of the next four-person crew to the International Space Station has been delayed by two days to August 17, Space.com reports. The reason for the slight schedule slip is a delay in the launch of the preceding mission from the same launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. It takes a few weeks for SpaceX to transition the launch pad from the configuration needed for a Falcon Heavy rocket—which is set to fly in late July—to the configuration for a crew launch on a Falcon 9 rocket.

SpaceX keeps flying ... The upcoming crew launch will be SpaceX's 11th human spaceflight mission, and the seventh operational launch of astronauts for NASA. Officials from the US space agency have consistently spoken about how SpaceX's rapid launch cadence builds their confidence in the reliability of the Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX launched two more Falcon 9s over the last week from Florida and California, both carrying more satellites into orbit for the Starlink Internet network. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Ariane 6 testing underway. For the first time, ground teams at the Guiana Space Center in South America have loaded cryogenic propellants into a full-scale test model of Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket. The test on July 18 ran for 26 hours, according to the European Space Agency, but ended before a planned four-second test-firing of the Ariane 6's first-stage main engine. The ignition test "had to be postponed to the next test session as time ran out," ESA said.

Murkiness from Kourou ... It took a week for ESA to report the results of the propellant loading test at the launch base in Kourou, French Guiana, and the fact that one of the major objectives of the test was not achieved. The first launch of the Ariane 6 rocket is years behind schedule, and the rocket it is supposed to replace—the Ariane 5—flew for the last time on July 5. ESA has said it won't announce a target launch schedule with ArianeGroup for the first Ariane 6 rocket until the completion of a series of tests in French Guiana and Europe this summer, but it will probably be sometime next year, assuming engineers check off these upcoming milestones on a reasonably good schedule. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

ULA is expanding its launch infrastructure at Cape Canaveral. With funding from Amazon, United Launch Alliance is spending about $500 million to upgrade and expand infrastructure at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, Ars reports. The upgrades will allow ULA to double its launch capacity in Florida to support up to two launches of the company's new-generation Vulcan rocket every month, a pace required to meet the demands for Amazon's Kuiper broadband network, a fleet of more than 3,200 satellites that will primarily launch on ULA's rockets.

New hangar and launch platform ... The investments will pay for the outfitting of a second vertical hangar and a second mobile launch platform for Vulcan rockets, alongside the integration facility and launch table already built to support the first few Vulcan missions. Having dual lanes for launch processing in Florida will allow ULA to fly as many as 25 Vulcan rockets per year, the company says. ULA and its subcontractors are also expanding factory space at locations around the country to produce more Vulcan engines, solid rocket boosters, and payload fairings for the Kuiper missions.

Super Heavy is back on the pad at Starbase. SpaceX has moved the Super Heavy booster for the next Starship test flight to its launch pad in South Texas. The 33-engine Super Heavy booster rolled to the pad on July 20, allowing SpaceX to resume testing at the Starship orbital launch pad for the first time since the first full-scale Starship test flight lifted off three months ago. A few days later, SpaceX loaded cryogenic fluids into the Super Heavy booster for a proof test, a step toward an expected hot fire test of the rocket's methane-fueled Raptor engines.

Questions remain ... Moving the Super Heavy booster to the launch pad represents a key sign of technical progress at Starbase following repairs to the launch pad after the Starship launch in April, which resulted in fairly significant damage to ground equipment. Many armchair observers didn't expect the launch pad to be ready to resume testing this soon.

But there's still work to go, including hot fire testing and the stacking of a structural extension to the top of the Super Heavy booster to enable SpaceX's new "hot staging" technique that will be used to separate the booster from its Starship upper stage on the upcoming test launch. The booster didn't have the extension in place when it rolled to the pad last week. There's also uncertainty over the status of the Federal Aviation Administration's mishap investigation of the Starship launch in April, which ended in the upper atmosphere after the rocket tumbled out of control. The vehicle took longer than expected to disintegrate after activating its range-safety self-destruct system.

NASA control team completes first Artemis II launch simulation. Launch controllers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center have completed the first launch countdown simulation for the Artemis II mission, the first astronaut mission to fly around the Moon since 1972. The simulation focused on rehearsing procedures for loading liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants into the Space Launch System rocket.

Waiting on SLS flight hardware ... The countdown practice run didn't involve any flight hardware. The SLS core stage for the Artemis II mission isn't scheduled to arrive at the Kennedy Space Center from its factory in New Orleans until the October timeframe after Boeing finishes up assembly. The solid rocket boosters, which are complete and in storage, will arrive a couple months later from Northrop Grumman's fabrication facility in Utah. Then the rocket will be stacked in the Vehicle Assembly Building, and an Orion crew capsule will be installed on top. When will Artemis II launch? Officially, no earlier than November 2024, but more likely in 2025. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Next three launches

July 29: Falcon Heavy | Jupiter 3 | Kennedy Space Center, Florida | 03:04 UTC

July 30: PSLV | DS-SAR | Satish Dhawan Space Center, India | 01:00 UTC

July 30: Electron | "We Love the Nightlife" | Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand | 05:00 UTC