Rocket Report: Starship flight test slips to 2023; first methane launch is imminent

"We need some adult supervision there to actually help these guys."

A Falcon 9 rocket lands Thursday evening after launching the OneWeb 1 mission. Relativity Space's Terran 1 rocket is in the background, awaiting its debut launch.

Trevor Mahlmann

Welcome to Edition 5.20 of the Rocket Report! I have really enjoyed celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 17 mission this week. While it is bittersweet that humans have not been back to the Moon since, it is comforting to know that we are now following a sure and steady path that will lead us back in the not-too-distant future.

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.

Virgin Orbit launch from UK slips into 2023. Earlier this week Virgin Orbit sent out a news release indicating that the launch window for its LauncherOne mission from Cornwall, England, would open on December 14. But on Thursday, the company said its mission had been delayed for at least several weeks, BBC News reports. In a statement, Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart said, "With licenses still outstanding for the launch itself and for the satellites within the payload, additional technical work needed to establish system health and readiness, and a very limited available launch window of only two days, we have determined that it is prudent to retarget launch for the coming weeks to allow ourselves and our stakeholders time to pave the way for full mission success."

So into the new year, then ... At the outset of this year, there was high expectation that the first UK space launch would occur at some point in 2022, and at the time, Virgin Orbit officials were targeting September. But the company has run into regulatory roadblocks in licensing the launch. As those regulatory issues have yet to be finalized, it is now safe to say that the much-anticipated flight of LauncherOne from Cornwall—the first orbital launch attempt from UK soil—will slip at least into January. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)

Chinese rocket reaches orbit for the first time. A private Chinese solid-fueled rocket has conducted its first successful launch two years after failing its first test flight, Space.com reports. The Kuaizhou 11 rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Wednesday, local time, sending the VHF Data Exchange System test satellite into orbit. The launcher is operated by Expace, a commercial spinoff from the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation.

Coming back from adversity ... The Kuaizhou 11 rocket is advertised as being capable of carrying about 1,000 kg of payload to Sun-synchronous orbit, or up to 1,500 kg to low-Earth orbit. The first Kuaizhou 11 launch took place in July 2020 but failed. Expace also suffered an explosion during testing at the Jiuquan spaceport, which may have been a factor in the two-year grounding of the rocket. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Dawn Aerospace raises $20 million for rocket plane. Dawn Aerospace has scored another $20 million to help design a commercial version of its reusable spaceplane, Stuff reports. The funding will assist with the design of the Mk-III Aurora, a reusable rocket-powered space plane the size of a small business jet intended to deliver satellites into space. The company is preparing to fly a suborbital prototype, the Aurora Mk-II, with rocket engines in 2023. This is a demonstrator for the full-scale version.

Seeking to one-up the Falcon 9 ... Dawn CEO Stefan Powell said the goal is to deliver satellites with the regularity of airline operations. "At best you will get 10, maybe 20 uses out of a rocket before it’s scrapped, so you don’t get much use out of all that hardware," he said, referring to SpaceX's reusable Falcon 9 rocket. "We're trying to bring aircraft-like reusability to the rocket world, and that means you can replace an entire factory with a single aircraft that operates daily," Powell added. That works great, in theory. Doing so in practice may prove more difficult, but I'm glad someone is trying it. (submitted by David Ai)

Ukraine launch startup perseveres despite war. Ukrainian startup Promin Aerospace remains on track to conduct the first test of its small satellite launch technology early next year, despite the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war, Space News reports. Promin’s research and development laboratory is based in Dnipro, a Central Ukrainian city that has been struck by Russian missiles. To keep employees there safe, Promin does not publicize the location of its lab. The company also strives to prevent power outages in the area by maintaining two separate electric circuits.

Launching from Ukraine or Scotland ... Early next year, Promin plans to conduct the first test launch of a small rocket. If possible, the company will attempt to send the rocket to an altitude of roughly 100 meters in Ukraine. “Obviously, there are questions whether the [Ukrainian] administer government is going to allow us to do it,” Misha Rudominski, Promin CEO, told the publication. If Promin does not receive approval to conduct the launch in Ukraine, it will likely occur in Scotland. On a personal note, I remain in awe of the bravery and fortitude of the Ukrainian people in the face of Russia's aggression with efforts like this. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

OneWeb set for debut launch on Falcon 9. Forty OneWeb satellites are due to launch on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket as early as Thursday evening from Florida. Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, OneWeb had relied primarily on Russia's Soyuz rocket, the cheapest commercially available alternative to SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. After a dozen operational launches from spaceports in Russia and Kazakhstan, however, Russia invaded Ukraine. At the time, nearly three dozen satellites were stranded in a Russian processing facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

Working together, on the ground and in space ... This forced OneWeb to adjust its planning again, so the company surveyed its launch options around the world. With the Soyuz off the market, there weren't many other choices of medium-lift rockets to get its satellites into space, Ars reports. Needing five more launches to fully deploy the 648 satellites in the initial phase of its constellation, OneWeb bought two Indian launches on the Launch Vehicle Mark-3, and three on the Falcon 9 rocket. This is notable, of course, because OneWeb competes with SpaceX's own Starlink Internet constellation.

Another Chinese rocket nears its debut. Landspace is preparing for an imminent test launch of its methane-fueled Zhuque-2 rocket, Space News reports. The launch of what would be the world's first methane-fueled orbital rocket is expected in the coming days and will take place at newly built launch facilities at the national Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert, in Northwest China. The latest flight restrictions notice indicates the launch will take place no earlier than December 14.

An important commercial space milestone ... Chinese firms Landspace, iSpace, OneSpace, and Galactic Energy have all attempted or completed launches of light-lift solid rockets, along with spinoffs from giant state-owned enterprises. Landspace’s Zhuque-2 will, however, mark the first launch of a commercially developed Chinese liquid rocket. It is also larger than its commercial predecessors. Zhuque-2, which translated to “Vermillion Bird-2,” is powered by gas generator engines and will be capable of delivering a 6,000-kilogram payload capacity to a 200-kilometer low Earth orbit. (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)

Date set for final Ariane 5 launch of 2022. Arianespace has set a date of December 13, at 20:30 UTC, for the launch of three geostationary satellites from its spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The mission on an Ariane 5 rocket will loft the MTG-I1 meteorological satellite and Galaxy 35 and Galaxy 36 telecommunications satellites.

And then there were three ... After this mission there are just two more launches planned of the venerable rocket in 2023. The rocket is expected to retire after launching the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission for the European Space Agency next spring. The upcoming December launch will be the 115th mission overall for the Ariane 5 rocket, which made its debut in 1996. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Starship orbital launch will slip into 2023. SpaceX has not said anything official, but based on a couple of conversations, I think SpaceX has a reasonable chance of making Starship's orbital launch during the first quarter of 2023. There are no guarantees, and there still is a lot of work to do. But the company is making progress. I can say for certain that an orbital launch attempt this year is off the table.

Protect the tower, please ... Another thing I would note is that SpaceX has moved on from the "cowboy" phase of rocketry development in South Texas, when there was a higher tolerance of risk and failure during Starship prototype testing in 2021. This means the company is moving more slowly and deliberately. With the expensive launch tower, in particular, it is taking more time to increase its chances of success with the first launch of the Super Heavy booster and its Starship upper stage.

Why won't Artemis II happen for at least two years? In a feature, Ars investigates why a follow-up to the Artemis I mission is unlikely to launch before early 2025. It all goes back to a decision made about eight years ago to plug a $100 million budget hole in the Orion program. As a result of a chain of events that followed this decision, Artemis II is unlikely to fly before 2025 because of eight relatively small flight computers that are flying on Artemis I that need to be recertified for Artemis II.

A lot of work to do ... Publicly, NASA continues to say Artemis II will launch in 2024, requiring turning the avionics boxes around in 24 months or less. Asked if 2024 was doable, Orion Program Manager Howard Hu offered an aspirational response. "I would say that we’re going to try our best to get there," he told Ars. "We’ve got hardware that we’ve got to pull, and then we’ve got to evaluate where we are on the flow, and on the schedule. We’ve got lots of remaining work."

Blue Origin experimenting with payload fairings. In another sign that we will eventually be treated to a New Glenn rocket launch, Blue Origin has been spotted working with the rocket's large payload fairings. Michael Baylor, of the Next Spaceflight app, shared a photo that shows Blue Origin having splashed one-half of a fairing into the Turning Basin at Kennedy Space Center.

Getting those fairings back ... "It appears that Blue plans to recover the fairing halves from the water similar to SpaceX," he wrote on Twitter. As Blue Origin has worked on New Glenn, the company has also emulated SpaceX in pivoting toward a return of the massive rocket's first stage onto a drone ship. Nominally, the company still has a New Glenn launch target of 2023, but I believe that it will be doing very, very well to make a debut date in 2024.

Are you ready for the HLS2 boogaloo? After losing to SpaceX in the initial round of contracting for NASA's Human Landing System for the Artemis program, Blue Origin and Dynetics are bidding for NASA’s Sustaining Lunar Development contract as the agency continues to seek a second supplier to provide redundancy and competition. NASA wants two providers to ensure that at least one system is available if the other is grounded for any reason and to keep costs down since the service contracts are periodically renegotiated, SpacePolicyOnline.com reports.

Trading teams ... Bids for this second round of contracts were due on Tuesday. Blue Origin and Dynetics have revealed they are bidding again, although with different teams from last time. Blue Origin teamed with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper last time. This time it’s Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Draper, Astrobotic, and Honeybee. Northrop Grumman has jumped to the Dynetics team. If there are other bidders, they have not publicly come forward yet. This bidding process will be full of intrigue for at least the next six months, with NASA not expected to make a final decision until June 2023. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

NASA modifies SLS core stage production. The space agency said this week that it plans to move some final integration work on the Space Launch System rocket to Florida, Space News reports. Currently, the five major sections of the core stage—forward skirt, liquid oxygen tank, interstage, liquid hydrogen tank, and engine section—are manufactured and joined together into a single unit at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. That is how the core stage for the Artemis II mission is being built.

Freeing up space in a 43-acre building ... However, starting with the SLS manufactured for Artemis III, the upper four-fifths of the SLS—excluding the engine section—will be joined together at Michoud and shipped to KSC. The engine section will still be manufactured at Michoud but shipped separately to KSC, where it will undergo final outfitting at the Space Station Processing Facility there, including the installation of its four RS-25 engines. It will later be attached to the rest of the core stage inside the Vehicle Assembly Building. The change is intended to free up space at Michoud for additional SLS work, including the new Exploration Upper Stage. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Raytheon CEO dunks on Aerojet. Aerojet Rocketdyne is struggling to deliver quality rocket motors and has become “the weak link” in Raytheon Technologies’ supply chain, Defense One reports, based on an interview with Raytheon's CEO. The "supply chain has at least stabilized with the exception of our rocket-motor supplier,” Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes said. "In fact, that is the only supplier that's getting worse… from a performance standpoint, as opposed to better. We need some adult supervision there to actually help these guys." Hayes' claims of distraction at Aerojet come as officials there consider bids to sell the firm.

Not clear whether concerns include rocket engine business ... Raytheon makes air and missile defense systems for the US government. Aerojet has both a military and civil portfolio of propulsion business, which includes providing RL-10 and RS-25 rocket engines to customers, including NASA and United Launch Alliance. In an emailed statement to the publication, an Aerojet spokesman said the company “has been in close contact” with the Pentagon and the large defense firms it supplies "to ensure we continue to deliver the innovative, reliable propulsion systems that support and protect today’s warfighters."

Next three launches

Dec. 8: Falcon 9 | OneWeb 1 | Kennedy Space Center, Fla. | 22:37 UTC

Dec. 11: Falcon 9 | Hakuto-R | Cape Canaveral, Fla. | 07:38 UTC

Dec. 12: Long March 4C | Unknown payload | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China | 08:25 UTC

Rocket Report: Starship flight test slips to 2023; first methane launch is imminent

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Rocket Report: Starship flight test slips to 2023; first methane launch is imminent

"We need some adult supervision there to actually help these guys."

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