Rocket Report: Vulcan stacked for launch; Starship aces test ahead of third flight

Welcome to Edition 6.24 of the Rocket Report! This will be the final edition of this newsletter until January 4—hey, space enthusiasts need a holiday break too! And given all that's expected to happen in 2024 in the world of launch, a bit of a recharge seems like a smart move. Stephen and I wish everyone happy holidays and a healthy and prosperous new year. Until then!

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.

Ranking the top 10 US launch companies of 2023. Oops, we did it again and published a list of the most accomplished US commercial launch companies. It's no surprise that SpaceX is atop the list, but what comes after is more intriguing, including a new company in second position. I hope the list sparks debate, discussion, and appreciation for the challenge of operating a successful rocket company.

This is a really hard business ... The article closes with this message, which I think is a fitting way to end the calendar year and kick off the holiday season: "As ever, I remain in awe of all the talented engineers and business people out there trying to make a go of it in the launch industry. This is a difficult and demanding business, replete with problems. I salute your hard work and hope for your success."

New Shepard finally flies again. With redesigned engine components, Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket took off from West Texas and flew to the edge of space on Tuesday with a package of scientific research and technology demonstration experiments, Ars reports. This was the first flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket since September 12, 2022, when an engine failure destroyed the booster and triggered an in-flight abort for the vehicle's pressurized capsule during an uncrewed flight.

Does "soon'" really mean soon? ... It took 15 months for Blue Origin to return to flight with New Shepard, but Tuesday's successful launch puts the company on a path to resuming human missions. So when will Blue Origin start flying people again? "Following a thorough review of today’s mission, we look forward to flying our next crewed flight soon," said Erika Wagner, a longtime Blue Origin manager who co-hosted the company's webcast of Tuesday's flight. (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)

Electron successfully returns to flight. Rocket Lab successfully launched a Japanese radar imaging satellite on the first flight of its Electron rocket since a failure nearly three months ago, Space News reports. The Electron lifted off from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 11:05 pm ET on December 14. The vehicle deployed its payload, the QPS-SAR-5 or Tsukuyomi-1 satellite, for Japanese company iQPS, afterward.

A record number of launches this year ... The launch was the first for Electron since a September 19 failure during a launch of another radar-imaging satellite for Capella Space. On that mission, the first stage performed as expected, but the second stage's engine appeared to shut down immediately after ignition, preventing it from reaching orbit. The launch was the 10th flight of the Electron this year, including one launch of a suborbital version of Electron called HASTE. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Shetland approved for UK launches. SaxaVord Spaceport on the small island of Unst has been given approval from the Civil Aviation Authority to begin orbital launches in 2024, the BBC reports. It will be the first fully licensed spaceport in Western Europe able to launch vertically into orbit. It permits up to 30 launches a year that will be used to take satellites and other payloads into space.

iSpace finally returns a payload to orbit. The Chinese company's sixth Hyperbola-1 rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Sunday, carrying the recoverable Di'er-1 test satellite. It is the first time iSpace has placed a satellite in orbit since its historic first launch in July 2019, when the Hyperbola-1 four-stage solid rocket made the company the first Chinese commercial launch startup to reach orbit, Space.com reports.

A Chinese Grasshopper ... The next three Hyperbola-1 launches all ended in failure. The fifth, launched in April this year, reached orbit but carried no active payload. iSpace has also been working on vertical takeoff, and vertical landing technologies needed to make its next larger and more complex launch vehicle—the Hyperbola-3—reusable. The company conducted a pair of "hop" tests at Jiuquan in recent weeks, with the latest reaching an altitude of 1,125 feet (343 meters) and traveling 164 feet (50 m) across to a landing area. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Chinese firm raises significant funding. Leading Chinese launch startup Galactic Energy has secured $154 million in funding for the development of its reusable Pallas-1 rocket, Space News reports. The funding announcement indicates there is still money available to Chinese commercial launch firms despite an economic downturn and a crowded, competitive field.

They're hopping, too ... Pallas-1 is a 42-meter-long kerosene-liquid oxygen launcher with a planned capacity of 5,000 kg to low-Earth orbit, or 3,000 kg to a 700 km Sun-synchronous orbit. The company stated at the China Commercial Aerospace Forum in Wuhan in July that it is targeting Q3 next year for the first Pallas-1 flight. Recovery of a first stage using landing legs is slated for 2025. The company has previously conducted some hop tests to validate its landing technology. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

NASA says RDE engine test a success. The US space agency said this week it had achieved a new benchmark in the development of a rotating detonation rocket engine. Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, successfully tested a novel, 3D-printed rotating detonation engine for 251 seconds, producing more than 5,800 pounds of thrust. That kind of sustained burn emulates typical requirements for a lander touchdown or a deep-space burn that could set a spacecraft on course from the Moon to Mars, the agency said.

Eyeing bigger engines ... The primary goal of the latest test was to better understand how to scale the combustor to different thrust classes, supporting engine systems of all types and maximizing the variety of missions it could serve, from landers to upper-stage engines to supersonic retropropulsion, a deceleration technique that could land larger payloads—or even humans—on the surface of Mars. A number of companies, including Venus Aerospace, are working to developing this new propulsion technology because it is more efficient than a traditional rocket engine. (submitted by Tfargo04)

Latitude unveils plan for evolved Zephyr rocket. The French launch startup is deep into development of a microlauncher called Zephyr. This rocket, which is anticipated to debut in 2025, will have a payload capacity of 100 kg to low-Earth orbit. However, this week, Latitude announced plans for a more capable, evolved version of the rocket in response to the market. It will be capable of lifting 200 kg to orbit.

A whole new latitude ... “This third version of Zephyr is a logical evolution for Latitude. It lines up in anticipation with our positioning: manufacture the main launcher for small satellite launches,” said Latitude co-founder and CEO Stanislas Maximin. The company said the increased performance was largely driven by engine enhancements. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)

Mixed progress on Ariane 6 tests. Teams from the European Space Agency, ArianeGroup, and the French space agency CNES completed an Ariane 6 launch sequence rehearsal test on December 15, European Spaceflight reports. The tests included removal of the mobile gantry, filling and draining of the rocket’s upper and core stage tanks with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and an ignition of the core stage’s Vulcain 2.1 engine. The test went as planned.

Upper stage testing not as successful ... Earlier this month, on December 7, the Ariane 6 rocket's upper stage was subjected to testing under "extreme and unexpected conditions." Two minutes after the ignition of the stage’s Vinci engine, however, the test was automatically aborted after sensors detected that “some parameters had gone beyond predetermined thresholds.” ArianeGroup is currently investigating the reason for the early abort. The ESA statement explained that the investigation would be completed by mid-January 2024. The debut flight of Ariane 6 is still scheduled to take place between June 15 and July 31, 2024. (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)

ULA sale bidders confirmed. The Wall Street Journal has confirmed a report in Ars Technica a month ago that the sale of rocket company United Launch Alliance is down to three bidders. The Journal names Blue Origin, the private equity fund Cerberus, and aviation and defense manufacturer Textron as the three potential buyers. Blue Origin and Cerberus have submitted buyout bids, while Textron has expressed interest, the publication reports.

China's largest rocket lofts spy satellite. China's largest rocket apparently wasn't big enough to launch the country's newest spy satellite, so engineers gave it an upgrade, Ars reports. The Long March 5 launcher flew with a payload fairing some 20 feet (6.2 meters) taller than its usual nose cone when it took off on Friday with a Chinese military spy satellite. This made the Long March 5, with a height of some 200 feet, the tallest rocket China has ever flown. Because this mission launched on China's most powerful rocket, with the longer payload fairing added on, the Yaogan-41 spacecraft is presumably quite big.

Likely for military purposes ... The US military's space-tracking network found the Yaogan-41 satellite in an elliptical, or oval-shaped, orbit soon after Friday's launch. Yaogan-41's trajectory takes it between an altitude of about 121 miles (195 kilometers) and 22,254 miles (35,815 kilometers), according to publicly available tracking data. In an official statement, China's state-run Xinhua news agency claimed Yaogan-41 will be used for civilian purposes, such as land surveys and agricultural monitoring. In reality, China uses the Yaogan name as a blanket identifier for most of its military satellites.

SpaceX completes Starship static fire. On Wednesday, at 1:37 pm local time in South Texas, the company performed a static fire test of the next Starship—which bears the serial number Ship 28. The test of the rocket's six engines appeared nominal as the Raptors ignited for a handful of seconds. The rocket and ground support equipment looked undamaged after the test, Ars reports. SpaceX later confirmed the test was successful. A hot firing of the Super Heavy first-stage booster could follow as soon as Thursday.

A January launch upcoming? ... All of this work comes only one month after the second test flight of the massive Starship vehicle. The second flight demonstrated substantial improvements in engine reliability and provided valuable data about a challenging "hot staging" maneuver to separate the Super Heavy booster from the Starship upper stage. SpaceX has yet to receive regulatory approval for a third launch of Starship. The Federal Aviation Administration characterized the second attempt in November as a "mishap," while acknowledging that no injuries or public property damage were reported.

Vulcan is stacked for launch. United Launch Alliance's first Vulcan rocket has been fully assembled at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in preparation for its inaugural flight next month, Ars reports. Technicians hoisted the Vulcan rocket's payload fairing, containing a commercial lunar lander from Astrobotic, on top of the launch vehicle Wednesday morning at ULA's Vertical Integration Facility. This milestone followed the early morning transfer of the payload fairing from a nearby facility where Astrobotic's lunar lander was fueled for its flight to the Moon.

From Christmas Eve to the New Year ... This moves the launch company closer to the first flight of Vulcan, the vehicle slated to replace ULA's Atlas V and Delta IV rockets. After some final checkouts and a holiday break, ground crews will transport the Vulcan rocket to its launch pad in preparation for liftoff at 2:18 am ET (07:18 UTC) on January 8. The launch was previously scheduled for December 24, but ULA delayed the flight until the next launch window to resolve ground system issues uncovered during one of the recent Vulcan countdown rehearsals.

Next three launches

December 22: Alpha | Fly the Lightning| Vandenberg Space Force Base | 17:18 UTC

December 23: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-32 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station | 04:00 UTC

December 23: Falcon 9 | SARah 2 & 3 satellites | Vandenberg Space Force Base | 11:56 UTC