Rocket Report: German launch from Australia; Neutron delayed until 2025

Welcome to Edition 6.43 of the Rocket Report! This week saw the debut of two new rockets, a suborbital lifter from a German startup, and a new variant of the Long March 6 from China's state-owned launch provider. We also got within two hours of the debut of a crewed launch of Boeing's Starliner vehicle, but a rocket issue forced a 10-day delay. Soon, hopefully.

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.

Orbital launch tally running ahead of 2023. There were 63 orbital launch attempts worldwide in the first quarter of 2024, which is 10 more than the same time last year, Payload reports. SpaceX accounted for 32 of the 34 US orbital launch attempts in Q1. One ULA Vulcan launch and one Rocket Lab Electron launch out of Wallops rounded out the remaining total. (Rocket Lab flights out of New Zealand are not counted in US launch totals.)

SpaceX accounts for more than half ... SpaceX flew 31 Falcon missions and one Starship mission in Q1. The company’s launch attempts increased by 11 flights in Q1 2024 vs. Q1 2023. China’s Q1 launch was flat year over year at 14 flights, with its Long March 2 vehicle leading the way with four missions. Europe’s planned summer Ariane 6 launch can’t come soon enough, as the region saw zero launch attempts in the quarter.

Virgin Galactic will lean heavily on mothership. Virgin Galactic says it will fly its existing “mothership” aircraft more frequently than previously planned with its upcoming Delta-class suborbital spaceplanes, allowing the company to defer development of a new plane, Space News reports. In a May 7 earnings call, Virgin Galactic executives said they expect to fly their VMS Eve aircraft up to 125 times a year once the company starts commercial service of the Delta spaceplanes, the successor to the existing VSS Unity, in 2026.

Asking a lot of Eve ... “The planned increase in flight cadence for our mothership Eve is a game changer when our first two Delta ships enter commercial service,” added Doug Ahrens, chief financial officer of Virgin Galactic. That is a lot to ask of what was originally a developmental aircraft, which started flights in 2008. Eve was never intended to fly this many times, and it seems likely that refurbishment of the plane between launches could become a major bottleneck for Virgin Galactic as it seeks to scale up operations. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

HyImpulse conducts its first launch. The Germany-based startup launched a suborbital rocket from Southern Launch’s Koonibba Test Range in Australia late last week. The SR75 rocket's "Light this Candle!" mission was the inaugural launch attempt of HyImpulse’s booster, a pathfinder for an eventual orbital rocket. In a news release, the company characterized the flight as a "success" but did not specify what altitude the vehicle reached. Nominally, it is capable of flying to 250 km.

Literally lighting a candle ... "With this successful launch, which also provides us with valuable data for further development, we have validated our technical concept and demonstrated our market readiness," said Christian Schmierer, co-founder and co-CEO of HyImpulse. The German launch company is developing its rockets with hybrid technology, using solid paraffin (commonly known as candle wax) and liquid oxygen as fuel. HyImpulse aims to learn from this launch as it develops the SL1 multi-stage orbital launch vehicle, which may debut next year. (submitted by Marakai and Joey S-IVB)

Redesigned Vega C second stage ships. Italian rocket builder Avio has announced that it has shipped the first of its redesigned Vega C Zefiro 40 second stage to its testing facility in Sardinia, European Spaceflight reports. This development follows the failure of a Vega C rocket's second stage during just the second flight of the rocket in 2022, resulting in the loss of two Airbus Pléiades Neo Earth observation satellites. After several investigations, it was decided that the Zefiro 40 nozzle needed to be redesigned.

Test then fly ... On Thursday, Avio published the highlights of first-quarter financial results, which included an update on the Vega C rocket’s path back to flight. A static fire test of the stage is expected to be conducted between late May and early June. A second static fire test will complete qualification and could result in a launch of the next Vega C rocket by the end of this year. One item of concern for Avio is cash: According to the company’s Q1 financials, Avio reduced its net cash position by 66.6 million euros from the last quarter of 2024 to just 9.6 million euros. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Swedish launch site gets first orbital customer. South Korea’s Perigee Aerospace has signed an agreement to launch its Blue Whale 1 rocket from Esrange Space Center in Sweden. Originally developed in the 1960s to launch suborbital rockets, the site is now managed by the government-owned Swedish Space Corporation. This would be the first orbital mission from the location. The first Blue Whale 1 launch from Esrange is expected no earlier than next year, European Spaceflight reports.

A reusable first stage? ... "SSC has an impressive 50 years of launch heritage, and the new orbital launch infrastructure at Esrange is laying the foundation for the years to come,” said Perigee founder and CEO Yoon Shin. Blue Whale 1 is a two-stage small-lift rocket that is intended to have a reusable first stage. The rocket may be capable of delivering up to 200 kg payloads into a 500 km Sun-synchronous orbit. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Faulty valve scuttles Starliner’s first crew launch. Around two hours before the Starliner spacecraft was due to lift off on Monday evening atop an Atlas V rocket, United Launch Alliance stopped the countdown, Ars reports. The culprit was a misbehaving valve on the rocket's Centaur upper stage, which has two RL10 engines fed by super-chilled liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants. “We saw a self-regulating valve on the LOX (liquid oxygen) side had a bit of a buzz; it was moving in a strange behavior," said Steve Stich, NASA's commercial crew program manager. "The flight rules had been laid out for this flight ahead of time. With the crew at the launch pad, the proper action was to scrub.”

A short delay after years of waiting ... The next opportunity to launch Starliner on its first crew test flight will be May 17 at 6:16 pm EDT (22:16 UTC). Managers spent Tuesday reviewing data from the faulty valve and determined it should be replaced. This will require ULA to roll the Atlas V rocket back into its hangar about a third of a mile south of the launch pad, eliminating any chance to launch the mission later this week. The launch of Starliner has been long-awaited and is running years behind its original schedule. In a lengthy feature, Ars explored some of the reasons for these delays and challenges Boeing has overcome in developing the human spacecraft.

Neutron debut slips into 2025. After insisting that the reusable Neutron would be “on the pad” by year-end, Rocket Lab conceded during its first-quarter earnings release that the next-generation vehicle won’t launch until mid-2025, Payload reports. “The engine is the primary driver for the move,” chief executive Peter Beck said during the call. The company completed the build of the first Archimedes engine for the medium-lift rocket, which is now on its way to Stennis Space Center for hot fire testing.

A very difficult thing ... Rocket Lab is building five engines concurrently as it develops the manufacturing line for the new propulsion systems. “At the end of the day, this is a rocket program, and it’s a very difficult thing to execute—that’s why there are only a few of us in the world that have pulled this off,” Beck said. At the end of the day, we say that Neutron launching at any point in 2025 would be a big win for Rocket Lab. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Polaris Dawn mission will push Falcon 9, Dragon mission. Commanded and funded by private astronaut Jared Isaacman, the Polaris Dawn mission seeks to test new technologies that will further the expansion of humanity into space, Ars reports. Among the objectives are pushing the performance of the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket, performing the first commercial spacewalk in a new spacesuit developed by SpaceX, and testing Starlink laser-based communications in space.

Flying high ... "Our first objective is to travel farther from the Earth and the last time humans walked on the Moon with Apollo 17, more than 50 years ago," Isaacman said. The mission will target an apogee of 1,400 kilometers. The Polaris Dawn mission does not have a launch date, but SpaceX officials confirmed that it is now the next crewed mission the company will fly. There are several scheduling issues at play, but it's possible the mission could launch within the next six to eight weeks. It's likely the Falcon 9 first stage that launched a Starlink mission on Wednesday, B.1083, will be used for the mission.

Long March 6C makes its debut. The new Long March 6C rocket successfully inserted four satellites into orbit late Monday on its debut flight, Space News reports. The new, 43-meter-tall rocket is the latest in a line of new-generation rockets developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology in the Long March 6 series. It is a shorter variant of the Long March 6A and has a carrying capacity of 2.4 metric tons to a 500 km Sun-synchronous orbit.

Less toxic rockets, please ... The new Long March rockets are part of a new generation of Chinese rockets that use kerosene and liquid oxygen instead of toxic hypergolic propellant. The launch was China’s 20th of 2024 and follows the May 3 launch of the Chang’e-6 sample return mission. China aims to launch around 100 times this year, but at the country's current pace, it will fall well short of this target. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Space Florida studies options for expanding port operations. In response to growing demand for commercial space operations at Port Canaveral—principally the recovery and off-loading of Falcon 9 first-stage boosters, but with other providers expected to join in soon—Space Florida conducted a study to consider expansion options. "While Port Canaveral supports the commercial space industry, existing infrastructure does not have capacity to meet the demands of the expected exponential growth in the space transportation industry," the study found.

Responding to market demand ... Anticipating growth in launch and recovery operations by as much as a factor of 10 over the next half century, the Space Florida study sees the need for significant growth. "Current facilities at Port Canaveral and surrounding areas are insufficient to meet the projected demand for maritime operations related to space launches, necessitating over 9,000 linear feet of dedicated wharf space," the study concluded. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

China launches third lunar mission in five years. Last Friday, the country launched its largest rocket, the Long March 5, carrying an orbiter, lander, ascent vehicle, and a return spacecraft. The combined mass of the Chang'e-6 spacecraft is about 8 metric tons, and it will attempt to return rocks and soil from the far side of the Moon—something scientists have never been able to study before in-depth. The mission's goal is to bring about 2 kg (4.4 pounds) of rocks back to Earth a little more than a month from now, Ars reports.

Building toward human landings ... Chang'e-6 builds upon the Chinese space program's successful lunar program. In 2019, the Chang'e-4 mission made a soft landing on the far side of the Moon, the first time this had ever been done by a spacecraft. The far side is more challenging than the near side, because line-of-sight communications are not possible with Earth. Then, in late 2020, the Chang'e-5 mission landed on the near side of the Moon and successfully collected 1.7 kg of rocks. These were subsequently blasted off the surface of the Moon and returned to China. Nominally, China's current plan calls for the first landing of two taikonauts on the surface of the Moon in 2029 or 2030. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Next three launches

May 10: Falcon 9 | Starlink 8-2 | Vandenberg Space Force Base | 03:20 UTC

May 11: Long March 4C | Unknown payload | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China | 11:45 UTC

May 13: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-58 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 12:11 UTC