Welcome to Issue 7.01 of the Rocket Report! Because of Independence Day, we’re compiling this week’s report a day later than usual. Ars is publishing this weekly roundup of rocket news for the seventh year, and despite the holiday here in the United States, there’s plenty of it this week. Worldwide, there were 122 launches to orbit or beyond in the first half of 2024, up from 91 in the same period last year.
As always, we welcome reader contributions. 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 contains information on small, medium and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a brief look ahead to the next three launches on the calendar.
Firefly launches its fifth Alpha flight. Firefly Aerospace has launched eight CubeSats into orbit on a NASA-funded mission. It was the first flight of the company’s Alpha rocket since an upper stage malfunction more than half a year ago, Space News reports. The two-stage Alpha rocket blasted off late Wednesday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, two days after a ground equipment problem aborted the launch shortly before engine ignition. The eight CubeSats come from NASA centers and universities and will be used for a range of education, research and technology demonstration missions. This was the fifth flight of Firefly’s Alpha rocket, which can launch about a ton of payload into low Earth orbit.
Anomaly removal … This was the fifth flight of an Alpha rocket since 2021 and the fourth Alpha flight to reach orbit. However, the last Alpha launch in December failed to place Lockheed Martin’s payload into the correct orbit because of a problem with the second-stage engine re-ignition. In this week’s launch, Alpha deployed its NASA-sponsored payload after a single second-stage ignition and then performed a successful engine restart for a level-change maneuver. Engineers attributed the problem on the last Alpha flight to a software glitch. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Two companies were added to the Department of Defense launch pool. Blue Origin and Stoke Space Technologies — neither of which has yet reached orbit — have received approval from the U.S. Space Force to bid for future small payload launches, Breaking Defense reports. Blue Origin and Stoke Space join a list of launch companies eligible to bid for launch contracts the Space Force is bidding under the Orbital Services Program-4 (OSP-4) contract. Under that contract, Space Systems Command purchases launch services for payloads of 400 pounds (180 kilograms) or more, enabling launches within 12 to 24 months of a contract being awarded. The OSP-4 contract puts a “focus on small orbit launch capabilities and launch solutions for the needs of tactically responsive space missions,” said Lt. Col. Steve Hendershot, chief of Space Systems Command’s small launch and target division.
An even dozen …Blue Origin intends to launch its New Glenn orbital rocket for the first time as early as late September, while Stoke Space plans to fly its Nova rocket on an orbital test flight next year. The addition of these two companies brings the total number of vendors eligible to bid on the OSP-4 contracts to 12. The other companies are ABL Space Systems, Aevum, Astra, Firefly Aerospace, Northrop Grumman, Relativity Space, Rocket Lab, SpaceX, United Launch Alliance and X-Bow. (submitted by Ken the Bin and brianrhurley)
Italian startup tests small rocket. Italian rocket builder Sidereus Space Dynamics has completed the first integrated system test of its EOS rocket, reports European Spaceflight. That test took place on Sunday and culminated in an ignition of the MR-5 kerosene/liquid oxygen main engine for about 11 seconds. The EOS rocket is a novel design that uses a single-stage architecture in which the reusable booster returns to Earth from orbit under a paraglider and is recovered. The rocket is less than 4.2 meters tall and can carry about 13 kilograms of payload to low Earth orbit.
A lean operation …After integrated ground testing is complete, the company will conduct the first low-altitude EOS test flights. Founded in 2019, Sidereus has raised €6.6 million ($7.1 million) to fund development of the EOS rocket. While this is only a fraction of the funding raised by other European startups such as Isar Aerospace, MaiaSpace and Orbex, Sidereus CEO Mattia Barbarossa has previously stated that the company aims to “reimagine space travel in a fraction of the time and with limited resources.” (Submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)