Welcome to the 7.07 edition of Rocket Report! SpaceX hasn’t been slowing down at all since the Federal Aviation Administration gave the company the green light to resume Falcon 9 launches after last month’s failure. In a 19-day period, SpaceX has launched its Falcon 9 rocket 10 times, utilizing all three Falcon 9 launch pads. That’s a remarkable cadence in itself, but even with the small sample size, it’s especially impressive as a start coming so soon after the rocket was grounded.
As always, we Reader submissions welcomeIf you don’t want to miss an issue, subscribe using the box below (the form won’t appear in the AMP-enabled version of the site). Each report includes information on a small, medium, and large rocket, as well as an overview of the next three launches listed on the calendar.
Rocket Lab responded quickly. Rocket Lab launched its 52nd Electron rocket on August 11 from a private spaceport on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula. Space News ReportThe company’s lightweight Electron rocket launched a small radar imaging satellite into a medium inclination orbit for Capella Space. This was the shortest turnaround between two Rocket Lab missions launched from New Zealand’s main launch pad, and came less than nine days after an Electron rocket launched from the same pad carrying a radar imaging satellite for Japan’s Synspective. Capella’s Acadia 3 satellite was originally scheduled to launch in July, but Capella requested a delay to allow for further testing of the spacecraft. Rocket Lab swapped places in the Electron launch sequence, launching the Synspective mission first.
Now, let’s bring silence to the launch pad. … According to SpaceNews, Rocket Lab hailed the exchange as an example of the flexibility Electron offers and its ability to deliver payloads to specific orbits that rideshare missions can’t. For this customized launch service, Rocket Lab charges a higher launch price than it charges to launch small payloads on SpaceX’s rideshare missions. But SpaceX’s rideshare launches make up the majority of small satellites in Rocket Lab’s target market. On Friday, a Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch 116 small payloads into polar orbit. Meanwhile, Rocket Lab plans to launch just one more launch before the end of September, bringing its Electron launch count to 15-18 this year. That would be a record for the company, but far short of the 22 it predicted earlier this year. Rocket Lab cited customer readiness as the reason for the much lower than expected launch.
Defense contractors collaborate on solid rocket development. Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics are working together to begin production of solid rocket motors, today announcing a strategic partnership agreement that could see the new motors produced as soon as 2025. Defense NewsThe new contract could bring a third vendor into the struggling solid rocket motor industrial base, which currently only has L3Harris subsidiary Aerojet Rocketdyne and America’s Northrop Grumman, which are struggling to meet demand from weapons makers such as Lockheed and RTX, who are in desperate need of solid rocket motors for products such as the PAC-3 missiles used in the Javelin and Patriot missile defense systems.
Pressure from a startup … Demand for solid rocket motors has surged since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as the United States and its allies seek to replenish inventories of weapons such as Javelins and Stingers and to supply motors to meet growing demands in the space sector. While General Dynamics has so far kept its interest in the solid rocket motor market secret, defense technology startups including Ursa Major Technologies, Anduril and XBow Systems have announced plans to enter the market. (Courtesy of Ken The Bin)
I will be going to the poles with my crew. SpaceX plans to send the first crewed spaceflight over both Earth’s poles, possibly by the end of the year, Ars reports. The private Crew Dragon mission will be led by China-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur Chun Wang, accompanied by polar explorers, roboticists, and filmmakers he has befriended in recent years. The “Fram 2” mission, named after the Norwegian research vessel Fram, will launch from SpaceX’s Florida launch site into the polar corridor and fly directly over the North and South Poles. The three-to-five-day mission is planned to fly over Antarctica near the Southern Hemisphere’s summer solstice to maximize light.
Mr. Wang’s preferences are his prerogative. … Wang told Ars he wanted to try something new, and that flying a polar mission aligned with his interests in colder parts of the Earth. He’s paid for it commercially, and SpaceX recently demonstrated it could launch a satellite into a polar orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida, something no one has done in more than 50 years. The highest inclination flight by a manned spacecraft was the Soviet Vostok 6 mission in 1963, when Valentina Tereshkova’s spacecraft reached 65.1 degrees. Now Fram 2 will repeatedly fly directly above the poles.
