{"id":44327,"date":"2025-04-11T20:24:34","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T12:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/rocket-report-no-mans-land-in-rocket-wars-isaacman-lukewarm-on-sls\/"},"modified":"2025-04-11T20:24:34","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T12:24:34","slug":"rocket-report-no-mans-land-in-rocket-wars-isaacman-lukewarm-on-sls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/rocket-report-no-mans-land-in-rocket-wars-isaacman-lukewarm-on-sls\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket Report: \u201cNo man\u2019s land\u201d in rocket wars; Isaacman lukewarm on SLS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Edition 7.39 of the Rocket Report! Not getting your launch fix? Buckle up. We\u2019re on the cusp of a boom in rocket launches as three new megaconstellations have either just begun or will soon begin deploying thousands of satellites to enable broadband connectivity from space. If the megaconstellations come to fruition, this will require more than a thousand launches in the next few years, on top of SpaceX\u2019s blistering Starlink launch cadence. We discuss the topic of megaconstellations in this week\u2019s Rocket Report.<\/p>\n

As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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So, what is SpinLaunch doing now? <\/b>Ars Technica has mentioned SpinLaunch, the company that literally wants to yeet satellites into space, in previous Rocket Report newsletters. This company enjoyed some success in raising money for its so-crazy-it-just-might-work idea of catapulting rockets and satellites into the sky, a concept SpinLaunch calls \u201ckinetic launch.\u201d But SpinLaunch is now making a hard pivot to small satellites, a move that, on its face, seems puzzling after going all-in on kinetic launch and even performing several impressive hardware tests, throwing a projectile to altitudes of up to 30,000 feet. Ars got the scoop, with the company\u2019s CEO detailing why and how it plans to build a low-Earth orbit telecommunications constellation with 280 satellites.<\/p>\n

Traditional versus kinetic <\/i>\u2026 The planned constellation, named Meridian, is an opportunity for SpinLaunch to diversify away from being solely a launch company, according to David Wrenn, the company\u2019s CEO. We\u2019ve observed this in a number of companies that started out as rocket developers before branching out to satellite manufacturing or space services. Wrenn said SpinLaunch could loft all of the Meridian satellites on a single large conventional rocket, or perhaps two medium-lift rockets, and then maintain the constellation with its own kinetic launch system. A satellite communications network presents a better opportunity for profit, Wrenn said. \u201cThe launch market is relatively small compared to the economic potential of satellite communication,\u201d he said. \u201cLaunch has generally been more of a cost center than a profit center. Satcom will be a much larger piece of the overall industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n The Ars Technica Rocket Report
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Peter Beck suggests Electron is here to stay.<\/b> The conventional wisdom is that the small launch vehicle business isn\u2019t a big moneymaker. There is really only one company, Rocket Lab, that has gained traction in selling dedicated rides to orbit for small satellites. Rocket Lab\u2019s launcher, Electron, can place payloads of up to a few hundred pounds into orbit. As soon as Rocket Lab had some success, SpaceX began launching rideshare missions on its much larger Falcon 9 rocket, cobbling together dozens of satellites on a single vehicle to spread the cost of the mission among many customers. This offers customers a lower price point than buying a dedicated launch on Electron. But Peter Beck, Rocket Lab\u2019s founder and CEO, says his company has found a successful market providing dedicated launches for small satellites, despite price pressure from SpaceX, Space News reports. \u201cDedicated small launch is a real market, and it should not be confused with rideshare,\u201d he argued. \u201cIt\u2019s totally different.\u201d<\/p>\n

No man\u2019s land <\/i>\u2026 Some small satellite companies that can afford the extra cost of a dedicated launch realize the value of controlling their schedule and orbit, traits that a dedicated launch offers over a rideshare, Beck said. It\u2019s easy to blame SpaceX for undercutting the prices of Rocket Lab and other players in this segment of the launch business, but Beck said companies that have failed or withdrawn from the small launch market didn\u2019t have a good business plan, a good product, or good engineering. He added that the capacity of the Electron vehicle is well-suited for dedicated launch, whereas slightly larger rockets in the one-ton-to-orbit class\u2014a category that includes Firefly Aerospace\u2019s Alpha and Isar Aerospace\u2019s Spectrum rockets\u2014are an ill fit. The one-ton performance range is \u201cno man\u2019s land\u201d in the market, Beck said. \u201cIt\u2019s too small to be a useful rideshare mission, and it\u2019s too big to be a useful dedicated rocket\u201d for smallsats. (submitted by EllPeaTea)<\/p>\n

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ULA scrubs first full-on Kuiper launch.<\/b> A band of offshore thunderstorms near Florida\u2019s Space Coast on Wednesday night forced United Launch Alliance to scrub a launch attempt of the first of dozens of missions on behalf of its largest commercial customer, Amazon, Spaceflight Now reports. The mission will use an Atlas V rocket to deploy 27 satellites for Amazon\u2019s Project Kuiper network. It\u2019s the first launch of what will eventually be more than 3,200 operational Kuiper satellites beaming broadband connectivity from space, a market currently dominated by SpaceX\u2019s Starlink. As of Thursday, ULA hadn\u2019t confirmed a new launch date, but airspace warning notices released by the FAA suggest the next attempt might occur Monday, April 14.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s a few more days? <\/i>\u2026 This mission has been a long time coming. Amazon announced the Kuiper megaconstellation in 2019, and the company says it\u2019s investing at least $10 billion in the project (the real number may be double that). Problems in manufacturing the Kuiper satellites, which Amazon is building in-house, delayed the program\u2019s first full-on launch by a couple of years. Amazon launched a pair of prototype satellites in 2023, but the operational versions are different, and this mission fills the capacity of ULA\u2019s Atlas V rocket. Amazon has booked more than 80 launches with ULA, Arianespace, Blue Origin, and SpaceX to populate the Kuiper network. (submitted by EllPeaTea)<\/p>\n

Space Force swaps ULA for SpaceX. <\/b>For the second time in six months, SpaceX will deploy a US military satellite that was sitting in storage, waiting for a slot on United Launch Alliance\u2019s launch schedule, Ars reports. Space Systems Command, which oversees the military\u2019s launch program, announced Monday that it is reassigning the launch of a Global Positioning System satellite from ULA\u2019s Vulcan rocket to SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9. This satellite, designated GPS III SV-08 (Space Vehicle-08), will join the Space Force\u2019s fleet of navigation satellites beaming positioning and timing signals for military and civilian users around the world. The move allows the GPS satellite to launch as soon as the end of May, the Space Force said. The military executed a similar rocket swap for a GPS mission that launched on a Falcon 9 in December.<\/p>\n

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Making ULA whole <\/i>\u2026 The Space Force formally certified ULA\u2019s Vulcan rocket for national security missions last month, so Vulcan may finally be on the cusp of delivering for the military. But there are several military payloads in the queue to launch on Vulcan before GPS III SV-08, which was already completed and in storage at its Lockheed Martin factory in Colorado. Meanwhile, SpaceX is regularly launching Falcon 9 rockets with ample capacity to add the GPS mission to the manifest. In exchange for losing the contract to launch this particular GPS satellite, the Space Force swapped a future GPS mission that was assigned to SpaceX to fly on ULA\u2019s Vulcan instead.<\/p>\n

Russia launches a former Navy SEAL to space. <\/b>Jonny Kim, a former Navy SEAL, Harvard Medical School graduate, and now a NASA astronaut, blasted off with two cosmonaut crewmates aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket early Tuesday, CBS News reports. Three hours later, Kim and his Russian crewmates\u2014Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky\u2014chased down the International Space Station and moved in for a picture-perfect docking aboard their Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft. \u201cIt was the trip of a lifetime and an honor to be here,\u201d Kim told flight controllers during a traditional post-docking video conference.<\/p>\n

Rotating back to Earth <\/i>\u2026 Ryzhikov, Zubritsky, and Kim joined a crew of seven living aboard the International Space Station, temporarily raising the lab\u2019s crew complement to 10 people. The new station residents are replacing an outgoing Soyuz crew\u2014Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Wagner, and Don Pettit\u2014who launched to the ISS last September and who plan to return to Earth aboard their own spacecraft April 19 to wrap up a 219-day stay in space. This flight continues the practice of launching US astronauts on Russian Soyuz missions, part of a barter agreement between NASA and the Russian space agency that also reserves a seat on SpaceX Dragon missions for Russian cosmonauts.<\/p>\n

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China is littering in LEO. <\/b>China\u2019s construction of a pair of communications megaconstellations could cloud low Earth orbit with large spent rocket stages for decades or beyond, Space News reports. Launches for the government\u2019s Guowang and Shanghai-backed but more commercially oriented Qianfan (Thousand Sails) constellation began in the second half of 2024, with each planned to consist of over 10,000 satellites, demanding more than a thousand launches in the coming years. Placing this number of satellites is enough to cause concern about space debris because China hasn\u2019t disclosed its plans for removing the spacecraft from orbit at the end of their missions. It turns out there\u2019s another big worry: upper stages.<\/p>\n

An orbital time bomb <\/i>\u2026 While Western launch providers typically deorbit their upper stages after dropping off megaconstellation satellites in space, China does not. This means China is leaving rockets in orbits high enough to persist in space for more than a century, according to Jim Shell, a space domain awareness and orbital debris expert at Novarum Tech. Space News reported on Shell\u2019s commentary in a social media post, where he wrote that orbital debris mass in low-Earth orbit \u201cwill be dominated by PRC [People\u2019s Republic of China] upper stages in short order unless something changes (sigh).\u201d So far, China has launched five dedicated missions to deliver 90 Qianfan satellites into orbit. Four of these missions used China\u2019s Long March 6A rocket, with an upper stage that has a history of breaking up in orbit, exacerbating the space debris problem. (submitted by EllPeaTea)<\/p>\n

SpaceX wins another lunar lander launch deal. <\/b>Intuitive Machines has selected a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to launch a lunar delivery mission scheduled for 2027, the Houston Chronicle reports. The upcoming IM-4 mission will carry six NASA payloads, including a European Space Agency-led drill suite designed to search for water at the lunar south pole. It will also include the launch of two lunar data relay satellites that support NASA\u2019s so-called Near Space Network Services program. This will be the fourth lunar lander mission for Houston-based Intuitive Machines under the auspices of NASA\u2019s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.<\/p>\n

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Falcon 9 has the inside track <\/i>\u2026 SpaceX almost certainly offered Intuitive Machines the best deal for this launch. The flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket is reliable and inexpensive compared to competitors and has already launched two Intuitive Machines missions, with a third one set to fly late this year. However, there\u2019s another factor that made SpaceX a shoe-in for this contract. SpaceX has outfitted one of its launch pads in Florida with a unique cryogenic loading system to pump liquid methane and liquid oxygen propellants into the Intuitive Machines lunar lander as it sits on top of its rocket just before liftoff. The lander from Intuitive Machines uses these super-cold propellants to feed its main engine, and SpaceX\u2019s infrastructure for loading it makes the Falcon 9 rocket the clear choice for launching it.<\/p>\n

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Time may finally be running out for SLS. <\/b>Jared Isaacman, President Trump\u2019s nominee for NASA administrator, said Wednesday in a Senate confirmation hearing that he wants the space agency to pursue human missions to the Moon and Mars at the same time, an effort that will undoubtedly require major changes to how NASA spends its money. My colleague Eric Berger was in Washington for the hearing and reported on it for Ars. Senators repeatedly sought Isaacman\u2019s opinion on the Space Launch System, the NASA heavy-lifter designed to send astronauts to the Moon. The next SLS mission, Artemis II, is slated to launch a crew of four astronauts around the far side of the Moon next year. NASA\u2019s official plans call for the Artemis III mission to launch on an SLS rocket later this decade and attempt a landing at the Moon\u2019s south pole.<\/p>\n

Limited runway \u2026 <\/i>Isaacman sounded as if he were on board with flying the Artemis II mission as envisioned\u2014no surprise, then, that the four Artemis II astronauts were in the audience\u2014and said he wanted to get a crew of Artemis III to the lunar surface as quickly as possible. But he questioned why it has taken NASA so long, and at such great expense, to get its deep space human exploration plans moving. In one notable exchange, Isaacman said NASA\u2019s current architecture for the Artemis lunar plans, based on the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, is probably not the ideal \u201clong-term\u201d solution to NASA\u2019s deep space transportation plans. The smart reading of this is that Isaacman may be willing to fly the Artemis II and Artemis III missions as conceived, given that much of the hardware is already built. But everything that comes after this, including SLS rocket upgrades and the Lunar Gateway, could be on the chopping block.<\/p>\n

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Welcome to the club, Blue Origin. <\/b>Finally, the Space Force has signaled it\u2019s ready to trust Jeff Bezos\u2019 space company, Blue Origin, for launching the military\u2019s most precious satellites, Ars reports. Blue Origin received a contract on April 4 to launch seven national security missions for the Space Force between 2027 and 2032, an opening that could pave the way for more launch deals in the future. These missions will launch on Blue Origin\u2019s heavy-lift New Glenn rocket, which had a successful debut test flight in January. The Space Force hasn\u2019t certified New Glenn for national security launches, but military officials expect to do so sometime next year. Blue Origin joins SpaceX and United Launch Alliance in the Space Force\u2019s mix of most-trusted launch providers.<\/p>\n

A different class \u2026 <\/i>The contract Blue Origin received last week covers launch services for the Space Force\u2019s most critical space missions, requiring rocket certification and a heavy dose of military oversight to ensure reliability. Blue Origin was already eligible to launch a separate batch of missions the Space Force set aside to fly on newer rockets. The military is more tolerant of risk on these lower-priority missions, which include launches of \u201ccookie-cutter\u201d satellites for the Pentagon\u2019s large fleet of missile-tracking satellites and a range of experimental payloads.<\/p>\n

Why is SpaceX winning so many Space Force contracts? <\/b>In less than a week, the US Space Force awarded SpaceX a $5.9 billion deal to make Elon Musk\u2019s space company the Pentagon\u2019s leading launch provider, replacing United Launch Alliance in the top position. Then, the Space Force assigned most of this year\u2019s most lucrative launch contracts to SpaceX. As we mentioned earlier in the Rocket Report, the military also swapped a ULA rocket for a SpaceX launch vehicle for an upcoming GPS mission. So, is SpaceX\u2019s main competitor worried Elon Musk is tipping the playing field for lucrative government contracts by cozying up to President Trump?<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s all good, man \u2026 <\/i>Tory Bruno, ULA\u2019s chief executive, doesn\u2019t seem too worried in his public statements, Ars reports. In a roundtable with reporters this week at the annual Space Symposium conference in Colorado, Bruno was asked about Musk\u2019s ties with Trump. \u201cWe have not been impacted by our competitor\u2019s position advising the president, certainly not yet,\u201d Bruno said. \u201cI expect that the government will follow all the rules and be fair and follow all the laws, and so we\u2019re behaving that way.\u201d The reason Bruno can say Musk\u2019s involvement in the Trump administration so far hasn\u2019t affected ULA is simple. SpaceX is cheaper and has a ready-made line of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets available to launch the Pentagon\u2019s satellites. ULA\u2019s Vulcan rocket is now certified to launch military payloads, but it reached this important milestone years behind schedule.<\/p>\n

Two Texas lawmakers are still fighting the last war. <\/b>NASA has a lot to figure out in the next couple of years. Moon or Mars? Should, or when should, the Space Launch System be canceled? Can the agency absorb a potential 50 percent cut to its science budget? If Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz get their way, NASA can add moving a space shuttle to its list. The Lone Star State\u2019s two Republican senators introduced the \u201cBring the Space Shuttle Home Act\u201d on Thursday, CollectSpace reports. If passed by Congress and signed into law, the bill would direct NASA to take the space shuttle Discovery <\/em>from the national collection at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and transport it to Space Center Houston, a museum and visitor attraction next to Johnson Space Center, home to mission control and NASA\u2019s astronaut training base. Discovery <\/em>has been on display at the Smithsonian since 2012. NASA awarded museums in California, Florida, and New York the other three surviving shuttle orbiters.<\/p>\n

Dollars and nonsense \u2026 <\/i>Moving a space shuttle from Virginia to Texas would be a logistical nightmare, cost an untold amount of money, and would create a distraction for NASA when its focus should be on future space exploration. In a statement, Cruz said Houston deserves one of NASA\u2019s space shuttles because of the city\u2019s \u201cunique relationship\u201d with the program. Cornyn alleged in a statement that the Obama administration blocked Houston from receiving a space shuttle for political reasons. NASA\u2019s inspector general found no evidence of this. On the contrary, transferring a space shuttle to Texas now would be an unequivocal example of political influence. The Boeing 747s that NASA used to move space shuttles across the country are no longer flightworthy, and NASA scrapped the handling equipment needed to prepare a shuttle for transport. Moving the shuttle by land or sea would come with its own challenges. \u201cI can easily see this costing a billion dollars,\u201d Dennis Jenkins, a former shuttle engineer who directed NASA\u2019s shuttle transition and retirement program more than a decade ago, told CollectSpace in an interview. On a personal note, the presentation of Discovery <\/em>at the Smithsonian is remarkable to see in person, with aerospace icons like the Concorde and the SR-71 spy plane under the same roof. Space Center Houston can\u2019t match that.<\/p>\n

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Next three launches<\/h2>\n

April 12: <\/strong>Falcon 9 | Starlink 12-17 | Kennedy Space Center, Florida | 01:15 UTC<\/p>\n

April 12: <\/b>Falcon 9 | NROL-192 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 12:17 UTC<\/p>\n

April 14:<\/strong> Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-73 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 01:59 UTC<\/p>\n

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Welcome to Edition 7.39 of the Rocket Report! Not getting your launch fix? Buckle up. We\u2019re on the cusp of a boom in rocket launches as three new megaconstellations have either just begun or will soon begin deploying thousands of satellites to enable broadband connectivity from space. If the megaconstellations come to fruition, this will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[509,479,678,1545,717,25,510,544,9476,352,1302,787,316,750,364],"class_list":["post-44327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-falcon-9","tag-falcon-heavy","tag-human-spaceflight","tag-international-space-station","tag-launch","tag-new-glenn","tag-rocket-lab","tag-rocket-report","tag-russia","tag-soyuz","tag-space-launch-system","tag-spacex","tag-united-launch-alliance","tag-vulcan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}