{"id":45501,"date":"2024-01-26T18:18:15","date_gmt":"2024-01-26T10:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/rocket-report-iran-reaches-orbit-chinese-firm-achieves-impressive-landing-test\/"},"modified":"2024-01-26T18:18:15","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T10:18:15","slug":"rocket-report-iran-reaches-orbit-chinese-firm-achieves-impressive-landing-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/rocket-report-iran-reaches-orbit-chinese-firm-achieves-impressive-landing-test\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket Report: Iran reaches orbit; Chinese firm achieves impressive landing test"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Edition 6.28 of the Rocket Report! There\u2019s a lot going on in the world of launch as always, but this week I want to take this space for a personal message. I have just announced the forthcoming publication of my second book, REENTRY<\/em>, on the Falcon 9 rocket, Dragon spacecraft, and development of reusable launch. Full details here. I worked very hard to get the inside story.<\/p>\n

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and 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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Europe seeks to support small launch companies<\/strong>. The European Space Agency and European Commission have selected five launch companies to participate in a new program to provide flight opportunities for new technologies, a sign of a greater role the European Union intends to play in launch, Space News reports. The effort seeks to stimulate demand for European launch services by allowing companies to compete for missions in the European Union\u2019s In-Orbit Demonstration and Validation technology program. Proposals for the program\u2019s first phase are due to ESA at the end of February.<\/p>\n

Getting a golden ticket<\/em> \u2026 The agency expects to select up to three companies for initial contracts with a combined value of 75 million euros ($82 million) to begin design work on those vehicles. Four of the companies selected for the \u201cFlight Ticket Initiative\u201d are startups working on small launch vehicles: Isar Aerospace, Orbex, PLD Space, and Rocket Factory Augsburg. None of them has yet conducted an orbital launch, but they expect to do so within the next two years. The fifth company was Arianespace, which will offer rideshare launches on its Vega C and Ariane 6 rockets. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)<\/p>\n

Iran successfully launches Qaem 100 rocket<\/strong>. Iran said Saturday it had conducted a successful satellite launch into its highest orbit yet, the latest for a program the West fears improves Tehran\u2019s ballistic missiles, the Associated Press reports. The Iranian Soraya satellite was placed in an orbit at some 750 kilometers (460 miles) above the Earth\u2019s surface with its three-stage Qaem 100 rocket, the state-run IRNA news agency said. It did not immediately acknowledge what the satellite did, though telecommunications minister Isa Zarepour described the launch as having a 50-kilogram (110-pound) payload.<\/p>\n

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Qaem\u2019s first orbital flight<\/em> \u2026 The United States has previously said Iran\u2019s satellite launches defy a UN Security Council resolution and called on Tehran to undertake no activity involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. UN sanctions related to Iran\u2019s ballistic missile program expired last October. Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons and says its space program, like its nuclear activities, is for purely civilian purposes. This was the third launch of the Qaem rocket, which can loft up to 80 kg to low-Earth orbit. A suborbital test flight in 2022 was successful, but the first orbital attempt last March failed. (submitted by Ken the Bin)<\/p>\n

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Chinese firm tests vertical landing<\/strong>. Chinese launch startup Landspace executed a first vertical takeoff and vertical landing with a test article Friday at a launch and recovery site at Jiuquan spaceport, Space News reports. The methane-liquid oxygen test article reached an altitude of around 350 meters during its roughly 60-second flight before setting down in a designated landing area. The landing had an accuracy of about 2.4 meters and a landing speed of less than 1 meter per second, the company said.<\/p>\n

Part Starship, part Falcon 9<\/em> \u2026 The test is part of the development of the stainless-steel Zhuque-3 rocket first announced in November 2023. The company is aiming for the first flight of Zhuque-3 next year. It is an ambitious project: The rocket is intended to have a payload capacity of 21 tons to low-Earth orbit in expendable mode, and 18.3 tons when the rocket is recovered downrange. If Zhuque-3 comes to pass\u2014and these are promising early results\u2014this would be the closest thing to a Falcon 9 rocket anyone has yet developed. (submitted by Ken the Bin)<\/p>\n

Alpha on-boarded for NRO missions<\/strong>. Firefly Aerospace announced Thursday that it was selected by the National Reconnaissance Office to serve as a launch provider with the Alpha rocket. The NRO on-ramped Alpha as part of its \u201cstreamlined\u201d launch contract, which was created by the organization to tap into and support the commercial launch industry in the United States. The NRO has budgeted up to $700 million for these launches over a 10-year period.<\/p>\n

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Scaling up to meet demand<\/em> \u2026 Firefly is now eligible to compete for these mission task orders with Alpha, which can lift more than 1 metric ton to low-Earth orbit. Firefly\u2019s next Alpha launch for NASA is on track for early 2024, the company said. \u201cIn order to support the increased demand for Alpha launches, we\u2019ve doubled the size of our facilities, implemented automated carbon composite technologies, and fine-tuned our operations to rapidly produce, test, and launch in response to our customers\u2019 urgent mission needs,\u201d said Bill Weber, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)<\/p>\n

French launch company raises $30 million<\/strong>. Latitude said this week that it had closed a $30 million Series B funding round to support the development of its Zephyr launch vehicle, European Spaceflight reports. Zephyr is a two-stage rocket designed to deploy payloads of up to 100 kilograms into low-Earth orbit. The company is targeting a 2025 debut flight for the rocket.<\/p>\n

A little goes a long way<\/em> \u2026 The funding will be used to manufacture the first Zephyr rocket, establish the vehicle\u2019s assembly line, complete electrical, propulsion, and fluidic systems and structural tests, bring the company\u2019s test center online, and recruit new talent. (If $30 million really goes that far, good on them.) \u201cOur investors\u2019 continued support is a recognition of our 18 months of hard work, significant accomplishments, and expansion to become a market leader by the end of the decade,\u201d explained Latitude co-founder Stanislas Maximin. (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)<\/p>\n

European venture capital firm raises 100 million euros<\/strong>. Expansion Ventures announced the capital raise this week for a fund to support European New Space and New Air Mobility companies from seed rounds up to Series A and B funding rounds, European Spaceflight reports. Previously, the venture firm had invested 30 million euros into 13 startups, including launch startups Latitude and HyPrSpace.<\/p>\n

Tracking lots of initiatives<\/em> \u2026 Expansion is targeting a final closing of 300 million euros by 2026 and plans to build a portfolio of around 40 companies. With the first tranche of funding secured, the fund will begin to invest in new companies and reinvest in its current portfolio of companies in subsequent funding rounds. The fund has a database of over 480 startups and actively follows 280. (submitted by Ken the Bin)<\/p>\n

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Starliner on track for an April launch<\/strong>. NASA said it is working with Boeing toward a flight test no earlier than mid-April in which the Starliner spacecraft will carry two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. \u201cTeams have made significant progress in resolving technical issues identified during the agency\u2019s flight certification process,\u201d the space agency said in a blog post. \u201cFollowing a successful drop test earlier this month in which recent modifications to Starliner\u2019s parachute system were validated, NASA and Boeing are working to perform final analysis of the test data and complete overall system certification ahead of Starliner\u2019s first crewed flight.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lot of tape<\/em> \u2026  Boeing also completed the removal of the P213 tape that may have posed a flammability risk in certain environmental conditions. There were roughly 4,300 feet of the tape in the spacecraft. The mission will launch on an Atlas V rocket and is the first crewed mission on board Starliner. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will fly to the International Space Station and stay for one or two weeks. (submitted by Ken the Bin)<\/p>\n

ArianeGroup preparing to ship Ariane 6 hardware<\/strong>. ArianeGroup is preparing to ship the Ariane 6 core stage and upper stage that will be used for the vehicle\u2019s first flight to the launch site in French Guiana, European Spaceflight reports. Sometime next month, the hardware should be loaded onto the transport vessel Canop\u00e9e<\/em> for its 10-day transatlantic crossing to the port of Pariacabo in French Guiana.<\/p>\n

A summer launch, maybe?<\/em> \u2026 The core and upper stages are expected to arrive in French Guiana in mid-February, after which integration activities can commence. The debut flight of Ariane 6 is currently expected to take place between mid-June and the end of July. While preparations do appear to be continuing smoothly, ArianeGroup has still not announced the results of its investigation into why an Ariane 6 upper stage test conducted in December was aborted early.<\/p>\n

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Why Space Shuttle commanders sometimes locked the hatch<\/strong>. In a feature, Ars explores the hush-hush program that NASA had that allowed shuttle commanders, at their discretion, to lock the vehicle\u2019s main hatch after reaching orbit. The article dives deep into the origins of the program, which dates to a 1985 space shuttle mission and a payload specialist\u2014Taylor Wang\u2014who grew distraught after his science experiment failed to activate. \u201cHey, if you guys don\u2019t give me a chance to repair my instrument, I\u2019m not going back,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s an older story, but it checks out<\/em> \u2026 Though this is an old story, it still reverberates today, four decades on, with lasting consequences into the era of commercial spaceflight as more and more people fly into orbit. The Space Shuttle has been retired for 13 years, but the padlock remains in the fabric of US spaceflight with Crew Dragon. A commander\u2019s lock is an option for NASA\u2019s crews flying to the International Space Station on Crew Dragon, as well as private missions. As more people fly into orbit, this is probably an issue worth discussing in the spaceflight community.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin mates New Glenn stages<\/strong>. On Wednesday, the launch company shared a photograph on its social media channels, including LinkedIn, showing both stages of the large New Glenn rocket. \u201cThe first and second stages of New Glenn\u2019s test vehicle mate for the first time, enabling us to exercise our tooling and stage interfaces in preparation for our first launch later this year,\u201d the company stated.<\/p>\n

To fly, or not to fly<\/em> \u2026 Obviously, it\u2019s awesome to see flight hardware out in the real world. Unfortunately, Blue Origin\u2019s postings did not state whether this \u201ctest vehicle\u201d was intended simply for ground testing as a pathfinder or if it\u2019s hardware for the first test flight. The vehicle also doesn\u2019t have its seven BE-4 main engines, either. It would be great if Blue could specify these details, as many of us in the spaceflight community are eager for more information about this promising heavy-lift rocket. (submitted by Ken the Bin)<\/p>\n

Next three launches<\/h2>\n

January 27: <\/strong>Electron | Four Spire SSA Satellites | Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand | 06:15 UTC<\/p>\n

January 28<\/strong>: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-38 | Kennedy Space Center, Florida | 23:05 UTC<\/p>\n

January 29<\/strong>: Falcon 9 | Starlink 7-12 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 02:10 UTC<\/p>\n

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Welcome to Edition 6.28 of the Rocket Report! There\u2019s a lot going on in the world of launch as always, but this week I want to take this space for a personal message. I have just announced the forthcoming publication of my second book, REENTRY, on the Falcon 9 rocket, Dragon spacecraft, and development of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45504,"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":[9476],"class_list":["post-45501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-rocket-report"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45501"}],"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=45501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}