SpaceX
Welcome to Rocket Report Release 6.45! The most interesting news at launch this week for me is that Firefly is potentially for sale. That makes two of a handful of American rocket companies, Firefly and United Launch Alliance, actively bidding. I’ll be fascinated to see what everyone’s grades end up being if/when the sales go through.
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 display on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small, medium and heavy rockets, as well as a quick look at the next three launches on the calendar.
Firefly can be sold. Investors in Firefly Aerospace are mulling a sale that could value the nearby maker of rockets and lunar landing modules at about $1.5 billion, Bloomberg reports. The rocket company’s principal owner, AE Industrial Partners, is working with an adviser on “strategic options” for Firefly. Neither AE nor Firefly would comment to Bloomberg on the potential sale. AE invested $75 million in Texas-based Firefly as part of a Series B funding round in 2022. The firm made a follow-up investment in its Series C round in November 2023.
Launches and landers … Now more than a decade old and with a history of financial struggles, Firefly has emerged as one of the clear winners in the small launch race in the United States. The company’s Alpha rocket has already been launched four times since its failed debut in September 2021 and is due to fly on a Venture Class Launch Services 2 mission for NASA in the coming weeks. Firefly also aims to launch its Blue Ghost spacecraft to the moon later this year and is working on an orbital transport vehicle.
Blue Origin successfully returns to flight. With retired Air Force captain and test pilot Ed Dwight as the lead passenger, Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft returned to flight Sunday morning. An African American, Dwight was one of 26 pilots recommended by the Air Force to NASA for the third class of astronauts in 1963, but the agency did not select him. It took another 20 years for America’s first black astronaut, Guion Bluford, to fly into space in 1983. At age 90, Dwight finally entered the record books Sunday, becoming the oldest person to reach space. “I thought I didn’t need that in my life,” Dwight said after Sunday’s fight. “But I lied!”
One chute down … It was the seventh time Blue Origin, the space company owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, has carried humans into suborbital space and the 25th flight overall of the company’s fleet of New Shepard rockets. It was the first time Blue Origin had launched humans in nearly two years, resuming suborbital service after a rocket failure on an uncrewed research flight in September 2022. In December, Blue Origin launched another uncrewed suborbital research mission to kick off the resumption of Human Missions Sunday. There was one problem with the flight, as only two of the capsule’s three parachutes opened. It is unclear how long this issue will take to resolve.
The RFA tests the first stage of its rocket. German startup Rocket Factory Augsburg announced Sunday that it has begun the hot-ignition campaign for the first stage of its RFA One rocket. “We hot-started a total of four Helix engines, firing one at a time at four-second intervals,” the company said on social media site X. “All engines ran simultaneously for 8 seconds with a total hot-ignition duration of 20 seconds and went flawlessly at startup , steady state and shutdown.” This is a great step forward for the startup.
The goal is a test flight this year, but … The test took place at SaxaVord Spaceport in the United Kingdom. The RFA One vehicle is powered by nine Helix engines and will have a payload capacity of 1.6 metric tons to low Earth orbit. The company is aiming for a debut release later this year, but I’m pretty skeptical about that. By comparison, SpaceX began a test launch of its Falcon 9 first stage in 2008 with a full test launch of all nine engines in November of that year. But the rocket made its debut flight only in June 2010.
China expands commercial spaceport. China is planning new phases of expansion at its new commercial spaceport to support an expected surge in launches and commercial space activity, Space News reports. Construction of the second of the two Hainan Commercial Launch Sites could be completed by the end of May. The first, completed in December and dedicated to the Long March 8 rocket, could receive its first launch before the end of June.
Satisfying a mega need … However, this appears to be just the beginning, as the spaceport could have a total of 10 pads servicing both liquid and solid rockets. The reason for the dramatic expansion appears to be increasing access to space and allowing China to achieve the launch speed needed to build a pair of mega-constellations in low Earth orbit, each with more than 10,000 satellites. It is also a further sign of China’s commitment to creating a thriving commercial space sector. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
