Welcome to Rocket Report Release 6.48! Fresh off last week’s dramatic test flight of SpaceX’s Starship, teams in Texas are wasting no time preparing for the next launch. Ground crews are replacing the entire heat shield on the next Starship spacecraft to address deficiencies identified during last week’s flight. SpaceX has a lot to accomplish with Starship over the next few months if NASA wants to land astronauts on the moon by the end of 2026.
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.
Virgin Galactic won’t be flying again anytime soon. After an impressive but short spaceflight streak — seven human spaceflights in one year, even to suborbital space, is unprecedented for a private company — Virgin Galactic will now be grounded again for at least two years, Ars reports. That’s because Colglazier and Virgin Galactic are betting everything on developing future “Delta-class” spacecraft modeled after the VSS unity, which made its final flight to suborbital space on Saturday. Virgin Galactic, founded by Richard Branson, is now at a crossroads as it pursues the profitability that VSS Unity it had no hope of helping achieve it despite two decades of development and billions of dollars spent.
An uncertain future … Now, Virgin Galactic’s already anemic revenue numbers will drop to near zero as the company spends more capital to bring two Delta-class spacecraft online. The goal is to begin flying them in 2026. These vehicles are designed to be easier to reuse and carry six instead of four passengers. This schedule seems very ambitious considering that at this stage the company is only developing tools for the vehicles and won’t begin production of major parts until later this year. Virgin Galactic is betting on the Delta-class ships as its stock price has plummeted over the past few years. In fact, Virgin Galactic announced a reverse stock split this week in an effort to keep its listing on the New York Stock Exchange. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Unpacking North Korea’s Missile Advances. Late last month, North Korea signaled that it had made—or, more accurately, was still trying to make—a pretty big leap in missile technology. The isolated totalitarian state’s official news agency said it tested a new type of satellite rocket on May 27 powered by petroleum fuel and cryogenic liquid oxygen fuel. It is a radical change in North Korea’s missile program and has surprised astute outside observers. Previous North Korean missiles have used hypergolic propellants, typically hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, or solid propellants, which are also well suited for military ballistic missiles. Kerosene and liquid oxygen, on the other hand, are not great rocket fuels, but they are good for pure space rockets.
Who helps?… The May 27 launch failed shortly after liftoff while the unnamed missile was still in its first stage of flight over the Yellow Sea. But there is tangible and circumstantial evidence that Russia played a role in the launch. Details are still murky, but North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited a Russian spaceport last September and met with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who suggested Russian help for the North’s satellite launch program was on the agenda for the meeting. South Korean defense officials said Russian experts visited North Korea ahead of the May 27 launch. If Russia were to export a kerosene-powered rocket engine or perhaps an entire booster to North Korea, it would not be the first time Russia has sent launch technology to the Korean Peninsula. Russia provided South Korea’s nascent space launch program with three fully equipped rocket boosters for test flights in 2009, 2010 and 2023 before the South fully developed its own rocket.
ABL signs deal with new startup client. ABL Space Systems, which is still trying to get its light launch vehicle into orbit, has a new customer. Scout Space announced this week that it has signed a launch agreement with ABL to launch a small spacecraft called “Owlet-01” on the third flight of ABL’s RS1 rocket, Space News reports. Scout Space, which describes itself as focused on space security and comprehensive space awareness, develops optical sensors for monitoring the space environment. Owlet-01 will fly with a telescope designed to detect other objects in space, a capability highly sought after by the US military.
Still waiting for flight 2 … The launch agreement between ABL and Space Scout depends on the outcome of the second flight of the RS1 rocket, which ABL has been preparing for the past few months. ABL has not provided any public updates on the status of the second RS1 test flight since it announced in March that pre-flight preparations were underway on Kodiak Island, Alaska. The first RS1 rocket fell back to its launch pad in Alaska seconds after liftoff in January 2023. The RS1 is capable of hauling a payload of more than 1.3 metric tons to low Earth orbit. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
