Welcome to Edition 9.09 of the Rocket Report, where the news is mostly about rockets not doing what they're supposed to do - or, on rare occasions, actually succeeding.
Blue Origin has announced the groundbreaking of a new Payload Processing Facility in Florida, which is about as close as the company has come to meaningful news in a month. Its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket remains grounded after an on-pad explosion at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in May. Officially, Blue Origin targets a return to flight by year's end - but we've learned to take that with a grain of rocket-grade skepticism.
Meanwhile, Isar Aerospace is gearing up for another attempt to launch its Spectrum rocket into orbit, with a weeklong window opening Friday at Andøya Spaceport in Norway. The German company aims to deliver several small CubeSats to orbit, but its track record so far includes a failed test flight last year and multiple scrubbed attempts since January due to technical issues and range unavailability. The launch window coincides with Norway's national mourning period following the death of King Harald V. Isar's founder, Daniel Metzler, hopes to launch before the late king's funeral on September 9, but the government says the mission can proceed normally. Isar recently won a 200 million euro ($230 million) contract from the European Space Agency to support further launch vehicle development.
Europe's other launch startups are also cashing in. PLD Space has secured an additional 108 million euros ($126 million) in funding, led by Japan's Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, just days after winning a 159 million euro ($185 million) contract from the European Space Agency's European Launcher Challenge program. HyImpulse extended its Series A by more than 50 million euros ($58 million), bringing its total to 125 million euros ($145 million), and is preparing for the second flight of its suborbital SR75 rocket and the inaugural launch of its orbital SL1. HyImpulse was notably absent from the European Launcher Challenge winners' circle.
NASA is consolidating its launch activities into a new Commercial Access to Space office, which is considering block buys of rockets - because if you're going to spend billions on space, you might as well buy in bulk. Pete Wilczynski, the NASA official responsible for science missions, said the agency might procure "five, 10, 15, 20 rockets in a procurement," following the Pentagon's lead. The US Space Force already uses a bulk buying scheme with SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, guaranteeing contracts and, supposedly, lower prices.
In China, Galactic Energy claims a successful first flight of its Pallas-1 rocket on Monday, marking the sixth new Chinese rocket to debut this year. But the US Space Force hasn't cataloged the upper stage or payloads, and expert tracker Jonathan McDowell noted that Galactic Energy hasn't announced the orbital altitude or inclination. "I must regard success of the launch as not confirmed at this point," McDowell wrote. So take that "success" with a grain of space junk.
Speaking of space junk, the Long March 6C upper stage has fragmented in orbit, just days after launching a seven-satellite rideshare mission. LeoLabs confirmed the breakup, estimating "tens to hundreds of fragments." The debris should reenter within a few years - small comfort, given that the Long March 6 series has a history of fragmentation, with over 1,200 pieces cataloged from two Long March 6A upper stages in 2022 and 2024.
On a brighter note, Ariane 6 aced its first Geostationary Transfer Orbit mission, deploying the MTG-I2 weather satellite for Eumetsat. The Ariane 62 lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana, on August 27, releasing the satellite about 30 minutes later. The spacecraft, soon to be Meteosat-14, will circularize its orbit at over 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) above the equator. This marks Eumetsat's return to European launch services after using a SpaceX Falcon 9 in 2025 - a consequence of Ariane 6 delays. The rocket has now completed eight flawless missions in nine launches since its 2024 debut.
India's space program achieved another success on Thursday, launching the EOS-05 Earth observation satellite aboard a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle from Sriharikota. The 2.5-ton satellite, with an Earth-facing telescope providing 42-meter resolution, is a replacement for GISAT-1, lost in a 2021 failure. Geosynchronous orbit is unusual for Earth observation, but it offers a constant vigil over a fixed area - something the Indian Navy reportedly finds appealing.
NASA launched its $4.3 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Sunday from Kennedy Space Center, riding a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. The telescope, with a 300-megapixel camera and a refurbished spy mirror, will provide a field of view 100 times wider than Hubble, complementing Webb. Roman arrived at the launch pad nine months before NASA's commitment to launch by May 2027 - a refreshing change from Webb's many years of delays. This was the 13th Falcon Heavy flight, with side boosters returning for reuse.
SpaceX took another step toward Starship's Flight 14 by static-firing the Super Heavy booster's 33 engines at Starbase, Texas, on August 28. This follows a test-firing of the upper stage earlier in August. Flight 14, scheduled for later this month, will be the first Starship flight to low-Earth orbit, allowing deployment of operational Starlink V3 satellites - which are too large for Falcon 9 and offer significant upgrades over the V2s. The exact number of V3s to launch remains undisclosed, but we're sure it will be a lot.