Welcome to Edition 7.19 of the Rocket Report! Okay, we get it. We received more submissions from our readers on Australia's approval of a launch permit for Gilmour Space than we've received on any other news story in recent memory. Thank you for your submissions as global rocket activity continues apace. We'll cover Gilmour in more detail as they get closer to launch. There will be no Rocket Report next week as Eric and I join the rest of the Ars team for our 2024 Technicon in New York.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don't 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.
Gilmour Space has a permit to fly. Gilmour Space Technologies has been granted a permit to launch its 82-foot-tall (25-meter) orbital rocket from a spaceport in Queensland, Australia. The space company, founded in 2012, had initially planned to lift off in March but was unable to do so without approval from the Australian Space Agency, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports. The government approved Gilmour's launch permit Monday, although the company is still weeks away from flying its three-stage Eris rocket.
© SpaceX
When Chinese space officials unveiled the design for the country's first super heavy lift rocket nearly a decade ago, it looked like a fairly conventional booster. The rocket was fully expendable, with three stages and solid motors strapped onto its sides.
Since then, the Asian country has been revising the design of this rocket, named Long March 9, in response to the development of reusable rockets by SpaceX. As of two years ago, China had recalibrated the design to have a reusable first stage.
Now, based on information released at a major airshow in Zhuhai, China, the design has morphed again. And this time, the plan for the Long March 9 rocket looks almost exactly like a clone of SpaceX's Starship rocket.
Welcome to Edition 7.17 of the Rocket Report! Next week marks 10 years since one of the more spectacular launch failures of this century. On October 28, 2014, an Antares rocket, then operated by Orbital Sciences, suffered an engine failure six seconds after liftoff from Virginia and crashed back onto the pad in a fiery twilight explosion. I was there and won't forget seeing the rocket falter just above the pad, being shaken by the deafening blast, and then running for cover. The Antares rocket is often an afterthought in the space industry, but it has an interesting backstory touching on international geopolitics, space history, and novel engineering. Now, Northrop Grumman and Firefly Aerospace are developing a new version of Antares.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don't 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.
Astra gets a lifeline from DOD. Astra, the launch startup that was taken private again earlier this year for a sliver of its former value, has landed a new contract with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to support the development of a next-gen launch system for time-sensitive space missions, TechCrunch reports. The contract, which the DIU awarded under its Novel Responsive Space Delivery (NRSD) program, has a maximum value of $44 million. The money will go toward the continued development of Astra’s Launch System 2, designed to perform rapid, ultra-low-cost launches.
© Blue Origin
Enlarge / Landspace's reusable rocket test vehicle lifts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Wednesday, September 11, 2024. (credit: Landspace)
Welcome to Edition 7.11 of the Rocket Report! Outside of companies owned by American billionaires, the most imminent advancements in reusable rockets are coming from China's quasi-commercial launch industry. This industry is no longer nascent. After initially relying on solid-fueled rocket motors apparently derived from Chinese military missiles, China's privately funded launch firms are testing larger launchers, with varying degrees of success, and now performing hop tests reminiscent of SpaceX's Grasshopper and F9R Dev1 programs more than a decade ago.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don't 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.
Landspace hops closer to a reusable rocket. Chinese private space startup Landspace has completed a 10-kilometer (33,000-foot) vertical takeoff and vertical landing test on its Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3) reusable rocket testbed, including a mid-flight engine reignition at near supersonic conditions, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. The 18.3-meter (60-foot) vehicle took off from the Jiuquan launch base in northwestern China, ascended to 10,002 meters, and then made a vertical descent and achieved an on-target propulsive landing 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) from the launch pad. Notably, the rocket's methane-fueled variable-thrust engine intentionally shutdown in flight, then reignited for descent, as engines would operate on future full-scale booster flybacks. The test booster used grid fins and cold gas thrusters to control itself when its main engine was dormant, according to Landspace.
Enlarge (credit: eugenekeebler via Getty Images)
In an age when you can get just about anything online, it's probably no surprise that you can buy a diamond-making machine for $200,000 on Chinese eCommerce site Alibaba. If, like me, you haven't been paying attention to the diamond industry, it turns out that the availability of these machines reflects an ongoing trend toward democratizing diamond production—a process that began decades ago and continues to evolve.
The history of lab-grown diamonds dates back at least half a century. According to Harvard graduate student Javid Lakha, writing in a comprehensive piece on lab-grown diamonds published in Works in Progress last month, the first successful synthesis of diamonds in a laboratory setting occurred in the 1950s. Lakha recounts how Howard Tracy Hall, a chemist at General Electric, created the first lab-grown diamonds using a high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) process that mimicked the conditions under which diamonds form in nature.
Since then, diamond-making technology has advanced significantly. Today, there are two primary methods for creating lab-grown diamonds: the HPHT process and chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Both types of machines are now listed on Alibaba, with prices starting at around $200,000, as pointed out in a Hacker News comment by engineer John Nagle (who goes by "Animats" on Hacker News). A CVD machine we found is more pricey, at around $450,000.
Enlarge / A "selfie" photo of China's Zhurong rover and the Tianwen-1 landing platform on Mars in 2021. (credit: China National Space Administration)
China plans to launch two heavy-lift Long March 5 rockets with elements of the Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission in 2028, the mission's chief designer said Thursday.
In a presentation at a Chinese space exploration conference, the chief designer of China's robotic Mars sample return project described the mission's high-level design and outlined how the mission will collect samples from the Martian surface. Reports from the talk published on Chinese social media and by state-run news agencies were short on technical details and did not discuss any of the preparations for the mission.
Public pronouncements by Chinese officials on future space missions typically come true, but China is embarking on challenging efforts to explore the Moon and Mars. China aims to land astronauts on the lunar surface by 2030 in a step toward eventually building a Moon base called the International Lunar Research Station.
Enlarge / Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of US Space Command, speaks earlier this year at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado. (credit: USSPACECOM photo by John Philip Wagner Jr.)
The head of US Space Command said Wednesday he would like to see more transparency from the Chinese government on space debris, especially as one of China's newer rockets has shown a propensity for breaking apart and littering low-Earth orbit with hundreds of pieces of space junk.
Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of US Space Command, said he has observed some improvement in the dialogue between US and Chinese military officials this year. But the disintegration of the upper stage from a Long March 6A rocket earlier this month showed China could do more to prevent the creation of space debris and communicate openly about it when it happens.
The Chinese government acknowledged the breakup of the Long March 6A rocket's upper stage in a statement by its Ministry of Foreign Affairs on August 14, more than a week after the rocket's launch August 6 with the first batch of 18 Internet satellites for a megaconstellation of thousands of spacecraft analogous to SpaceX's Starlink network.
The story was produced in partnership with Important Context.
Last summer, Ava Chen appeared on the right-wing news outlet Real America’s Voice to rail against the RICO charges that had just been filed against Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants in Georgia. The indictment “reminds me a lot of China and the CCP,” Chen told host John Fredericks, a former Trump campaign aide who now anchors one of the fledgling TV network’s marquee shows.
Chen was identified during the August 2023 segment as a spokesperson for the New Federal State of China, a MAGA-aligned group founded by Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui—a dissident Chinese émigré who last month was convicted on RICO and fraud charges for stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from his own followers. Prosecutors named the NFSC as part of Guo’s fraud scheme, arguing that the group’s ostensible opposition to the Chinese Communist Party was part of Guo’s scam.
In recent years, members of the NFSC have made frequent appearances across Real America’s Voice, as well as on Fredericks’ radio show. But what viewers didn’t know was that at the time of these interviews, a firm tied to the NFSC was paying tens of thousands of dollars to have Guo’s representatives appear on Fredericks’ radio and TV shows, as well as on another show that aired on RAV. The firm was also attempting to purchase airtime for the NFSC elsewhere on the network.
These payments for appearances on Fredericks’ shows are detailed in a draft contract, court records, and bank statements reviewed by Mother Jones and Important Context. They were also described by three sources. Bank records show the payments went to Common Sense Media, a company tied to Fredericks’ radio show, which is independently produced and selects its own guests. Records we reviewed and the same sources indicated that Guo’s supporters also discussed a contract that would have allowed his followers to secure airtime elsewhere on RAV, but those talks fell through.
The transactions involving the Fredericks broadcasts were one piece of a well-financed effort by Guo backers to push messaging supporting Guo. As part of their broader outreach campaign, Guo followers also arranged extravagantly pro-Guo op-eds written under the bylines of prominent far-right figures, including New York Young Republican Club chief Gavin Wax and Karoline Leavitt, who has since become a spokesperson for the Trump campaign. Guo supporters reportedly paid $75,000 for two booths at the influential Conservative Political Action Conference, and they showered campaign contributions on members of Congress who expressed sympathy for Guo’s cause. In their outreach to the MAGA world, Guo followers argued that, just like Trump, Guo was the victim of a politicized prosecution.
“This is the fourth indictment [against Trump] in the short span of four and a half months,” Chen said during her August 21, 2023, interview on the Fredericks show on RAV. “And this speaks a lot to the rule of law and to the weaponization of the entire justice system, as we have observed in…Guo’s case.”
Such arguments have received support from Bannon on his War Room broadcast, which is among the most popular shows aired by RAV. A company that federal prosecutors have said Guo controlled made large monthly payments to the Bannon-controlled company that produces War Room. These payments totaled at least $270,000, according to a filing in federal bankruptcy proceedings initiated by Guo. Guo has also paid Bannon millions of dollars since 2017, court documents show. And Bannon has enthusiastically repeated claims made by Guo about Guo’s business ventures and political movement.
But in arranging to appear on RAV shows, the Guo backers appear to have tapped more deeply than was previously known into the growing and unruly ecosystem of far-right broadcasts. RAV is owned by Colorado media mogul Robert Sigg, whose previous success came through WeatherNation, an alternative to the Weather Channel that reportedly made a point of not mentioning climate change. RAV, which began broadcasting in 2018 as America’s Voice News, started distributing War Room shortly after the show’s 2019 launch. Bannon has credited Sigg with helping the show after Bannon was kicked off YouTube in the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection.
With War Room as its anchor, RAV also broadcasts shows hosted by other MAGA celebrities, including Charlie Kirk, Eric Greitens, and John Solomon—a lineup that has allowed the upstart outlet to position itself as a competitor to Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN. Fredericks, a conservative radio veteran, hosts Outside the Beltway on RAV. Grant Stinchfield, whose show regularly features Guo backers, also broadcasts on the network. RAV has said it reaches viewers through “DISH, Pluto TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Google Play,” and social media. Some of the shows RAV distributes, including Fredericks’ and Bannon’s broadcasts, are produced independently. Other RAV shows are produced in-house.
In interviews, four people familiar with booking practices for shows that have run on RAV said that they considered it unexceptional for guests to pay to appear on broadcasts, without any disclosure on the air that they have paid to appear. Usually these guests pay a booker or PR firm, which makes payments to the shows, the sources we spoke to said. The sources said they believed these types of arrangements are not limited to right-leaning media, though these people had limited experience with mainstream and left-leaning media.
“All channels do this,” said one person familiar with NFSC arrangements. “This happens all day long. You can call it ‘pay to play’ but this is not unusual.”
However common such arrangements may be, they are not transparent to RAV’s viewers. Neither Fredericks nor his NFSC guests made any reference in the segments we reviewed to the group paying to appear on this show.
The payments made by the New Federal State of China followers became public in part because of a bitter legal and public relations fight among former colleagues at a Georgia-based firm called L-Strategies. The firm acted as an intermediary, accepting payments from a Guo-linked company and, in turn, making payments for Guo followers to appear on Fredericks’ shows. A federal lawsuit filed by executives at L-Strategies against Angie Wong, a former partner there, alleges that Wong’s actions caused them “a loss of potential income [of] $120,000 per year” that they had hoped to earn brokering airtime for NFSC content on RAV.
Jared Craig, a partner at L-Strategies who filed the complaint, said in an interview last year that he did not believe that paying broadcasters to interview clients as guests was unusual. Craig declined to detail the specifics of the payments, which he said were arranged by Wong, and he did not respond to more recent inquiries. Wong declined to comment.
According to that lawsuit, a Canada-based company called NewNoah signed a deal with L-Strategies in April 2023. NewNoah, which was acting on behalf of the New Federal State of China, was incorporated in November 2022 in Ontario at an address also used to register the NFSC’s website.
Under a draft media-buy agreement between NewNoah and L-Strategies that we obtained, L-Strategies agreed to pay $12,500-a-month “for media appearances to be sponsored by the John Fredericks Media Network.” The draft contract stated that the media package would include “at least one (1) television media hit and at least one (1) radio hit per week” to promote its client, Guo’s New Federal State of China. The draft contract also noted that “said media services shall be sponsored by the John Frederick’s Media Network” and that “host shall not mention Miles Guo at any time and for any purpose during media hits.” (Miles Guo is one of several names Guo uses.)
The draft contract, which was unsigned and undated, contains some confusing and seemingly inaccurate language. But bank statements posted online as part of L-Strategies’ dispute with Wong reveal that NewNoah began making monthly payments of $13,400 to L-Strategies in April 2023. L-Strategies in turn began making $12,500 monthly payments to Common Sense Media, a Virginia-based LLC tied to Fredericks’ show. Fredericks’ wife, Anita Fredericks, is the registered agent for Common Sense Media. The monthly bank statements, which run through May 2024, show regular $12,500 payments from L-Strategies to Common Sense Media up to that time. The bank statements indicate Common Sense Media had received at least $175,000 as of May as part of the arrangement. (In an interview, Stan Fitzgerald, an L-Strategies founding partner, confirmed that the bank statements were accurate but said he had not personally posted them.)
On July 10, 2023, Fredericks’ radio show was guest-hosted by Nicole Tsai, a Guo supporter who had appeared on the program at least once a week up to that month as a representative of the NFSC. She appeared on his Real America’s Voice show nearly as frequently. When the New Federal State of China held a gala event last June celebrating the third anniversary of its founding, Fredericks was on hand hosting a panel. As of July 1, 2024, Fredericks had hosted a member of the NFSC on either his television or radio show nearly every week since April 3, 2023.
The NFSC guests used these appearances to attribute all manner of US problems to CCP machinations.
In an August 2023 segment on Fredericks’ Outside the Beltway RAV show, discussing Donald Trump’s arraignment in Georgia, a Guo follower named Roy Guo (no apparent relation) suggested the charges against the former president were the result of infiltration by the Chinese Communist Party. In an appearance the following month on the same program, he claimed Chinese President Xi Jingping was facing stiff political pressure at home because he had “released the CCP virus at the end of 2019,” triggering the Covid pandemic. A month later, following the deadly October 7 terror attack by Hamas on Israel, Roy Guo asserted that the CCP was secretly aiding Hamas behind the scenes in order to bring other nations into the conflict in Gaza.
“CCP wants to get as many countries as possible involved in this, and also eventually they want to get [the] UK and US involved in this conflict so that they can divert the attention to, like, focus on the Middle East and deplete US resources and also to alleviate pressure for Russia in Ukraine,” he said. “And then, they will ultimately make [an] opportunity for themselves to attack Taiwan.”
Mark Serrano, a spokesperson for RAV, disputed the import of the deal between NewNoah and L-Strategies related to payments to Common Sense Media for appearances on Fredericks’ show. “Real America’s Voice is not a party to the contractual agreement you mention,” he wrote. “Any ancillary reference in the agreement to us is not our concern.”
Fredericks has previously faced scrutiny for selling access to his radio show. In 2020, the Justice Department forced a US institute funded by the Qatari government to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, resulting in the organization revealing it had paid Fredericks’ show $180,000 in 2018 for “access to key guests”; “regular show appearances by highly ranking Qatar officials”; broadcasts of “live shows every other month” and “regular discussions with US based and overseas Qatar officials for background and education.” Fredericks also broadcast live from Doha, Qatar’s capital, in March 2018.
Fredericks at the time claimed the payments were standard advertising. He told the Daily Beast: “They were paying me to promote their various events, which I did in my libraries when I was on the show.”
John and Anita Fredericks and the John Fredericks Show did not respond to requests for comment or to lists of specific questions. Ava Chen and Roy Guo declined to comment.
According to the L-Strategies’ lawsuit, NewNoah also paid for Guo fans to appear on another independently produced show that briefly aired on RAV, the David Brody Show. And the L-Strategies bank statements posted online show a payment of about $8,000 to the Brody show in April 2023. Brody declined to comment.
NewNoah and L-Strategies also attempted to negotiate a separate, $40,000-per-month contract under which L-Strategies would purchase airtime on RAV for a weekly one-hour “show” hosted by the NFSC, according to the complaint L-Strategies filed.
“Real America’s Voice package includes a one-hour program (approximately 48 minutes run time) on the Real America’s Voice network once per week, time to be determined,” the contract, attached to the complaint, reads. “The show will be self-produced by NewNoah, with final edit approvals by Real America’s Voice prior to airing.”
According to the L-Strategies complaint and a source involved in the negotiations for the hour-long show, talks over that deal eventually broke down.
The L-Strategies complaint states that NewNoah did pay $40,000 to L-Strategies on April 28, 2023, and the bank statements posted online show L-Strategies received a $39,977.50 wire transfer, from an unidentified sender, on that date. In the “description” field, the statement says, “RAV 1 hour.” But the bank statements do not show any corresponding payment from L-Strategies to RAV. And Serrano, the RAV spokesperson, said that money was never paid to Real America’s Voice. Serrano did not respond to other questions about this proposed arrangement.
According to the RAV website, the outlet “demands the highest ethical standards from management and staff, and the company maintains a strict ethics policy.” The site notes that “staff members are prohibited from engaging in any conflicts of interest, including reporting on any enterprise in which the staff member has a financial stake.”
Enlarge / Debris from the upper stage of China's Long March 6A rocket captured from the ground by Slingshot Aerospace. (credit: Slingshot Aerospace)
The upper stage from a Chinese rocket that launched a batch of Internet satellites Tuesday has broken apart in space, creating a debris field of at least 700 objects in one of the most heavily-trafficked zones in low-Earth orbit.
US Space Command, which tracks objects in orbit with a network of radars and optical sensors, confirmed the rocket breakup Thursday. Space Command initially said the event created more than 300 pieces of trackable debris. The military's ground-based radars are capable of tracking objects larger than 10 centimeters (4 inches).
Later Thursday, LeoLabs, a commercial space situational awareness company, said its radars detected at least 700 objects attributed to the Chinese rocket. The number of debris fragments could rise to more than 900, LeoLabs said.
Enlarge / A Long March 6A rocket launches the first 18 Internet satellites for China's Qianfan, or Thousand Sails, broadband network. (credit: VCG via Getty Images)
Chinese officials have long signaled their interest in deploying a satellite network, or maybe several, to beam broadband Internet signals across China and other nations within its sphere of influence.
Two serious efforts are underway in China to develop a rival to SpaceX's Starlink network, which the Chinese government has banned in its territory. The first batch of 18 satellites for one of those Chinese networks launched into low-Earth orbit Tuesday.
A Long March 6A rocket delivered the 18 spacecraft into a polar orbit following liftoff at 2:42 am EDT (06:42 UTC) from the Taiyuan launch base in northern China's Shanxi province. The Long March 6A is one of China's newest rockets—and the country's first to employ strap-on solid rocket boosters—with the ability to deploy a payload of up to 4.5 metric tons (9,900 pounds) into a 700-kilometer (435-mile) Sun-synchronous orbit.
Enlarge / The core stage for NASA's second Space Launch System rocket rolls aboard a barge that will take it from New Orleans to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (credit: NASA)
Welcome to Edition 7.03 of the Rocket Report! One week ago, SpaceX suffered a rare failure of its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. In fact, it was the first time the latest version of the Falcon 9, known as the Block 5, has ever failed on its prime mission after nearly 300 launches. The world's launch pads have been silent since the grounding of the Falcon 9 fleet after last week's failure. This isn't surprising, but it's noteworthy. After all, the Falcon 9 has flown more this year than all of the world's other rockets combined and is fundamental to much of what the world does in space.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don't 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.
Astra finally goes private, again. A long-simmering deal for Astra's founders to take the company private has been finalized, the company announced Thursday, capping the rocket launch company’s descent from blank-check darling to delisting in three years, Bloomberg reports. The launch company's valuation peaked at $3.9 billion in 2021, the year it went public, and was worth about $12.2 million at the end of March, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Astra's chief executive officer, Chris Kemp, and chief technology officer, Adam London, founded the company in 2016 with the goal of essentially commoditizing launch services for small satellites. But Astra's rockets failed to deliver and fell short of orbit five times in seven tries.
Enlarge / Four kerosene-fueled Reaver engines power Firefly's Alpha rocket off the pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. (credit: Firefly Aerospace)
Welcome to Edition 7.01 of the Rocket Report! We're compiling this week's report a day later than usual due to the Independence Day holiday. Ars is beginning its seventh year publishing this weekly roundup of rocket news, and there's a lot of it this week despite the holiday here in the United States. Worldwide, there were 122 launches that flew into Earth orbit or beyond in the first half of 2024, up from 91 in the same period last year.
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 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.
Firefly launches its fifth Alpha flight. Firefly Aerospace placed eight CubeSats into orbit on a mission funded by NASA on the first flight of the company’s Alpha rocket since an upper stage malfunction more than half a year ago, Space News reports. The two-stage Alpha rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California late Wednesday, two days after an issue with ground equipment aborted liftoff just before engine ignition. The eight CubeSats come from NASA centers and universities for a range of educational, research, and technology demonstration missions. This was the fifth flight of Firefly's Alpha rocket, capable of placing about a metric ton of payload into low-Earth orbit.
Enlarge / SpaceX's 10th Falcon Heavy rocket climbs into orbit with a new US government weather satellite. (credit: SpaceX)
Welcome to Edition 6.50 of the Rocket Report! SpaceX launched its 10th Falcon Heavy rocket this week with the GOES-U weather satellite for NOAA, and this one was a beauty. The late afternoon timing of the launch and atmospheric conditions made for great photography. Falcon Heavy has become a trusted rocket for the US government, and its next flight in October will deploy NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft on the way to explore one of Jupiter's enigmatic icy moons.
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 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.
Sir Peter Beck dishes on launch business. Ars spoke with the recently knighted Peter Beck, founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, on where his scrappy company fits in a global launch marketplace dominated by SpaceX. Rocket Lab racked up the third-most number of orbital launches by any US launch company (it's headquartered in California but primarily assembles and launches rockets in New Zealand). SpaceX's rideshare launch business with the Falcon 9 rocket is putting immense pressure on small launch companies like Rocket Lab. However, Beck argues his Electron rocket is a bespoke solution for customers desiring to put their satellite in a specific place at a specific time, a luxury they can't count on with a SpaceX rideshare.
Enlarge / This photo taken on June 25, 2024, shows the retrieval site of the return capsule of the Chang'e-6 probe in Siziwang Banner, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. (credit: Xinhua/Lian Zhen)
A small spacecraft landed in Inner Mongolia on Tuesday, bringing samples from the far side of the Moon back to Earth.
This was not China's first robotic mission to return a few pounds of dust and pebbles from the lunar surface—that came with the Chang'e 5 mission in December 2020. However, this was the first time any space program in the world returned material from the Moon's far side.
The successful conclusion of this mission, which launched from Earth nearly two months ago, marked another significant achievement for China's space program as the country sets its sights on landing humans on the Moon by the year 2030.
Enlarge / A Long March 5 rocket carrying the Chang'e 6 lunar probe blasts off from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on May 3, 2024, in Wenchang, China. (credit: Li Zhenzhou/VCG via Getty Images)
China landed a spacecraft on the Moon this weekend for the fourth time, successfully placing its Chang’e 6 lander in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the Moon.
After the landing on Saturday evening (United States time), the autonomous spacecraft will spend about 48 hours collecting samples. It will do so by two different means, drilling to collect material from beneath the ground, as well as using a robotic arm to gather regolith from the surface.
Then a part of the spacecraft is due to blast off from the surface of the Moon—likely on Monday evening, US time—before making a return flight to China. If successful, this would be the first time samples have been returned to Earth from the far side of the Moon.
Enlarge / A sea-borne variant of the commercial Ceres 1 rocket lifts off near the coast of Rizhao, a city of 3 million in China's Shandong province. (credit: VCG via Getty Images)
Welcome to Edition 6.46 of the Rocket Report! It looks like we will be covering the crew test flight of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft and the fourth test flight of SpaceX's giant Starship rocket over the next week. All of this is happening as SpaceX keeps up its cadence of flying multiple Starlink missions per week. The real stars are the Ars copy editors helping make sure our stories don't use the wrong names.
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 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.
Another North Korean launch failure. North Korea's latest attempt to launch a rocket with a military reconnaissance satellite ended in failure due to the midair explosion of the rocket during the first-stage flight this week, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reports. Video captured by the Japanese news organization NHK appears to show the North Korean rocket disappearing in a fireball shortly after liftoff Monday night from a launch pad on the country's northwest coast. North Korean officials acknowledged the launch failure and said the rocket was carrying a small reconnaissance satellite named Malligyong-1-1.
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