Enlarge / This photo of the International Space Station was captured by a crew member on a Soyuz spacecraft. (credit: NASA/Roscosmos)

A little more than two years ago, Dmitry Rogozin, the bellicose former head of Russia's space agency, nearly brought the International Space Station partnership to its knees.

During his tenure as director general of Roscosmos, Rogozin was known for his bombastic social media posts and veiled threats to abandon the space station after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin tersely dismissed Rogozin in July 2022 and replaced him with Yuri Borisov, a former deputy prime minister.

While the clash between Russia and Western governments over the war in Ukraine has not cooled, the threats against the International Space Station (ISS) ended. The program remains one of the few examples of cooperation between the US and Russian governments. Last year, Russia formally extended its commitment to the ISS to at least 2028. NASA and space agencies in Europe, Japan, and Canada have agreed to maintain the space station through 2030.

Enlarge / The second Intuitive Machines lander is prepared for hot-fire testing this week. (credit: Intuitive Machines)

One of the miracles of the Apollo Moon landings is that they were televised, live, for all the world to see. This transparency diffused doubts about whether the lunar landings really happened and were watched by billions of people.

However, as remarkable a technical achievement as it was to broadcast from the Moon in 1969, the video was grainy and black and white. As NASA contemplates a return to the Moon as part of the Artemis program, it wants much higher resolution video and communications with its astronauts on the lunar surface.

To that end, NASA announced this week that it had awarded a contract to Houston-based Intuitive Machines for "lunar relay services." Essentially this means Intuitive Machines will be responsible for building a small constellation of satellites around the Moon that will beam data back to Earth from the lunar surface.

Enlarge / Europe's first Ariane 6 rocket lifts off from a new launch pad in Kourou, French Guiana. (credit: Jody Amiet/AFP via Getty Images)

Welcome to Edition 7.12 of the Rocket Report! For once, a week with not all that much launch news. Among the highlights were Eutelsat's surprise announcement of a deal with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, SpaceX's ongoing war with the FAA, and Europe identifying a straightforward solution to the upper stage problem on Ariane 6's debut launch earlier this summer.

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.

Small launch vehicles still talking a big game. Despite stiff competition from SpaceX rideshare services and some high-profile failures, ventures are still pursuing small launch vehicles that they argue can fill niches in the market, Space News reports. Launch providers speaking at World Space Business Week said they can deliver satellites when and where customers want rather than waiting for the next available rideshare launch from SpaceX.

Enlarge / Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma and Virendra Sachdeva, two members of Narendra Modi's ruling BJP party, celebrate the landing of India's Chandrayaan 3 spacecraft on the Moon on August 23, 2023. (credit: Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

All at once, India's government has approved plans to develop a new reusable rocket, the centerpiece of an Indian space station, a robotic sample return mission to the Moon, and a science probe to explore Venus.

"Great news for the space sector!" Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X. Collectively, the projects authorized by India's union cabinet will cost an estimated $2.7 billion. Most of the funding will go toward the country's space station and a reusable launch vehicle.

If the projects reach their goals, the approvals announced by Modi on Wednesday will put India on a trajectory to become the third-largest space power in the 2030s, after the United States and China. V. Narayanan, director of India's Liquid Propulsion Systems Center, stated this was the objective in a recent presentation, writing that India's space initiatives will catapult the country to a place "among the three important space powers in the world."

Enlarge / Rendering of an individual crew quarter within the Axiom habitat module. (credit: Axiom Space)

Axiom Space is facing significant financial headwinds as the company attempts to deliver on two key commercial programs for NASA—the development of a private space station in low-Earth orbit and spacesuits that could one day be worn by astronauts on the Moon.

Forbes reports that Axiom Space, which was founded by billionaire Kam Ghaffarian and NASA executive Mike Suffredini in 2016, has been struggling to raise money to keep its doors open and has had difficulties meeting its payroll dating back to at least early 2023. In addition, the Houston-based company has fallen behind on payments to key suppliers, including Thales Alenia Space for its space station and SpaceX for crewed launches.

"The lack of fresh capital has exacerbated long-standing financial challenges that have grown alongside Axiom’s payroll, which earlier this year was nearly 1,000 employees," the publication reports. "Sources familiar with the company’s operations told Forbes that co-founder and CEO Michael Suffredini, who spent 30 years at NASA, ran Axiom like a big government program instead of the resource-constrained startup it really was. His mandate to staff up to 800 workers by the end of 2022 led to mass hiring so detached from product development needs that new engineers often found themselves with nothing to do."

Enlarge / The Windy Fire blazes through the Long Meadow Grove of giant sequoia trees near The Trail of 100 Giants overnight in Sequoia National Forest on September 21, 2021, near California Hot Springs, California. (credit: David McNew/Getty Images)

Space is more accessible than ever thanks to the proliferation of small satellites and more affordable launch prices, which opened the door to bespoke applications like global pollution monitoring, crop observations, and new ways of collecting weather and climate data.

Now you can add wildfire detection to the list. Satellites have observed wildfires from space for decades, but a new initiative partially funded by Google's philanthropic arm aims to deploy more than 50 small satellites in low-Earth orbit to pinpoint flare-ups as small as a classroom anywhere in the world.

The FireSat constellation, managed by a nonprofit called Earth Fire Alliance (EFA), will be the first satellite fleet dedicated to detecting and tracking wildfires. Google announced a fresh investment of $13 million in the FireSat constellation Monday, building on the tech giant's previous contributions to support the development of custom infrared sensors for the FireSat satellites.

Enlarge / NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams wave to their families, friends, and NASA officials on their way to the launch pad June 5 to board Boeing's Starliner spacecraft. (credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are no strangers to time away from their families. Both are retired captains in the US Navy, served in war zones, and are veterans of previous six-month stays on the International Space Station.

When they launched to the space station on Boeing's Starliner spacecraft on June 5, the astronauts expected to be home in a few weeks, or perhaps a month, at most. Their minimum mission duration was eight days, but NASA was always likely to approve a short extension. Wilmore and Williams were the first astronauts to soar into orbit on Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, a milestone achieved some seven years later than originally envisioned by Boeing and NASA.

However, the test flight fell short of all of its objectives. Wilmore and Williams are now a little more than three months into what has become an eight-month mission on the station. The Starliner spacecraft was beset by problems, culminating in a decision last month by NASA officials to send the capsule back to Earth without the two astronauts. Rather than coming home on Starliner, Wilmore and Williams will return to Earth in February on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.

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 / The primary mirror for the James Webb Space Telescope enters a vacuum test chamber at NASA's Johnson Space Center in 2017. (credit: NASA/Desiree Stover)

A panel of independent experts reported this week that NASA lacks funding to maintain most of its decades-old facilities, could lose its engineering prowess to the commercial space industry, and has a shortsighted roadmap for technology development.

"NASA’s problem is it always seems to have $3 billion more program than it has of funds," said Norm Augustine, chair of the National Academies panel chartered to examine the critical facilities, workforce, and technology needed to achieve NASA's long-term strategic goals and objectives. Augustine said a similar statement could sum up two previous high-level reviews of NASA's space programs that he chaired in 1990 and 2009. But the report released Tuesday put NASA's predicament in stark terms.

Grumbling about crumbling infrastructure

Around 83 percent of NASA's facilities are beyond their design lifetimes, and the agency has a $3.3 billion backlog in maintenance. When you consider NASA's $250 million estimate for normal year-to-year maintenance, it would take a $600 million uptick in NASA's annual budget for infrastructure repairs to catch up on the backlog within the next 10 years.

Enlarge / Jared Isaacman emerges from the Dragon spacecraft on Thursday morning. (credit: SpaceX webcast)

The Polaris Dawn mission took a firm step into the future on Thursday morning when two private citizens, Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, briefly ventured outside their Dragon spacecraft.

Although each only spent about eight minutes outside the capsule, the spacewalk was unquestionably a major success for SpaceX and the four astronauts flying in orbit. This marked the first time that a private company, SpaceX, conducted a spacewalk. Funded by Isaacman, the mission spurred a frenetic two-year period of spacesuit development, testing, and simulations by the California company to reach Thursday's remarkably smooth operations.

Isaacman emerged from Dragon at 6:52 am ET (10:52 UTC) as the spacecraft passed near Australia on the planet below. A billionaire, entrepreneur, and avid pilot, Isaacman paused for just a moment as he stood on the edge of eternity and looked back at Earth.

Enlarge / Boeing's uncrewed Starliner spaceraft backs away from the International Space Station moments after undocking on September 6, 2024. (credit: NASA)

Nearly a decade ago to the day, I stood in the international terminal of Houston's main airport checking my phone. As I waited to board a flight for Moscow, an announcement from NASA was imminent, with the agency due to make its selections for private companies that would transport astronauts to the International Space Station.

Then, just before boarding the direct flight to Moscow, a news release from NASA popped into my inbox about its Commercial Crew Program. The space agency, under a fixed price agreement, agreed to pay Boeing $4.2 billion to develop the Starliner spacecraft; SpaceX would receive $2.6 billion for the development of its Crew Dragon vehicle.

At the time, the Space Shuttle had been retired for three years, and NASA's astronauts had to fly to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz spacecraft. "Today, we are one step closer to launching our astronauts from US soil on American spacecraft and ending the nation’s sole reliance on Russia by 2017," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in the release.

Enlarge / Artist's illustration of catch arms ensnaring SpaceX's Super Heavy booster. (credit: SpaceX)

The Federal Aviation Administration has signaled to SpaceX that it won't approve a launch license for the next test flight of the Starship rocket until at least late November, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

This is more than two months later than the mid-September timeframe the FAA previously targeted for determining whether to approve a launch license for the next Starship flight. SpaceX says the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage for the next launch—the fifth full-scale test flight of the Starship program—have been ready to launch since the first week of August.

"The flight test will include our most ambitious objective yet: attempt to return the Super Heavy booster to the launch site and catch it in mid-air," SpaceX said in a statement.

Enlarge / A Crew Dragon spacecraft separates from the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday morning. (credit: SpaceX)

A Falcon 9 rocket streaked into the black predawn sky above Florida on Tuesday, carrying four people on the most ambitious private human spaceflight to date.

The crew of the Polaris Dawn mission, led by a billionaire pilot named Jared Isaacman, were injected into an orbit intended to reach an apogee of 1,200 km and a perigee of 190 km. They plan to raise Crew Dragon's orbit to an apogee of 1,400 km near the end of the first day of flight.

Shortly after the mission's launch, Isaacman thanked the flight controllers, engineers, and technicians at SpaceX that made the privately funded trip possible. "We wouldn't be on this journey without all 14,000 of you back at SpaceX," he said.

Enlarge / The main body of NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft is reflected in one of the mission's deployable solar array wings during testing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (credit: NASA/Frank Michaux)

For a while earlier this summer, it looked like NASA's flagship mission to study Jupiter's icy moon Europa might miss its launch window this year.

In May, engineers raised concerns that transistors installed throughout the spacecraft might be susceptible to damage from radiation, an omnipresent threat for any probe whipping its way around Jupiter. The transistors are embedded in the spacecraft's circuitry and are responsible for approximately 200 unique applications, many of which are critical to keeping the mission operating as it orbits Jupiter and repeatedly zooms by Europa, interrogating the frozen moon with nine science instruments.

The transistors on the Europa Clipper spacecraft are already installed, and removing them for inspections or replacement would delay the mission's launch until late next year. Europa Clipper has a 21-day launch window beginning October 10 to begin its journey into the outer solar system.

Enlarge / Boeing's Starliner spacecraft after landing Friday night at White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico. (credit: Boeing)

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft sailed to a smooth landing in the New Mexico desert Friday night, an auspicious end to an otherwise disappointing three-month test flight that left the capsule's two-person crew stuck in orbit until next year.

Cushioned by airbags, the Boeing crew capsule descended under three parachutes toward an on-target landing at 10:01 pm local time Friday (12:01 am EDT Saturday) at White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico. From the outside, the landing appeared just as it would have if the spacecraft brought home NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who became the first people to launch on a Starliner capsule on June 5.

But Starliner's cockpit was empty as it flew back to Earth Friday night. Last month, NASA managers decided to keep Wilmore and Williams on the International Space Station (ISS) until next year after agency officials determined it was too risky for the astronauts to return to the ground on Boeing's spaceship. Instead of coming home on Starliner, Wilmore and Williams will fly back to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in February. NASA has incorporated the Starliner duo into the space station's long-term crew.

Enlarge / Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is set to undock from the International Space Station on Friday evening. (credit: NASA)

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will gently back away from the International Space Station Friday evening, then fire its balky thrusters to rapidly depart the vicinity of the orbiting lab and its nine-person crew.

NASA asked Boeing to adjust Starliner's departure sequence to get away from the space station faster and reduce the workload on the thrusters to reduce the risk of overheating, which caused some of the control jets to drop offline as the spacecraft approached the outpost for docking in June.

The action begins at 6:04 pm EDT (22:04 UTC) on Friday, when hooks in the docking mechanism connecting Starliner with the International Space Station (ISS) will open, and springs will nudge the spacecraft away its mooring on the forward end of the massive research complex.

Enlarge / The second stage of the New Glenn rocket rolled to the launch site this week. (credit: Blue Origin)

NASA and Blue Origin announced Friday that they have agreed to delay the launch of the ESCAPADE mission to Mars until at least the spring of 2025.

The decision to stand down from a launch attempt in mid-October was driven by a deadline to begin loading hypergolic propellant on the two small ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft. While it is theoretically possible to offload fuel from these vehicles for a future launch attempt, multiple sources told Ars that such an activity would incur significant risk to the spacecraft.

Forced to make a call on whether to fuel, NASA decided not to. Although the two spacecraft were otherwise ready for launch, it was not clear the New Glenn rocket would be similarly ready to go.

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 / The second stage of the New Glenn rocket rolls to the launch pad on Tuesday. (credit: Blue Origin)

Welcome to Edition 7.10 of the Rocket Report! It has been a big week for seeing new hardware from Blue Origin. We've observed the second stage of New Glenn rolling out to its launch pad in Florida, and the rocket's first stage recovery ship, Jacklyn, arriving at a nearby port. It looks like the pieces are finally coming into place for the debut launch of the massive new rocket.

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.

Vega rocket makes its final flight. The final flight of Europe's Vega rocket lifted off Wednesday night from French Guiana, carrying an important environmental monitoring satellite for the European Union's flagship Copernicus program, Ars reports. About an hour after liftoff, the Vega rocket's upper stage released Sentinel-2C into an on-target orbit. Then, Sentinel-2C radioed its status to ground controllers, confirming the satellite was healthy in space. The Vega rocket will be replaced by the larger Vega-C rocket, with a more powerful booster stage and a wider payload fairing. One of the primary purposes of the Vega-C will be to launch future Copernicus satellites for Europe.