Enlarge / SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is seen returning to Earth after its 10th flight to space. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann / Ars Technica) Welcome to Edition 4.28 of the Rocket Report! As I write this introduction, I’m watching Virgin Orbit’s livestream for its “Above the Clouds” mission, and the company’s LauncherOne vehicle has successfully reached […]
Enlarge / The International Space Station, as seen in November 2021. Prominent at center in this view are the cymbal-shaped UltraFlex solar arrays of the Northrop Grumman Cygnus space freighter. (credit: NASA) The International Space Station is now more than two decades old. And while primary construction of the orbiting laboratory ended a little more […]
Enlarge / The Ariane 5 rocket, with the James Webb Space Telescope, at its launch site in French Guiana. (credit: ESA/S. Corvaja) There were two stunningly good pieces of news about the James Webb Space Telescope this weekend. One was widely reported—that after an intricate, two-week process, the telescope completed its deployment without any difficulties. […]
A scale model of the James Webb Space Telescope. (credit: NASA ) For much of the world, Saturday was just another weekend day filled with all of this planet’s problems and perils. The Omicron-fueled pandemic raged around the globe. New York emerged from its first snowstorm of the season. Turmoil continued in Kazakhstan and elsewhere […]
Enlarge / The James Webb Space Telescope lifts off from French Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket on December 25. (credit: ESA – S. Corvaja) Welcome to Edition 4.27 of the Rocket Report! And after two weeks away, the Rocket Report is back. I’d like to say I’m tanned, rested, and ready, but hey, one […]
Enlarge / Change in government space budgets over time. (credit: Euroconsult) Nations around the world spent a total of $92 billion on the “space sector” in 2021, the market intelligence firm Euroconsult reports. This represents an 8 percent increase in spending from the year 2020. In the latest edition of the report “Government Space Programs,” […]
Enlarge / A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in May 2021 carrying the 29th batch of approximately 60 satellites as part of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband Internet network. (credit: SOPA Images / Getty Images ) Earlier within December, the Chinese government filed a document with […]
Enlarge / The Falcon Heavy rocket is the most recent heavy-lift booster to debut, and that was more than three years ago. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann / Ars Technica ) A little more than three years ago, Ars published an article assessing the potential for four large rockets to make their debut in 2020. Spoiler alert: […]
Enlarge / Most of what you see here will be unfolded in the weeks to months after launch. (credit: Northrop Grumman ) There have been years of delays in construction and a few late slips in the launch schedule , with the particular latest being a short delay due to bad weather at the South […]
Enlarge / Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin visits the construction site for the launch pad for the rocket boosters of the Angara family, at the Vostochny Cosmodrome. (credit: Yegor AleyevTASS via Getty Images) A long and strikingly critical article that reviews the state of the Russian space program was published in the state-aligned newspaper MK this […]