A Roundup of Small Stories About Big Rockets - 7

It's On - for Monday

Thanks to commenter BillB who added this to last night's post while I was breaking for dinner:

SpaceX received its FAA launch license just before 5 PM CDT on the 14th. They anticipate launching on Monday, 17 April between 07:00 and 09:50.

It is on! -- my blog

UPCOMING STARSHIP FLIGHT TEST -- SpaceX website

Maybe it's thanks to having kids in the '80s, but I can't hear "it's on" without mentally adding, "like Donkey Kong."  According to that SpaceX launches website:

SpaceX is targeting as soon as Monday, April 17 for the first flight test of a fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy rocket from Starbase in Texas. The 150-minute test window will open at 7:00 a.m. CT.

That's 8:00 AM here on the east coast and a 150 minute window means 2-1/2 hours, so 8:00 to 10:30 AM.  Honestly, I'd be moderately surprised if it really went on Monday because it's the first attempt and those frequently have several scrubs and restarts.  

To quote Musk from early February, "Success is far from certain, but excitement is guaranteed." 

B7-S24 stacked at sunrise.  SpaceX photo

SpaceX may lease High Bay 1 in NASA's VAB

While on the topic, Ars Technica's Rocket Report has a few interesting stories about big rockets this week.  The first one is that back in last August, NASA issued an agency announcement asking for industry proposals to lease the Vehicle Assembly Building High Bay 1 at Kennedy Space Center.  This is the landmark building on the Kennedy Space Center where the Apollo Saturn V, Skylab, Space Shuttle (Space Transportation System), International Space Station and Artemis missions all began.  

The longer story is that NASA is said to have chosen the bidder in November but hasn't talked about it publicly.  Agency spokeswoman Patti Bielling declined to name the winner, saying terms are still being negotiated, and "the process does not conclude until the parties execute the lease, at which time NASA will announce the selection."  

Ars Space Correspondent Eric Berger goes on to say:

I bring this up because two people have told me that SpaceX won the competition to use the high bay for its Starship program. The sources said SpaceX does not plan to perform stacking operations inside the VAB, but rather will use the facility for storage and integration of payloads on Starship before flight. This might be an interim usage by SpaceX while the company develops a larger facility on Roberts Road near the Florida spaceport. It sounds like SpaceX will continue to build Starships in South Texas and ship them to Florida for the time being.

Who Will buy ULA?

It was back at the beginning of March when the rumor surfaced that ULA was for sale.  United Launch Alliance is a joint venture ("marriage of convenience") between Lockheed Martin and Boeing formed in 2005 and driven by the US Fed.gov.  The purpose of the deal was to ensure that NASA, US DOD and intelligence services had continuous access to Delta and Atlas launch vehicles. 

You would be right to expect that there has been a lot financial analyst-type speculation about various companies.  This week, though, the Space Case substack newsletter makes the case that Lockheed Martin is likely to buy out Boeing and take total control of the company.  The case essentially comes down to that Boeing could use the revenue to shore up their balance sheet while Lockheed Martin can afford the cash to buy them out.

NASA Mars mission confident in New Glenn date 

On February 9th (second story) NASA's ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) Mars mission announced they had chosen Blue Origin's New Glenn to get to Mars, in the next (late 2024) planetary launch window.  Principal investigator for ESCAPADE, Rob Lillis of the University of California Berkeley’s Space Science Laboratory said, “It hasn’t launched yet and we are concerned about that, but having seen the Blue Origin facility at Cape Canaveral, I was much less concerned after seeing all the work they’ve done. I’m confident they will likely be ready for the launch of ESCAPADE.”

They've announced a preliminary launch window to target, August 6 through 15, 2024 but then add the window “is approximate and provisional."  August of '24 is 16 months away.  I wish I had the confidence PI Rob Lillis has that New Glenn will have a positive flying record in less than a year and a half .