The Big Story I was keeping an eye on never materialized - I thought there was going be a static fire of New Glenn on Saturday evening but it never happened. That video is four hours long and the guys narrating the video talk about "they could still fire this puppy up" for at least the last two hours. (Disclaimer: nobody actually said those exact words.)
So some other little stories, mostly from the Rocket Report.
ArianeSpace plans to test their reusable rocket in '25
Back in 2019, Ariane announced plans to build a reusable rocket patterned after the Falcon 9. When the ESA signed the contract with ArianeGroup for the Themis program in 2020, they had said they would do the initial low-altitude hop tests by 2022. Clearly they're running two years late, double the scheduled time.
ArianeGroup has brought the main elements of the Themis reusable booster demonstrator together for the first time in France during a "full-fit check," European Spaceflight reports. This milestone paves the way for the demonstrator’s inaugural test, which is expected to take place in 2025. Themis, which is funded by the European Space Agency, is designed to test vertical launch and landing capabilities with a new methane-fueled rocket engine. According to ESA, the full-fit check is one of the final steps in the development phase of Themis.
The first up-and-down hops will be based at the Esrange Space Center in Sweden, and will use the vehicle ArianeGroup is assembling now in France. A second Themis rocket will be built for medium-altitude tests from Esrange, and finally, a three-engine version of Themis will fly on high-altitude tests from the Guiana Space Center in South America. At the rate this program is proceeding, it's fair to ask if Themis will complete a full-envelope launch and landing demonstration before the end of the decade, if it ever does.
The only image I have of the Themis, a concept rendering from 2019. Why, yes, it sure does look like the Falcon 9's landing structure.
When you need a responsive launch provider, who you gonna call?
Ask yourself: you're the US Space Force. You can only call the launch providers you've certified to handle National Security payloads, and you want to demonstrate how responsive the Space Force can be. To quote the Ghostbusters theme, who you gonna call? Back on Dec. 17th, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, sending a military Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite to orbit in a mission called Rapid Response Trailblazer-1 (RRT-1).
[T]his mission was a US national security space launch and was also intended to demonstrate military capabilities to condense a typical two-year mission planning cycle to less than six months. The payload, GPS III SV-07, is the seventh satellite of the GPS III constellation, built by Lockheed Martin. The spacecraft was in storage awaiting a launch on United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket.
"We decided to pull SV-07 out of storage and try to get it to the launch pad as quickly as possible," Col. James Horne, senior material leader for launch execution at the US Space Force’s Space Systems Command, told Space News. "It’s our way of demonstrating that we can be responsive to operator needs." Rather than the typical mission cycle of two years, SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, and the Space Force worked together to prep this GPS satellite for launch in a handful of months. Military officials decided to launch SV-07 with SpaceX as ULA's Vulcan rocket faced delays in becoming certified to launch national security payloads. According to Space News, Horne emphasized that this move was less about Vulcan delays and more about testing the boundaries of the NSSL program’s flexibility. “This is a way for us to demonstrate to adversaries that we can be responsive,” he said. Because SV-07 was switched to SpaceX, ULA will get to launch GPS III SV-10, originally assigned to SpaceX.
Butch and Suni to spend at least another month on orbit
You've probably seen the rumors online, but it's actually true this time and not clickbait. NASA has announced that it's delaying the SpaceX Crew-10 launch until next March instead of February. Probably. So far.
You know that Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched on Boeing's Starliner capsule last June, expecting a 10 day mission. The Starliner, unfortunately, displayed a handful of issues on the way to the ISS, and after a couple of months of extending the mission, they were told to stay on the Space Station and Starliner would come back to Earth uncrewed. The Crew 9 mission was changed to two astronauts going up so that Butch and Suni will return in the Crew 9 Dragon. A crew mission, like 9, is usually not set to leave the station until the next mission, Crew 10 arrives. Now, Crew-10 will get off the ground at least a month later than expected because NASA and SpaceX teams need "time to complete processing on a new Dragon spacecraft for the mission."
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