Largely from this week's Rocket Report from Ars Technica, but not only from there.
Space Force Has Big Dreams For 2025
The main emphasis in this section was launches on ULA's Vulcan, but it's not just Vulcan. The US Space Force is projecting 11 national security launches aboard the Vulcan rocket in 2025. That's an aggressive schedule considering that Vulcan isn't certified for national security payloads yet.
While ULA aims to ramp up Vulcan flights for military missions, SpaceX has
maintained its dominance in the commercial launch market and even
absorbed additional national security launches
in 2024 that were originally slated for Vulcan, highlighting the Space Force’s
growing reliance on SpaceX’s proven Falcon rockets to maintain critical
military space access.
Add New Glenn to the mix. The first mission of the New Glenn in January was deemed a success by the Space Force and it seems Blue Origin is going to do a second qualifying launch by the spring. Space Force doesn't appear to be concerned about Blue's inability to land the booster for recycling and re-use. Brigadier General Kristin Panzenhagen emphasized that booster recovery isn't a criterion for NSSL eligibility.
“For our national security space launch missions, the primary measure of success is delivering the payload to its destination,” she said.
The flight positions New Glenn to compete for Lane 1 of the NSSL Phase 3 program, which covers less complex missions. A second successful flight will likely be required for the rocket to qualify for the more demanding Lane 2 missions.
Blue Origin’s path to certification remains proprietary, with the company given the option to balance demonstration launches and detailed data reviews to meet Space Force requirements. ULA publicly disclosed that its plan to certify Vulcan would require two successful flights.
Vulcan is still under pressure with certification expected in late February. If Space Force gets 11 NSSL launches out of the 10 months left in the year ULA is going to have operate at a pace we haven't seen them meet in years - if ever.
Sorry, but this story makes me laugh
It's actually a headline in the Rocket Report that SpaceX expended a Falcon 9 this past Wednesday, Jan. 29. You know, like virtually every other launch by every other launch service in the world, they used up every pound of payload to orbit they could get out of this system before letting it crash into the Atlantic ocean. That included taking steps like removing the landing legs and grid fins to add those few pounds to the payload it could put in orbit.
The payload was the SpainSat NG-1 satellite launched from Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39A.
The gigantic difference between SpaceX expending booster B1073 and every other
example you can think of is that this was the 21st flight of
B1073. I'm unaware of any other launch provider that currently is able to recover and re-fly boosters over 20 times.
The Airbus-built satellite, known as SpainSat NG-1 (New Generation), is the first of two satellites for Hisdesat. It was developed under a partnership with the European Space Agency, making its launch on a Falcon 9 somewhat notable.
Apparently, the FAA is still being the FAA
Apparently enough people think that the FAA is just going to let SpaceX operate without doing their usual process on Starship's Flight Test 7 that it's news the FAA is going to follow FAA policies.
Within hours of the Starship's RUD, people were reporting finding debris, although there were no reports of any serious damages.
The good news is there were no injuries or reports of significant damage from the wreckage that fell over the Turks and Caicos. "The FAA confirmed one report of minor damage to a vehicle located in South Caicos," an FAA spokesperson told Ars on Friday. "To date, there are no other reports of damage."
It's not clear if the vehicle owner in South Caicos will file a claim against SpaceX for the damage. It would the first time someone makes such a claim related to an accident with a commercial rocket overseen by the FAA. Last year, a Florida homeowner submitted a claim to NASA for damage to his house from a piece of debris that fell from the International Space Station.
A piece of what appears to be heat shield tile recovered in the Caicos, as shown on X.
