Rocket Report: Rebuild begins at Blue Origin launch pad; Relativity targets Mars

A French launch startup is scrapping the name of its rocket, apparently due to a trademark issue. We don’t mention Starship in the body of this week’s report, so I’ll give a brief update here.

The short version

• The next test flight of SpaceX’s mega-rocket—Flight 13—could happen as soon as next month, according to Gwynne Shotwell, the company’s president and chief operating officer, in a recent interview with CNBC.
• There’s still a fair bit of work to go before Flight 13, so don’t count on a launch next month just yet.
• What we do know, based on Shotwell’s comments to CNBC, is the next Starship test flight will look a like like the previous one last month, with a suborbital flight path and a splashdown of the ship in the Indian Ocean.
• SpaceX is holding off on an orbital flight until at least the following launch, Flight 14, after the ship was unable to complete a critical engine restart in space on the last flight.

Context

Isar Aerospace still commands top position among a new generation of European rocket startups, but the company’s efforts to launch a critical test flight of its Spectrum rocket continue to encounter roadblocks, Ars reports. The latest delay came Monday, when Isar scrubbed a launch attempt after “detecting off nominal behavior in the vehicle’s fluid systems,” according to a social media post. “The teams are analyzing the new data to isolate the root cause.” Isar is flush with cash, having raised nearly $1 billion to date, but is still lacking in the critical currently of flight experience. The Spectrum rocket has flown just once to date, on a failed launch last year that lasted less than 30 seconds.

Why it matters

Gravity still winning… The two-stage, 92-foot-tall (28-meter) Spectrum rocket was awaiting liftoff from Andøya Spaceport in northern Norway. It was the fourth time in five months that Isar Aerospace, headquartered near Munich, Germany, had reached a target launch date for the second test flight of the Spectrum launch vehicle. Isar called off a launch attempt on January 21 due to an issue with a pressurization valve, and then halted a countdown on March 25, moments before liftoff, when engineers detected rising temperatures in the rocket’s liquid propane fuel.

Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full original at Ars Technica via the source link.