Reusability

Tuesday, Honda’s Research and Development Company surprised the world with its announcement of a successful low-altitude hop of a test vehicle designed as a reusable rocket testbed. While Honda’s entrance into the space industry is not new, no prior word of this sort of progress in the space launch market was previously known.

SpaceX has been the go-to launcher for both commercial and government satellites for a few years running now. Their Silicon Valley thinking and reusability innovation were supposed to spur an era of low-cost launches, something that has yet to come to NASA missions as of yet.

SpaceX announced that its Starship Flight 9 mission will see the rocket’s first taste of reusability with the booster from Flight 7. The company also announced that a vast majority of the Raptor engines that flew on the booster will return for flight as well.

Read more: Starship Flight 9: SpaceX shows off Ship 35 heading for testing

For the last couple of years, SpaceX has been shaving hours off its booster turnaround timelines. This has turned months-long turnarounds into weeks; last week, SpaceX finally got that timeline down to just nine days! The company also just recently broke a launch pad turnaround timeline as well.

It will be a quiet launch week with only two days seeing orbital launches from China, Japan, and of course, SpaceX. The biggest story of the last week was with NASA; it received a nomination for the next NASA Administrator, then the outgoing Administrator announced the delay of the Artemis 2 and 3 missions.

Over the last few weeks, SpaceX has hit the major 20 flight milestone on not one but three separate boosters. The company is moving on and hoping to now get way more launches out of what was supposed to be a ten flight limit.

Friday evening SpaceX launched a Starlink mission that while not newsworthy anymore, the booster it launched on was. B1062, first launched in 2020, has now reached the big 20 mission milestone.

This week turned out rather more exciting than originally expected when I discussed the week’s launches on Monday. Tuesday morning, Rocket Lab’s eighth Electron launch of the year suffered a failure on the second stage and SpaceX yet again broke its reuse record on a single booster.

In a journey marked by innovation and determination, Kent, Washington-based Stoke Space has been making strides in the field of space technology and exploration since 2019. The company recently transported its reusable second-stage prototype, known as the Hopper Test Vehicle, to its testing facility in Moses Lake, Washington. 

Europe announced a study that would look into building a fully reusable rocket to further compete on the world launch stage — a direct nod to SpaceX’s success developing its Starship rocket and a further move to reusable rockets.

In a moment of shock and awe, SpaceX’s Starship launch vehicle lifted off from what was just a few years ago a small beach village at the southernmost point of Texas, now referred to as Starbase. While it didn’t make it to Hawaii, it did bring us closer to a new era of spaceflight – one whose launch market will most likely remain dominated by SpaceX’s innovation.

Rocket Lab announced Wednesday that they would take another big step in reusability, one of their most important, to re-fly its first flight-proven engine. The flight is guessed to take place later this year.

Relativity announced Wednesday that it isn’t just altering its future but potentially the future of the space launch sector. The change in goal came after a highly successful test flight of its Terran 1 rocket.

With a path to provide cheap reliable access to higher altitudes and eventually space, Dawn Aerospace conducted its first rocket-powered test flight of its MK-II Aurora aircraft.

Seven years ago today marked the first time SpaceX landed a Falcon 9 first stage on a floating ocean platform. Explosions and mishaps led up to the shining moment of success when this difficult and new feat was finally achieved. Seven years later, SpaceX has completed 144 landings of a Falcon booster on a drone ship.

Probably the two biggest things Rocket Lab is currently working on perfecting this year and in the coming years are tasks its CEO said would never happen. One of those is recovering the Electron’s first stage booster, something that might have a detour from its original idea.

When spacecraft reenter, they need a heat shield to protect them from the immense friction and heat of speeding through the atmosphere. Usually, these are rigid structures, but ULA plans to use an inflatable heat shield to protect the engines of their Vulcan rocket and recover them for reuse. They’ll be testing out that type of heat shield next month.

Over the weekend, SpaceX launched three Falcon 9 rockets within 37 hours. The first occurred Friday morning, breaking SpaceX’s record for reflown boosters. The record now sits at 13.

Earlier today, Rocket Lab launched its ‘There and Back Again’ mission. This was the first Electron launch to feature an air-based recovery, using a helicopter to catch the first stage that was descending under parachute. While the catch seemed good, and Rocket Lab confirmed success, groans heard from mission control made it clear that all was not quite as expected.