Rockets

Rocket Lab USA, Inc. announced that the company experienced an issue during the launch of its 41st mission. Following lift-off from Launch Complex 1, the rocket successfully completed a first-stage burn and stage separation as planned before it experienced an issue at around T+ 2 minutes and 30 seconds into flight, resulting in the end of the mission. In addition, Rocket Lab's telemetry data, which the company provided during the livestream of Tuesday's launch, showed the velocity of the rocket's upper stage decreasing shortly after its single Rutherford engine was supposed to kick on. 

Rocket Lab, an aerospace manufacturer and launch service provider, announced on the 12th of September that it has signed a contract with Leidos to launch four HASTE (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron) missions, reports Business Wire. The four new missions follow on from the success of Rocket Lab’s first HASTE launch for Leidos in June this year. 

In this episode of Space Café Radio, SpaceWatch.Global’s publisher Torsten Kriening, has an insightful conversation with Simon Flack, Special Advisor and Space Industry Coordinator at Innovation Norway, and Chris Choa, founder of OUTCOMIST, an urban strategy planner and architect.

ESA’s new Ariane 6 launch vehicle, consisting of its upper and core stage, has been fuelled up and its core stage engine fired. The Vulcain 2.1 engine was ignited on the launch page, and fired for four seconds before switching off and its liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen fuels were drained to their separate underground tanks. These tests are the continuation of an earlier test on the 18th of July.

Astrobotic have begun work on two NASA Small Business Innovation Research contracts that will further research on lunar plume-surface interactions (PSI), a key area of risk and uncertainty for lunar landing. This testing will generate valuable new data about how lunar dust stirred up by a lander's rocket plumes will affect landing systems, onboard payloads, landing sites, and nearby surface infrastructure on upcoming missions. The first project, 'Floatinator,' aims to control and eliminate a significant testing variable – namely, Earth gravity – that has limited ground-based lunar PSI tests.

Firefly Aerospace, Inc. announced it signed a multi-launch agreement with L3Harris Technologies [NYSE: LHX] for three dedicated launches on Firefly's Alpha vehicle in 2026. The agreement further encourages Firefly, a small-lift launch services company, to ramp up production of its Alpha vehicle to support the growing needs of both Government and commercial customers. Firefly will provide rapid launch capabilities for L3Harris to achieve direct access to low Earth orbit at a lower cost and support the responsive space needs of the U.S. Government. The three missions will launch from Firefly's SLC-2 launch site at the Vandenberg Space Force Base.

Rocket Lab USA, Inc. has launched a dedicated Electron mission for Capella Space.. The mission demonstrated several significant milestones for Rocket Lab’s reusability program, including an ocean splashdown of the Electron rocket’s first stage and the successful flight of a previously flown Rutherford engine. The mission was also Rocket Lab’s 40th Electron launch since the Company began launches in 2017, further cementing Electron’s position as a competitive commercial small launch vehicle globally.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has successfully soft-landed the Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission on the moon's south pole. Recall that the Space and Research Organization launched the spacecraft on July 14 from the Satish Dawan Space Center in India. India has successfully become the third Country to achieve this feat, joining the USA, USSR and China. 

Sierra Space, a pureplay commercial space company, has announced that it has signed a strategic partnership with Redwire Corporation. As a result, both Companies will collaborate on groundbreaking commercial pharmaceutical and biotech R&D and manufacturing in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Redwire is delivering state-of-the-art, flight-proven biotechnology and manufacturing technologies that would integrate into Sierra Space's Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE) habitat platform.

Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) has signed a multi-year, multi-launch contract with INNOSPACE for orbital launches from the Australian spaceport. The agreement will consequently see the launch of several INNOSPACE rocket variants, each carrying between 50kg and 500kg payloads into low earth orbit from the Arnhem Space Centre (ASC) across five years until Dec 2028. ELA believes the signing of this contract has validated its business concept and development plans by securing INNOSPACE as the first commercial company to become a ‘resident launcher’ (long-term tenant and regular launcher) at the Australian spaceport.