VirginOrbit
In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re approaching mid-August. As of Wednesday, there are only 142 days left in the year. So if the calendar pops up at the end of the year, this is a good time to ask whether elk new commercial rockets launching small satellites will make it spin this year.
Back at the optimistic, pre-pandemic start of 2020, we had high hopes for the debut of new Astra, Firefly and Virgin Orbit missiles. We also expect to see the first flight of the Vega C rocket from Europe, which is now confirmed to glide in 2021.
Since then, a few companies have made launch attempts and failed to reach a job. Others have been slowed down by the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s an overview of the companies that can still bane this calendar year.
Astra
Start goal: end of August
The company Alameda, in California, had launched a week-long window for its test flight of the Rocket 3.1 in early August. However, due to technical problems with the rocket, multiple worries about weather, and eventually a problem with ground systems with the water suppression system, the booster did not take flight.
After closing the home screen, the company said it was “later this month” focused on its next attempt off Alaska’s Kodiak Island. It is noteworthy that Astra made its most recent launch attempt with only six people in place in Alaska and required just 10 days to set up the rocket and power ground systems. This bodes well for lean operations in the future – necessary to keep launch costs low.
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Astra launches from Kodiak Island in Alaska.
John Kraus for Astra Space
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It is very beautiful there, at least in the summer.
John Kraus for Astra Space
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This is the company’s second attempt to reach employment.
John Kraus for Astra Space
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The rocket was set up and ready for launch within 10 days of arrival.
John Kraus for Astra Space
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A crew of only six people performed these operations.
John Kraus for Astra Space
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Now they will try to launch the rocket again at the end of this month.
John Kraus for Astra Space
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The test flight will not carry any commercial loadloads.
John Kraus for Astra Space
Chris Kemp, the company’s CEO, described the mission as a test flight, with the primary goal of demonstrating the fire of the five main stepper engines of a rocket. Everything after that, including second stage and inserting the orbital, would be the icing on the cake. This mission will not carry any commercial loadloads.
Rocket 3.1 is the company’s second attempt to reach jobs. The first booster, Rocket 3.0, made its first attempt in March 2020 and was shocked due to a sensor problem less than one minute before liftoff. Later, this booster was lost on the road in an accident.
Fireworks
Start goal: Beginning of November
Of the companies on this list, only Firefly has attempted a launch yet. However, the company has been working slowly through the COVID-19 pandemic to finalize the development of its Alpha rocket and bring it to a launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
According to Eric Salwan, a spokesman for the Austin company in Texas, the first and second stages are in integration, and testing of those stages should begin within about two weeks. After these stages have completed this acceptance testing process, they will be sent separately to Vandenberg for final integration. A launch is possible as soon as November, he said.
With a payload capacity of about 1 ton to low-Earth orbit, the Alpha rocket is considerably larger than both the boosters of Astra and Virgin Orbit.
Virgin Orbit
Start goal: end of 2020
Virgin Orbit first attempted to launch its LauncherOne rocket into orbit at the end of May, but the rocket failed a few seconds after it was released from its carrier aircraft. Last week, the company said it had determined the cause of this failure: “A break in the high-pressure line with cryogenic liquid oxygen to our first stage combustion chamber due to a component failure. Without supply of oxidizer, the engine soon stopped supplying steering , end of our driven flight and finally the test itself. “
In a 3-post post on August 3 outlining its future plans, Virgin Orbit said that flight hardware for its second mission is in final integration and will now be shipped to Mojave, California, for testing. Notably, for the second mission, NASA has agreed to launch 11 CubeSats for its CubeSat Launch Initiative.
The company plans to carry out this flight “towards the end of this year”. Given that one major customer – NASA – will place loadloads on this second flight, we can imagine that the company will test the witch from this rocket before launching. This suggests that reaching a flight this year could be a stretch goal.
ExPace
Starting goal: Unknown
There is some question as to how “commercial” ExPace is, as it is a state-owned company of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation. Founded four years ago to commercialize commercial military launch technology, ExPace attempted to debut the Kuaizhou 11 rocket in July.
The rocket with solid fuel appeared to perform well for about one minute before there was some sort of issue. Chinese state media did not provide any additional information about the failure other than to say that an investigation would now take place.
The Kuaizhou 11 booster is relatively large for this class of rockets, with an advertised capacity of 1.5 tons to low-ground orbit. Other Chinese companies also licensed military launch technology in an attempt to pick up Western small launch companies.
It is not clear when the Kuaizhou-11 will make its next launch announcement.
