Rocket Report: Engines installed for Artemis III; Long March 6C breakup in LEO
Welcome to Edition 9.09 of the Rocket Report! This edition includes an update from Blue Origin on the groundbreaking of a new Payload Processing Facility in Florida. It has been about a month since the company offered any meaningful news on its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket, which remains grounded after an on-pad explosion at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in May. The official line from Blue Origin is that the company is targeting a return to flight with New Glenn by the end of the year, but there’s good reason for skepticism.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Isar Aerospace is ready to try again. Isar Aerospace is about to make the next attempt to launch the Spectrum rocket into orbit, with a weeklong launch window set to open Friday at Andøya Spaceport in Norway, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) reports. The German launch company aims to deliver several small CubeSats to orbit with the two-stage Spectrum rocket. A test flight of the privately funded launcher failed shortly after liftoff last year, and Isar has attempted to launch the second Spectrum rocket several times since January, only to be thwarted by technical problems and the unavailability of the launch range in northern Norway.
Wary of Artemis IV timeline, NASA is changing lunar spacesuit design
NASA has decided to use a simpler spacesuit for its initial missions to the lunar surface, Ars has learned.
The agency announced the decision during an internal meeting this week as it seeks to accelerate its program to land humans at the south pole of the Moon as early as 2028. At the direction of Artemis Program Manager Jeremy Parsons, NASA will work with Axiom Space to develop a “Sortie Suit” variant of the planned spacesuit for the lunar surface.
Sources said the Sortie Suit will be used for the initial landing missions flown on landers developed both by SpaceX and Blue Origin. Among the goals of the initiative are to lower the mass of the spacesuit, reduce its complexity, and simplify interfaces between the spacesuits and lunar landers.
Toyohiro Akiyama, first Japanese citizen and journalist in space, dies at 84
The first Japanese citizen to launch into space, Toyohiro Akiyama was also the first commercially sponsored cosmonaut and the world’s first journalist to file reports while on a spaceflight.
Akiyama, 84, died last Wednesday, August 26, of lower gastrointestinal bleeding, news agencies in Japan reported. A funeral was held with his close relatives in attendance.
As a correspondent for the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), Akiyama was chosen out of his 162 fellow employees who applied to fly to space in celebration of the network’s 40th anniversary. He trained at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, located outside of Moscow, and was assigned to the Soyuz TM-11 crew.
Is Russia’s rival to Starlink failing? Here’s what we know.
Russia’s attempt to replicate SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network seems to be moving as slowly as the front lines in eastern Ukraine.
The Rassvet program, often billed as Russia’s answer to Starlink, started launching its first operational satellites earlier this year. Two launches, one in March and a second in July, have delivered 32 Rassvet satellites to low-Earth orbit, some 10 percent of the roughly 300 Rassvet spacecraft Russia aims to put into orbit by the end of next year to provide connectivity for military and civilian users. The company in charge of Rassvet, Bureau 1440, wants to deploy 924 satellites by 2035.
But none of the 32 satellites launched so far have reached the 500-mile (800-kilometer) orbit they were designed to operate in. The rockets that launched the first two batches of Rassvets released the satellites much closer to Earth, and the satellites were expected to use their own plasma engines to raise their orbits over the next few months.
It turns out that Orion’s much-maligned heat shield performed really well
Perhaps the biggest question going into the Artemis II mission this spring was how the heat shield at the base of the spacecraft would perform during reentry through Earth’s atmosphere.
The ablative heat shield, designed to char upon reentry while keeping the crew safe, had experienced unexpected losses of large chunks during a test flight in late 2022. After much deliberation, and not without controversy, NASA decided to fly the Artemis II heat shield as is but modify the spacecraft’s reentry trajectory.
Obviously, the heat shield worked. The crew of Artemis II, led by commander Reid Wiseman, safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after a triumphant trip around the Moon. Afterward, they and other NASA officials offered general comments, saying the heat shield looked good.
Blue Origin narrowing in on root cause of catastrophic rocket accident
Blue Origin provided its first substantive update this week on the cause of the catastrophic loss of the New Glenn rocket and most of its launch pad infrastructure at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in May.
The space company’s chief executive, Dave Limp, said investigative work is continuing into the anomaly that happened during a hot-fire test of the rocket during the evening of May 28, 2026. He confirmed, for the first time, widespread speculation that the problem started in one of the rocket’s seven BE-4 engines that power the vehicle’s first stage.
“The anomaly originated at the main oxygen valve on one of the BE-4 engines, which was later confirmed by hardware recovery and inspections,” he said. “Extensive component-level and engine hotfire tests have been conducted to understand the failure mode better and inform mitigations.”
No root cause found yet
Limp said the company’s path forward is “clear” as it works toward returning the New Glenn rocket to flight before the end of this year.
“We’re making small modifications to the valve that can be quickly retrofitted to existing engines,” he said. “We’re manufacturing the updated hardware, which will be ready by the end of this month. In parallel, we’re working through the remaining fault tree analysis.”
This is a positive update, and the transparency is appreciated. However, it also seems clear from Limp’s statement that the company has not yet identified the root cause of the issue.
The update was published 10 weeks after the hot fire test anomaly, and in parallel Blue Origin has rapidly been working to clear debris around the sprawling Launch Complex 36-A site in Florida and starting to rebuild a launch tower. Multiple sources have said the company is operating with a sense of urgency and sparing little expense in its efforts to resume launching the heavy lift rocket.
Lego deploys Hubble Space Telescope as detailed desktop model
Removable panels on the Lego Icons Hubble Space Telescope provide a look at the instruments and equipment inside.
Credit: LEGO
Removable panels on the Lego Icons Hubble Space Telescope provide a look at the instruments and equipment inside. Credit: LEGO
As part of its storied history, the Hubble telescope was visited by astronauts five times, first to correct for an optical flaw and then to upgrade its capabilities. This Lego model is configured to reflect the Hubble’s current configuration, following its fifth servicing in 2009.
Included in the build are the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), and Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), which remain active on the real satellite today. Other details include the three gyroscopes and five guidance sensors, as well as, externally, its communications antennas and two solar array wings.
“Hubble’s solar array panels were changed twice. For this model, we chose the latest version installed,” reads a note in the instructions.
Labeled and unlabeled
The Lego designers included more details in their build than the instruction book identifies, using both brick parts and decals.
Diagram from the instruction book for the Lego Icons Hubble Space Telescope set labeling some of the science instruments and guidance equipment that are represented as parts of the model’s interior.
Credit: LEGO
Diagram from the instruction book for the Lego Icons Hubble Space Telescope set labeling some of the science instruments and guidance equipment that are represented as parts of the model’s interior. Credit: LEGO
On the base of the telescope, a Lego steering wheel substitutes for the capture mechanism that may be used by a future robotic or crewed vehicle to boost or deorbit the telescope. Stickers are applied nearby to represent the vents used to relieve pressure inside Hubble’s body while also preventing stray external sunlight from entering and interfering with observations.
Decals are also applied to simulate the ports for the three fixed-head star trackers, which follow specific stars in their field of view to help determine the telescope’s attitude. The dark circular openings on the aft body are the external light paths for the trackers.
The set also includes a stand on which to display Hubble. As part of that, a decal-adorned plaque lists facts about the observatory, including the dates of its five space shuttle servicing missions. The stand also includes three translucent pre-printed parts displaying three of the telescope’s most famous observations: the Eagle Nebula (“Pillars of Creation”), Whirlpool Galaxy, and the Butterfly Nebula.
“The astounding images and data provided by the Hubble Space Telescope have brought the farthest reaches of the universe closer to Earth. We’re just beginning to comprehend its historic significance, and it continues to inspire scientists and spark the public’s imagination,” wrote the designers in the introduction to the set’s instructions. “We wanted to honor that legacy.”
The Lego Icons Hubble Space Telescope set is built to minifigure scale and includes an astronaut minifigure.
Credit: LEGO
The Lego Icons Hubble Space Telescope set is built to minifigure scale and includes an astronaut minifigure. Credit: LEGO
One more hidden detail: the astronaut minifigure is decorated so as to be wearing an extravehicular mobility unit (EMU), the spacesuit worn for the servicing missions. It does not reproduce the NASA insignia or any flight emblems, but on the back of its portable life support system (PLSS) backpack appears NASA’s celebratory logo for the Hubble Space Telescope’s first 35 years.
SpaceX is set to acquire 130,000 acres of marshland in southern Louisiana
SpaceX and the state of Louisiana are close to finalizing a deal for the launch company to acquire about 130,000 acres along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
There have been persistent rumors about such an agreement for months, but now The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate reports that Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to announce the agreement later this month.
The deal would give SpaceX control of an 18-mile stretch of marshland southwest of Lafayette. The site, known as Pecan Island, became available as part of a legal settlement that resolves dozens of lawsuits that blame ExxonMobil for pollution and coastal land loss, the newspaper reports.
No Louisiana officials publicly commented on the deal. Nor did SpaceX. In May, however, the company said in response to rumors about the Louisiana site on X, “It’s no secret that we intend to launch Starship a lot, targeting thousands of flights per year. That cadence will require the ability to launch from many different locations, so we are constantly exploring to find viable sites to expand Starship operations in the future, both domestically and internationally.”
Plenty of incentives
Adding fuel to the rumors was the passage of bills by the Louisiana Legislature earlier this year that included a package of incentives for aerospace companies, including liability protections and property tax breaks.
According to the Louisiana newspaper, the agreement with SpaceX will include provisions for coastal restoration and preservation of the sensitive marshland along the northern Gulf Coast, which is important for wildlife and also acts as a buffer for hurricanes that regularly impact the region.
So why would SpaceX be interested in a remote, marshy location in southern Louisiana?
Lots of reasons to like Louisiana
If the company is to fulfill its ambitions to launch thousands of Starship rockets a year to build a massive constellation of orbital data centers, among other purposes, it needs more launch sites. And there are limited expanses of undeveloped coastal locations along the Gulf of Mexico and southern Atlantic Ocean in the United States.
Here’s how engineers plan to save the satellite sent to save NASA’s Swift mission
One week ago, more than 200 miles above the Earth, a refrigerator-size satellite making its way toward an attempted rescue of NASA’s $500 million Swift gamma-ray observatory suddenly spun out of control.
It didn’t look good. The spacecraft, named Link, was rotating on multiple axes, rendering it unable to maintain a reliable communications link with the ground and complicating efforts to arrest the spin. Two of the satellite’s three reaction wheels, used for pointing, also stopped working. Through sporadic radio contact, engineers discovered a problem with some of the spacecraft’s cold gas thrusters used for finer attitude control.
The Link satellite is built, owned, and operated by Katalyst Space Technologies, a satellite servicing startup that won a $30 million contract from NASA to fly up to the Swift observatory, grab onto it, and boost its orbit before succumbing to aerodynamic drag and burning up int he atmosphere.
The clock is ticking. In a few months, Swift will be too low for Katalyst to complete the rescue. This is the first time NASA has contracted with a commercial company to service one of its satellites. The space agency gave Katalyst less than a year to put the mission together. The Link satellite launched July 3 to begin the pursuit of Swift, and the mission proceeded mostly according to plan until last Saturday.
“When this happened, it was during one of the passes without comms,” said Ghonhee Lee, CEO of Katalyst, said in an interview with Ars. “We were, immediately prior, in a very stable configuration.”
Katalyst’s ground team, working from a control center near Denver, hurried to find a fix and recover the Link satellite. The good news was the spacecraft’s other systems remained healthy, including its power supply, three xenon-fueled electric thrusters, and the rendezvous and robotics hardware the Link satellite needs to capture Swift.
Keeping at it
Ars spoke with Lee, Katalyst’s chief executive, on Friday afternoon as the company’s ground team worked to stabilize the spacecraft. The first step involves using the satellite’s plasma engines to gradually slow the spin. The engines are primarily designed for orbit-raising, but they’re also suitable for attitude control because they can vector their thrust with a two-axis gimbal.
Wildfire forces evacuation of NASA’s Deep Space Network complex in Spain
A NASA website providing status updates on each DSN complex showed no activity at the Madrid site Friday afternoon, while antennas at the California and Australia locations were communicating with several NASA spacecraft, such as Voyager 2 and Juno, exploring interstellar space and Jupiter, respectively.
No activity at the Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex on Friday afternoon.
Credit: NASA
No activity at the Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex on Friday afternoon. Credit: NASA
“The safety and well‑being of our personnel is our highest priority and our thoughts are with the families and neighbors who are also experiencing the impact of the wildfires in the surrounding communities,” NASA said. “We will provide updates as conditions evolve.”
A separate deep space tracking station owned and operated by the Spanish government and the European Space Agency was also evacuated due to wildfires, according to Spanish news reports. The Cebreros tracking station, part of ESA’s Estrack network, is located a few miles away from NASA’s DSN facility.
Reuters reported Friday that Spanish authorities ordered more than 19,000 people to evacuate from towns in the mountains west of Madrid. More than 2,000 personnel and 10 aircraft were deployed to combat the wildfires. A summer heat wave and chronic drought conditions have made conditions ripe for wildfires across Spain and France.
Without the Madrid location, the Deep Space Network is down to one operational 70-meter radio antenna in Australia. The 70-meter antenna in California has been offline since last year due to an accident that “over-rotated” the structure. The incident damaged cables and water lines, flooding the base of the antenna with 200,000 gallons of water containing glycol, an environmental hazard.
The cleanup and repair is projected to cost between $4.1 million and $4.6 million. NASA officials are combining the repairs with already-planned upgrades. The work is expected to keep the antenna offline into 2028.
The good news for DSN is the next Artemis mission to the Moon is still at least a couple of years away. Artemis missions put high demand on DSN, with additional requirements for telemetry and imagery downlinks to support human spaceflight. Artemis III will now fly in low-Earth orbit to test the Orion capsule with commercial Moon landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin. Artemis IV, the program’s first planned lunar landing with astronauts, is targeted for no earlier than 2028.
