Blue Origin delays New Glenn; space launch shortage deepens

Blue Origin delays New Glenn to January

Blue Origin Chief Executive Officer Dave Limp told employees Wednesday the company now targets a New Glenn flight in early 2027, pushing back from December after a May launch pad explosion.

New Glenn gets two major upgrades

Blue Origin announced a new Northstar engine with half the parts and 30 percent less mass, plus a hydrogen-oxygen kick stage for high-energy missions to geostationary orbit and the Moon.

Northstar engine cuts manufacturing costs

The Northstar engine is a simplified version of the BE-4 with about 65 percent 3D-printable parts. Blue Origin believes it can manufacture Northstar at 25 percent the cost of a BE-4 engine.

Composite hydrogen tank breakthrough

Blue Origin completed its first composite liquid hydrogen tanking test at Launch Site One in Texas, giving engineers confidence to move forward with the lightweight fuel tank design for the kick stage.

World faces severe rocket shortage

Analytics firm Quilty Space estimates a shortfall of about 150 launches between now and 2030 compared to demand from satellite operators and civil space agencies outside China.

Shortage could double with military demand

If demand from the US military is added and SpaceX does not extend Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy programs to accommodate increased national security needs, the shortage could be doubled.

Launch crisis worse than expected

Caleb Henry, director of research at Quilty Space, said the launch crisis is more severe than thought and will not go away this decade, possibly not until late in the 2030s.

“the launch crisis is more severe than we thought and that it will not go away this decade for sure”

Multiple factors drive the shortage

Quilty blames the war in Ukraine removing Russian rockets from Western markets, Amazon Leo demand, developmental delays in New Glenn and Vulcan, and the recent retirement of Falcon 9 for commercial service.

SpaceX engineers build water-powered satellites

Three Carlisle brothers who worked at SpaceX founded Argo Space in late 2022 to build satellites running on water as propellant, coolant and radiation shield, harvested from the Moon and Solar System.

Water-based thruster demonstration planned

Argo Space's first mission in July failed when a solar array did not deploy. Two more missions are scheduled for 2027 to demonstrate the company's water-based thrusters using solar power to split water into hydrogen…

Japan backs Interstellar's Zero rocket

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency selected Interstellar Technologies for its Acceleration of Commercial Rocket Launch Demonstration program, offering grants of up to 76 million dollars per company.

Zero rocket targets 2027 launch

Interstellar's two-stage Zero launcher is designed to carry up to 1 metric ton of payload to low-Earth orbit. The company achieved Japan's first successful firing test of an orbital-class methane engine.

“We have achieved critical technical milestones, including Japan's first successful firing test of an orbital-class methane engine”

China launches mini-Falcon Heavy

CAS Space's Kinetica 2 rocket launched 18 satellites for China's SpaceSail Internet network Tuesday from Jiuquan. The three-booster vehicle has three kerosene engines per booster and lifts about 12 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.

India restores navigation satellite network

India's GSLV rocket launched October 30 with the NVS-03 satellite, the third spacecraft in India's second-generation navigation network to replace older satellites suffering from atomic clock failures.

GSLV earns redemption after rocky history

India's GSLV has launched 20 times since 2001, with six flights ending in total or partial failures.V.

“the most precise launch of any rocket in the world”

China plans crewed lunar landing before 2030

Chinese space officials confirmed plans to land astronauts on the Moon within three years at the Seventh Manned Spaceflight Conference in Beijing, using lunar-orbit rendezvous similar to Apollo.

Long March 10 will power lunar missions

China's Long March 10 rocket family will launch crew and lunar landers separately to the Moon. A Long March 10A demonstration flight with the Mengzhou Moon ship is planned for early 2027.

Artemis II launch shook Earth's ionosphere

NASA's Artemis II launch in April caused significant ionospheric disturbances that could have triggered temporary GPS positioning errors, according to a study by researchers from National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan.

SLS disturbances exceed Starship's impact

The ionospheric disturbances from Artemis II were more significant than any caused by other rocket launches to date, up to 10 times more intense than those from SpaceX's Starship test launches.