ULA plans to resume Vulcan launches in mid-November after a nine-month pause linked to a solid rocket booster anomaly. The flight will be the first Amazon LEO mission.
Cowboy Space disclosed specifications for its Big Iron medium-lift rocket this week. The startup took the name from a classic country-western song by Marty Robbins. The reveal included little hardware.
Virgin Galactic flew its first Delta-class rocket plane, called Apeiron, from an Arizona factory to Spaceport America in New Mexico on Wednesday. Teams at the New Mexico spaceport will prepare the vehicle for suborbital test flights to the edge of space. Ars Technica describes Apeiron as Virgin Galactic’s new rocket plane. It will undergo preparations at the New Mexico spaceport before a campaign that ends with flights to the edge of space.
Virgin Galactic predicts Apeiron will carry out its first commercial spaceflight early in the second quarter of 2027. The company cautions that aerospace schedules should be viewed skeptically. Virgin Galactic stopped flying VSS Unity commercially in 2024. VSS Unity was Virgin Galactic’s earlier commercial vehicle.
Engineers and technicians at Spaceport America will finish avionics and flight software work on Apeiron, then run more ground tests. They will attach the craft to its carrier aircraft for captive carry tests and perform a drop test. Then they will conduct a powered flight above 80 km. The sequence moves from groundwork to captive carry flights with a carrier aircraft, then to a drop test, before the vehicle attempts powered flight beyond the 80 km mark.
Ars Technica says Blue Origin has retreated from the suborbital spaceflight market. It says SpaceX plans to retire the orbital-class Dragon spacecraft. The outlet contrasts Virgin Galactic’s position with those moves. Ars Technica says Virgin Galactic is the only firm viewed as able to fly paying passengers to space soon.
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