JAXA confirms first hop of Callisto delayed until ’26
Callisto’s basic design
Japan’s space agency JAXA has now confirmed what France’s space agency CNES had revealed in August, that the first 100-meter-high hop of the government-proposed Callisto engineering Grasshopper-type test rocket will not take place any earlier than 2026.
This joint project of JAXA, CNES, and Germany’s space agency DLR was first proposed in 2015, and by 2018 was aiming for a 2020 launch. Four years past that target date and they are still not ready to launch. Remember too that even after it completes its test hop program an operational orbital rocket would have to be created. It does not appear this can easily be scaled up to fit Ariane-6.
SpaceX meanwhile conceived its Grasshopper vertical test prototype in 2011, began flying that year, and resulted in an actual Falcon 9 first stage landing in 2015. It has subsequently completed well over 300 actual commercial flights, reusing first stages up to 23 times.
The contrast between these government agencies and that private company is quite illustrative.
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In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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Callisto’s basic design
Japan’s space agency JAXA has now confirmed what France’s space agency CNES had revealed in August, that the first 100-meter-high hop of the government-proposed Callisto engineering Grasshopper-type test rocket will not take place any earlier than 2026.
This joint project of JAXA, CNES, and Germany’s space agency DLR was first proposed in 2015, and by 2018 was aiming for a 2020 launch. Four years past that target date and they are still not ready to launch. Remember too that even after it completes its test hop program an operational orbital rocket would have to be created. It does not appear this can easily be scaled up to fit Ariane-6.
SpaceX meanwhile conceived its Grasshopper vertical test prototype in 2011, began flying that year, and resulted in an actual Falcon 9 first stage landing in 2015. It has subsequently completed well over 300 actual commercial flights, reusing first stages up to 23 times.
The contrast between these government agencies and that private company is quite illustrative.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
SpaceX has gone from being ridiculed on the subject of reusability, to making it a ho-hum almost daily occurrence. It has also shown the world what a reusable “Gen 1” booster looks like, what the development program looks like, and what “Gen 2” looks like, with the development program for that. Now, every country in the space business is trying to create a clone of Falcon 9 and, if they can afford it, a clone of Spaceship also.
No government agency was talking about any of these things until SpaceX rubbed everyone’s noses in it. Staying true to themselves, the Europeans are whining instead of investing, and the Chinese are stealing everything they can and moving forward as fast as they can.
You gotta be willing to break stuff. Governments and their contractors aren’t, which is all the difference in the world. Cheers –
I suspect this project is doomed not just because of who is doing it, but by the choice of LH2/LOX as their fuel mix. LH2 has proven way too hard to manage for everyone who has tried it, it’s the antithesis of a cheaply and quickly reusable engine.
China is government and they are closing the gap.
People get too wrapped up in what particular pocket space money is pulled out of.
Put the same sorry people in a private outfit-and all that’s different is their hat.
Now, were I to try an invest in a company–it would be one that WANTS to build things–say, talk Stoke into delaying Phil Bono designs in favor of Kistler ‘s two stage trash cans… parachutes and air-bags…simpler than any other RLV…hose it off, stand it up.
Japan doesn’t really want a space program–they’re like Baptists–always coming up with some committee or other.
Of course, there is such a thing as being too eager…to steal a Lou Grant quote “I hate spunk!”
I have to deal with these gig-goons, doordasher freaks who think a truck lane is their private parking lot and that I’m their waiter…or these foreign truck drivers….I ask them if they have dry OR frozen….and they say “yes.”
Errrr.
@ Jeff…. No offence, but I have literally no clue what you are talking about .. my advice is take more water with it…