Tag: competition

China’s Zhuque-3 reusable rocket now ready for its first launch

9:26 am

According to a report in China’s state-run press today, the Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3] rocket, built by the pseudo-company Landspace, is now cleared for its first launch, though no launch date has yet been announced.

If everything goes according to schedule, the first ZQ 3 will take to the sky in the near future at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China’s Gobi Desert and will attempt to recover its first-stage booster, according to the Beijing-headquartered enterprise.

The rocket is now undergoing technical testing at the Jiuquan spaceport, which has a dedicated launch service tower for the ZQ 3 series.

Though the rocket is methane-fueled, its overall design is a copy of work already done by SpaceX, with a stainless steel first stage with nine engines designed to land vertically after launch and then reused. It is also appears in the lead among about a dozen Chinese pseudo-companies attempting to build reusable rockets.

The Chinese government has recently been pressuring its pseudo-companies to accelerate development. Right now, only three have done any static fire tests, and only one, Landspace, appears ready to launch. There have even been rumors that China might reorganize these fake companies into a government-run operation.

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Avio to provide solid-fueled motors to Lockheed Martin and Raytheon

9:08 am

The Italian rocket company Avio has now signed deals with both Lockheed Martin and Raytheon to provide each with solid-fueled rocket motors for U.S. missiles, built at its planned American-based factory, expected to begin operations in 2028.

Under the arrangement with Lockheed Martin, “Lockheed Martin will have preferred access to a portion of the Avio USA plant production capacity to meet future demand for its products,” according to Avio. Tim Cahill, president of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, said the collaboration “positions us to increase production of essential capabilities and deliver them to our customers faster as global demand grows.”

Raytheon will receive similar preferred access to production capacity under a comparable agreement. The deal follows a July 2024 contract between the companies for preliminary engineering work on a tactical rocket motor for Raytheon’s Standard missile program for the U.S. Navy. Bob Butz, vice president of operations, supply chain and quality at Raytheon, said the agreement “will help establish an additional supplier of solid rocket motors within the U.S.”

In both cases, these solid-fueled motors will be used in U.S. missiles.

Since Avio regained control of its rockets and engines from Arianespace — the government-controlled commercial arm of the European Space Agency (ESA) – it has been moving very fast to obtain customers worldwide. Under ESA control, Arianespace was focused on doing business in Europe, so establishing a factory in the U.S. to garner U.S. business was never even considered. Avio is not hindered by such restrictions, and it is therefore looking for profits wherever it can find them. It has committed almost a half billion dollars to build this U.S. factory, and has begun signing up international satellite companies for its Vega-C rocket. It is also begun work on a Grasshopper-type test vehicle, with plans to incorporate this concept into Vega-C, making its first stage reusable.

The above deal also indicates that Avio is grabbing market share from the established American makers of solid fueled rockets, especially Northrop Grumman. Apparently those American companies aren’t providing manufacturing capacity required by the Pentagon.

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New company formed to run proposed North Sea offshore launch platform

8:50 am

Launch platforms proposed for North Sea
Launch platforms proposed for North Sea

The German company OHB has now formed a new subsidiary, The European Spaceport Company, to consolidate its various spaceport projects, its proposed North Sea offshore launch platform as well as the launchpads it is building at French Guiana.

According to an 11 November OHB press release, the initial goals of the new European Spaceport Company, which will be based in Bremen, are the “realisation of a European offshore spaceport and the expansion of launch capacities at the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana to include a launch complex that can be used for various rocket types.”

The home port for the offshore spaceport, dubbed the Offshore Spaceport Alliance, will be in Bremen, as shown by the map to the right. The launch facilities the company is building in French Guiana are for the German rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg as well as Arianespace’s Ariane-6 rocket.

The North Sea launch platform appears to be an attempt to give the three German rocket startups, Rocket Factory, Isar Aerospace, and Hyimpulse, a German-based launchpad close to Europe, rather than have to rely on the new spaceports in the United Kingdom, Norway, and Sweden that surround the Norwegian Sea to the north.

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First launch of Rocket Lab’s Neutron rocket delayed until 2026

8:34 am

Artist's rendering of the Neutron first stage deploying its second stage
Artist’s rendering of Neutron’s first stage fairings opening
to deploy the payload with the second stage engine.

Despite a concerted effort in the past year to achieve the first launch of its new reusable larger Neutron rocket before the end of 2025, Rocket Lab this week revealed that the company is now targeting a 2026 launch instead.

Sir Peter Beck, the CEO of Rocket Lab, announced the shift in plans during the third quarter earnings call with investors on Nov. 10. He said that the company’s goal is to get the rocket out to Launch Complex 3 at the Virginia Spaceport Authority’s (VSA) Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) within the first quarter of 2026 “with first launch thereafter.”

“As always, this is a rocket program that’s been completed at a pace and a cost that nobody has achieved before and the financial and long-term impacts are insignificant to take a little bit more time to get it right,” Beck told investors on the call.

During the call officials also made clear that there would be no attempt to recover the first stage on that first flight, as the landing barge won’t be ready by then. It hopes a landing attempt will occur on the second flight.

Finally, officials revealed that the company has spent a bit more to develop Neutron then the originally planned cost of between $250 to $300 million. Right now it expects to spend about $360 million by the end of 2025.

This delay or the increased cost are relatively inconsequential when looked at in context. Rocket Lab had only started this project in 2021. To create a new rocket in less than five years for only about a quarter of a billion dollars is quite unprecedented.

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SpaceX launches 29 more Starlink satellites

8:47 pm

Note: My original post mistated the time of launch. Below is a corrected text:

SpaceX tonight at 10:21 pm (Eastern) successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its third flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

I specify the launch time because it occurred just outside the FAA’s so-called curfew banning all launches from 6 am to 10 pm local time, due to the government shutdown and a shortage of air traffic controllers to coordinate aviation and rocket launches. Though the Senate today voted to end the shutdown, that shutdown has not yet ended, and won’t until the House passes the Senate budget version and Trump signs it.

Thus, it appears Blue Origin has negotiated an exemption for its now planned launch of New Glenn on November 12, 2025 in the afternoon.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

147 SpaceX (a new record)
70 China
14 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 147 to 115.

Note that I had made an error in entering my numbers earlier this week in regards to China, and have now corrected the mistake, thus revising the numbers in the last few launch reports.

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Three launches since yesterday, with a fourth upcoming today [scrubbed]

9:19 am

The beat goes on: Since yesterday there were three launches globally, two by China and one by SpaceX, with a fourth launch scheduled by Blue Origin only a few hours hence. UPDATE: Blue Origin launch scrubbed due to weather].

First China’s solid-fueled Long March 11 rocket placed three classified military test satellites into orbit, lifting off from an ocean platform off China’s northeastern coast.

Next, China’s solid-fueled Kinetica-1 (Lijian-1) rocket placed two “technical satellites” into orbit, lifting off from the “commercial” launchpad at the Jiuquan spaceport in the country’s northwest. As is normal, China’s press provided no information about the satellites, nor where Kinetica-1’s lower stages crashed inside China. The rocket itself is supposedly commercial, but it is built by a government agency, the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Finally, in the early morning hours today SpaceX placed 29 more Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The first stage (B1069) completed its 28th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. With this launch this booster tied the space shuttle Columbia for the number of reuses by a launch vehicle. As the rankings for the most reused launch vehicles below show, SpaceX now has four boosters close to becoming the most reused rockets ever.

39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
31 Falcon 9 booster B1067
29 Falcon 9 booster B1071
29 Falcon 9 booster B1063
28 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle

Sources here and here.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

146 SpaceX (a new record)
69 China (a new record)
14 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 146 to 114.

Blue Origin hopes to launch two NASA smallsat Mars orbiters later today from Cape Canaveral, using its New Glenn rocket. That launch is scheduled for 2:35 pm (Eastern). The company will once again attempt to land the first stage on a platform in the Atlantic. I have embedded the live stream below.

UPDATE: Launch scrubbed due to weather. The negotiations with the FAA (see below) now take on greater importance.

This will be the second launch of New Glenn, eleven months after its maiden flight in January. As has been the company’s culture for the past decade, it has moved very slowly from that first launch to this second. This pace however must accelerate soon, as Blue Origin has a 27-launch contract with Amazon to launch part of its Kuiper satellites. Amazon only has 154 satellites in orbit, and needs to get about 1,600 in place by July 2016 to meet the requirements of its FCC license. It also has launch contracts with ULA (46 launches, three of which have been completed) and ArianeGroup’s Ariane-6 (18 launches), but neither can on their own launch enough to do the job.

One last note: For this launch, Blue Origin is trying to arrange an exemption from the FAA’s curfew on day launches that begins tomorrow, in case some issue causes a scrub today. No word as yet on whether the FAA will agree.
» Read more

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U.S. budget cuts shifts Blacksky’s satellite imaging business to international customers

9:24 am

Because of budget cuts by the Trump administration, the revenues of the satellite imaging company Blacksky fell in the third quarter of 2025, but the company expects to make up that loss with new income from international customers.

The administration’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal includes a one-third reduction to the National Reconnaissance Office’s commercial imagery procurement, a move that has rippled through companies like BlackSky that rely heavily on government intelligence contracts. The cuts specifically affect the Electro-Optical Commercial Layer (EOCL) program — an NRO initiative to buy satellite imagery from commercial providers.

BlackSky reported $19.6 million in third-quarter revenue, missing analyst expectations and down from the previous quarter. Chief Executive Brian O’Toole told analysts the reduction stemmed from adjustments to the company’s EOCL contract “to reflect the potential baseline budget submitted by the administration.”

Sound terrible, eh? Not so fast.

Despite the domestic headwinds, BlackSky is seeing a sharp uptick in overseas business. The company said international sales now account for about half of total revenue, up from 40% a year ago. O’Toole said foreign demand is “outpacing our U.S. government business” and that the company expects international sales to exceed U.S. sales for the first time in 2026.

Blacksky is of course blocked from selling its high resolution reconnaissance imagery to hostile powers, but there are plenty of American allies out there who want this data.

The situation is simple. When American companies are given the freedom to produce, they will create products of value. And the sky won’t fall if the federal government can no longer be their main customer.

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Echostar sells more of its licensed spectrum to SpaceX

9:05 am

Echostar announced this week that it has sold additional spectrum that had been licensed to it by the FCC to SpaceX, getting in return about $2.6 billion in SpaceX stock.

EchoStar has entered into an amended definitive agreement with SpaceX to sell the company’s unpaired AWS-3 licenses for approximately $2.6 billion in SpaceX stock valued as of September 2025. This transaction builds on the agreement the companies entered into in September. EchoStar’s unpaired AWS-3 licenses are nationwide and are part of 3GPP Band 70n (1695-1710 MHz uplink). “This transaction with SpaceX, in addition to our previously announced spectrum transactions and commercial agreements, will strengthen EchoStar’s ability to develop new business opportunities and growth in value for our shareholders,” said Hamid Akhavan, CEO, EchoStar Capital. “The combination of AWS-3 uplink, AWS-4 and H-block spectrum from EchoStar with the rocket launch and satellite manufacturing capabilities from SpaceX accelerates the realization of powerful and economical direct-to-cell service offerings for consumers and enterprises worldwide, including our Boost Mobile customers.”

In other words, Echostar was not making any money from this spectrum on its own. By partnering with SpaceX it can do so, because SpaceX has the satellites and rockets capable of making it happen, and a cost that is affordable.

Nor should the companies have much problem getting FCC approval. Echostar had previously been accused of under-utilizing its licensed spectrum. This deal with SpaceX helps solve that issue.

In other Starlink news, SpaceX has begun rolling out Starlink service in India, while also striking a deal with British Airlines to use Starlink on its airplanes.

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One launch today by SpaceX, while ULA scrubs for the second time in two days

7:46 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched another 28 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 8th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

ULA for the second day in a row was forced to scrub a launch of a Viasat communications satellite due to “a reoccurrence of the issue with the Atlas V booster liquid oxygen tank vent valve.” No new launch data has as yet been announced.

The contrast between these two rocket companies here is truly striking. In the past two days SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 has launched twice, like clockwork, while ULA can’t get off the ground because of a valve issue, the kind of niggling problem that routinely scrubs its launches. It is thus rare that ULA launches on time, on schedule, as planned.

SpaceX’s launch however sets a new record for successfully launches in a single year by the entire world, 257, breaking the record set last year. These numbers are two to five times what the global launch industry managed annually for most of the space age, and signal the renaissance in rocketry brought on by Elon Musk and SpaceX. Nor I think have we reached peak numbers. Not even close.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

145 SpaceX (a new record)
67 China
14 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 145 to 112.

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Judge approves plea deal related to Boeing’s malfeasance that caused two 737-Max crashes killing 346

3:03 pm

Boeing Logo

After further hearings during this past month, a judge ruled today to accept the plea deal worked out between Boeing and the Justice Department that allows the companyto avoid a criminal prosecution for its malfeasance and fraud that led to two 737-Max airplane crashes that killed a total of 346 people, thus dismissing the pending criminal charges.

A criminal conspiracy case was held against Boeing following the two fatal crashes of its 737 MAX 8 aircraft. The Department of Justice had initially accused Boeing of deceiving the federal regulators in relation to flight control system issues. Following the dismissal, Boeing has agreed that it would pay and or invest up to $1.1 billion in compensation to victims’ families, alongside other fines.

This dismissal comes almost a year after Boeing had reached an agreement with the DOJ, under which it would see the American plane manufacturer plead guilty and serve a term of probation. In a report by CNBC, the dismissal order acknowledged the victims’ families, many of whom opposed the dismissal, that the agreement could fail to secure the necessary accountability to ensure the safety of the flying public, and that the dismissal did not acknowledge that the manufacturer needed to be subject to independent monitoring.

It should be noted that Boeing has not only admitted to its corrupt behavior, it has already thumbed its nose at the Justice Department. As I noted in March,

In 2021 Boeing admitted to these charges as part of a plea deal with Justice, whereby prosecution would be deferred for three years if Boeing took certain actions to clean up its act. When that deal expired in 2024, Justice determined that Boeing had failed to live up to its agreement. Rather than go to criminal trial however government lawyers instead attempted twice to settle the case by having Boeing pay a big fine, first $243 million and then $455 million. In both cases the deals fell through when lawyers for the victims’ families objected.

The families still object, for the very rational reasons listed above. Boeing remains a very untrustworthy company, with a corporate culture that does not appear to require high standards, or even low standards, while allowing corruption and fraud to run rampant. This deal in many ways lets it off the hook.

At the same time, the deal is clearly an effort by Justice to give Boeing another opportunity to reform itself. We shall see if it works. Skepticism is certainly called for.

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SpaceX and Arianespace make launch predictions for ’25 and ’26

9:40 am

In separate announcements this week, officials from Arianespace and SpaceX revealed their launch plans for the rest of this year and next.

First, Arianespace officials revealed yesterday that it is hoping to do six to eight Ariane-6 launches in 2026.

During a post-flight conference following the launch of Sentinel-1D, Arianespace CEO David Cavaillès stated that while the company preferred to wait until next year to reveal details about its 2026 launch manifest, it was aiming to double its launch cadence. He added that a cadence of between six and eight next year “will be great.”

If the company does manage eight Ariane 6 flights in 2026, it will already be close to reaching the stated maximum launch cadence of between nine and ten flights per year. When asked if this cadence could be increased, Cavaillès explained that the decision would be driven by customer demand.

Since customer demand for Ariane-6 has been quite low, because of its high cost, don’t expect this launch rate to rise much higher. Arianespace’s only big contract is 18 launches for Amazon’s Kuiper constellation. Once that is completed it is not clear where much future business will be coming from, even with some bureaucrats lobbying the European Space Agency to require its members to use it. There are too many cheaper options available now, with many more coming on line, both in America and Europe.

Next, a SpaceX official noted at a conference this week that the company hopes to complete another 25 to 30 Falcon 9 launches before the end of the year.

“We’re aiming for around 170 — between 165 and 170 — which means 25 to 30 more launches to go,” Kiko Dontchev, the company’s vice president of launch, said during a Wednesday session at the Space Economy Summit 2025.

…All together, “we’ll get to 2,400, 2,200 [metric tons launched] or something like that, which is absurd in the grand scheme of where things have been,” he added. Historically, that is close to the global record for metric tons launched to space by all companies and nations — about 2,500 metric tons in 2024, according to Jonathan’s Space Report, compiled by astronomer Jonathan McDowell.

In other words, SpaceX hopes its Falcon 9 rocket will this year alone place in orbit almost the same tonnage launched previously by everyone in the three-quarters of a century since Sputnik.

Cavaillès’ forecast means the company is likely to get very close to its prediction for launches at the beginning of the year, 180, that also included its Superheavy/Starship test launches. Quite an amazing achievement.

And as Al Jolson once said, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”

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