Rocket Report: ULA launches military lobbying campaign, SLS to launch in 2 months

Enlarge / SpaceX launched the mission SES-22 (shown here) this week, its 27th of the year. The company's Falcon 9 launches have become so routine that they didn't even make it into this week's Rocket Report! Trevor Mahlman

Welcome to Rocket Report 5.01! The Rocket Report turns 5 today, which means we've now published around 200 editions. I probably wrote 400,000 words - more than one word for every mile to the Moon. It seems like a lot in hindsight, but I also feel like I'm just getting started. Thank you to everyone who read and shared the newsletter with your friends and colleagues.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please sign up using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP versions of the site). Each report will contain information on small, medium and heavy transport rockets, as well as a quick overview of the next three launches on the schedule.

Rocket Lab launches first deep - space missions. The company's small Electron vehicle launched the 25kg CAPSTONE mission on Tuesday, and the rocket placed the spacecraft into a good orbit, chief executive Peter Beck said. Since then, Rocket Lab's "Photon" spacecraft bus has performed additional burns to raise CAPSTONE's orbit. In a few days, after raising CAPSTONE's orbit to 60,000 km, the Photon stage will perform a final burn and propel CAPSTONE into deep space.

A new trajectory, a new orbit... As Ars reports, this is a small but innovative mission that was developed by a private company, Advanced Space, and was partially funded by NASA. The main objective of the mission is to demonstrate a new autonomous navigation system around and near the Moon, but it will also pioneer a new trajectory, which takes longer but uses less fuel, to reach the Moon. . This "ballistic lunar transfer" allowed CAPSTONE to be launched on the small Electron booster. Finally, CAPSTONE will fly in a special orbit, called a quasi-rectilinear halo orbit, around the Moon. This will help demonstrate the orbit NASA plans to use for its Lunar Gateway. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)

Launch of Virgin Orbit delayed. Final preparations for the company's second launch in 2022 were put on hold shortly before the Cosmic Girl rocket carrier plane lifted off Wednesday night from Mojave Air & Space Port in California. "We are forgoing today's launch attempt," the company said in an emailed statement. "Our systems are very healthy, but our thruster temperature was slightly out of bounds, and out of extreme caution, we cleaned up for the day."

Okay, now tell me... Virgin Orbit said it would work to retry the launch in the "next few days". The "Straight Up" mission, named after Paula Abdul's hit song, is significant for the company as its LauncherOne rocket is intended to deliver seven experimental payloads for Space Systems Command as part of the space testing program of the Department of Defense. A component of the Space Force, Space Systems Command is responsible for the rapid development, acquisition, equipping, fielding and sustaining of lethal and resilient space capabilities.

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