{"id":306114,"date":"2026-02-28T07:04:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T07:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/306114\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T07:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T07:04:15","slug":"rocket-report-vulcan-many-months-from-flying-falcon-9-extends-reuse-milestone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/306114\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket Report: Vulcan “many months” from flying; Falcon 9 extends reuse milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Studying the Ignorosphere \u2026 \u201cI was surprised how big the event was, visually,\u201d lead author Robin Wing, a researcher at the\u00a0Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics, said via email. He said people across northern Europe\u00a0captured images of the burning debris, which was concentrated enough to enable high-resolution observations and to use atmospheric models to trace the lithium to its source. The study shows that instruments can detect rocket pollution \u201cin the \u2018Ignorosphere\u2019 (upper atmosphere near space),\u201d he wrote. \u201cThere is hope that we can get ahead of the problem and that we don\u2019t run blind into a new era of emissions from space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ambitious Chinese launch company moves into development. Chinese launch startup Space Epoch has secured B-round funding as the company moves toward a first orbital launch and recovery attempt late this year, Space News reports<\/a>. The company says the funding means Space Epoch has entered a stage of large-scale development. \u201cThree Yuanxingzhe-1 rockets already in production will undergo ground testing in the second half of the year, with the goal of achieving a successful first orbital launch and recovery by year\u2019s end,\u201d Space Epoch said in a\u00a0statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Funding amount undisclosed \u2026 Yuanxingzhe-1 (YXZ-1) is a methane-liquid oxygen rocket designed for reusability. Space Epoch says it has a payload capacity of 13,800 kilograms to a 200-kilometer orbit and 9,000 kg to a 1,100 km orbit\u2014the latter altitude being one associated with the national Guowang megaconstellation. It also claims a price of no more than 20,000 yuan per kilogram (about $2,900 per kg), with the rocket designed to be reusable 20 times. The company conducted a\u00a0vertical takeoff and splashdown test in May 2025 using a YXZ-1 verification rocket, carrying out a reuse test two months later.<\/p>\n

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Vulcan likely \u201cmany months\u201d from flying again. Twice, once in 2024 and again earlier this month, United Launch Alliance\u2019s Vulcan rocket experienced issues with the nozzle on one of its solid rocket boosters during a launch. In both cases, the rocket\u2019s main engines compensated for the issues, but the US military is not eager to test Vulcan\u2019s ability to overcome such a dramatic problem again, Ars reports<\/a>. \u201cAny time there\u2019s an anomaly, my team is going to be actively engaged with the contractors to make sure we understand what happened and we correct that issue,\u201d said Col. Eric Zarybnisky, program acquisition executive for Space Systems Command\u2019s space access program.<\/p>\n

A nettlesome nozzle issue \u2026 Zarybnisky spoke with reporters Wednesday in a roundtable at the Air Force and Space Force Association\u2019s Warfare Symposium near Denver. He said it was too early to provide details on the direction of the investigation but predicted it would be a \u201cmany months process\u201d to identify the \u201cexact technical issue\u201d and the corrective actions required to prevent it from happening again. After the first booster issue in 2024, investigators identified a manufacturing defect in a carbon composite insulator, or heat shield, inside the nozzle. The latest incident suggests the defect was not fixed or that there is a separate problem with Northrop\u2019s boosters. (submitted by philip verdieck)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Studying the Ignorosphere \u2026 \u201cI was surprised how big the event was, visually,\u201d lead author Robin Wing, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-306114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}