{"id":782268,"date":"2026-09-25T15:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T15:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/782268\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T15:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T15:04:12","slug":"rocket-report-era-of-cheap-launch-is-over-astra-sets-early-2027-target-for-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/782268\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket Report: Era of cheap launch is over? Astra sets early 2027 target for return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"560\" height=\"81\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/heavyl.png\" class=\"center full\" alt=\"\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>How did SpaceX streamline the Raptor engine? The Construction Physics newsletter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.construction-physics.com\/p\/how-spacex-streamlined-the-raptor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recently dove into<\/a> the publicly available material on SpaceX\u2019s Raptor engine to explore how the company simplified the design of the machine from the initial Raptor 1 version to the Raptor 3 version. The result is an excellent read on some of the things SpaceX engineers did in their pursuit of an engine to power the super heavy lift, rapidly reusable Starship rocket. Importantly, the article also notes that the Raptor 3 remains a work in progress.<\/p>\n<p>Simpler, but not simple \u2026 \u201cWhile this streamlining has made the Raptor engine simpler in the sense that various individual parts have been eliminated, it was still an enormously complex task to get it to work, and there\u2019s a huge amount of internal complexity added to the Raptor 3 that these pictures don\u2019t show,\u201d the newsletter states. \u201cAnd the problems haven\u2019t been completely ironed out: the first launch attempt of Starship\u2019s flight test 13 was aborted automatically by the vehicle\u2019s flight software at T-0 (right before liftoff) this past July when several Raptor 3 engines failed to start.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Starship stacked for next orbital flight. SpaceX assembled a Starship-Super Heavy rocket on the launch pad at Starbase in South Texas early Wednesday as it awaited approval for the vehicle\u2019s first orbital flight, <a href=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/2026\/09\/23\/spacex-stack-starship-and-super-heavy-for-first-orbital-flight\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Spaceflight Now reports<\/a>. Liftoff of Starship Flight 14 could come as soon as Monday, Sept. 28, but first SpaceX needs to receive regulatory approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.<\/p>\n<p>A dawn launch \u2026 The rocket\u2019s Starship upper stage, designated Ship 41 or S41, began its journey from production site about three miles west of the pad at around 7:45 p.m. CDT (0045 UTC) Tuesday night. Nearly 5.5 hours later, the 52-meter-tall (171 feet) ship was lifted by the launch tower\u2019s chopsticks and carefully placed atop Super Heavy booster B21. Assuming approval from the FAA, SpaceX could launch Flight 14 as soon as 7:15 am CDT (1215 UTC) on September 28 on a nearly 10-hour mission that will see the deployment of 26 next-generation Version 3 Starlink satellites.<\/p>\n<p>Next three launches<\/p>\n<p>September 26: Electron | Owlright, Owlright, Owlright | M\u0101hia Peninsula, New Zealand | 00:15 UTC<\/p>\n<p>September 26: Falcon 9 | USSF-385 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. | 11:56 UTC<\/p>\n<p>September 28: Starship | Flight 14 | Starbase, Texas | 12:15 UTC<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790348652_758_rocket.png\" class=\"center full\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How did SpaceX streamline the Raptor engine? The Construction Physics newsletter recently dove into the publicly available material&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":782269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[59,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-782268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-gb","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}