Rocket Roundup

If you read the Spacing Out newsletter, you may notice I spend a lot of time tracking rocket launches and tests. This is, first of all, because my lizard hindbrain definitely loves the big explode-y things, and sometimes they explode in ways they’re totally not supposed to and that’s fun too. But also because we’re currently living through a bonanza age for new rockets and there’s a lot of them to follow. Some are in development to replace retiring workhorse rockets and others are totally new.

Let’s go through a few of the ones that could, if all goes right, have the biggest impact on space exploration going forward.

Starship

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I’ll start with the elephant in the room. SpaceX’s Starship will be the most powerful rocket ever launched—once it successfully launches. This beast consists of the new Super Heavy booster for the first stage, and the Starship second stage (yes, the second stage of the rocket has the same name as the whole rocket. Yes, this is confusing and was a Terrible Idea).

A fully stacked Starship stands 394 feet high. The current models have a theoretical payload capacity of up to 330,000 pounds to orbit (in case you’re wondering how that compares to any other rocket ever, it is more. A lot more). The Super Heavy Booster, with its 33 Raptor engines, is capable of producing nearly 17 million pounds of thrust, which is over twice that of the famous Apollo Moon rocket, the Saturn V, and is a stupid big number when you’re talking about rocket thrust.

SpaceX has impressive dreams for this rocket. It hopes Starship will be able to replace its highly reliable Falcon and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles. It has a contract with NASA for a Starship upper stage to carry the next lunar landing mission to the Moon’s surface. It wants Starship to be the vessel that carries humans to Mars.

But it’s gotta make it off the planet first. As someone who enjoys explosions, I have had a lot of fun watching Starship go through its testing stages. So many Starship upper stages were violently lost during testing and, let me tell you, those things make a pretty explosion. And then there was the infamous first test launch of the fully assembled vehicle that took place this past April. A lot went wrong (which is why you test launch rockets in the first place) and eventually the rocket was purposely destroyed as it went off course. But how beautifully it went off course! Rockets don’t generally perform acrobatics, so you should take the time to appreciate the ones this one did before it was shredded.

This rocket was so powerful that it tore up its launch site. SpaceX claims the launchpad will be repaired and ready for another test launch before the end of the summer, but they need a license from the FAA to do so. And considering the last launch started wildfires, rained ash onto nearby towns, and got the FAA sued by environmental groups for issuing the license in the first place, it’s possible the FAA may be a bit reluctant to issue a new one. Stay tuned on that one.

But at this point Starship is integral to NASA’s future plans for Project Artemis. The entire Moon landing is being planned around it. But with all the difficulties and number of tests remaining before Starship will be cleared to carry humans not only to space but to the lunar surface, NASA is now openly wondering if Starship’s testing delays are going to delay the next Moon landing. We’ll see, but it does seem likely at this point.

Space Launch System

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Starship may carry astronauts to the surface of the Moon, but they’ll be first carried into space by the Space Launch System (SLS). This…oof. This poor rocket. It’s been cursed from the beginning.

SLS began its existence as a way to replace the retired Space Shuttle. Its development began in 2010 with a goal of first flight in 2016. That…didn’t happen. It took 12 years of work, delays, cost-overruns, and a global pandemic thrown in for spice, before the first SLS launched as part of the Artemis I mission in November 2022.

Until Starship actually makes it to orbit, SLS is the current record holder for most powerful rocket successfully launched. What we’ve seen so far is the Block 1 version of the rocket—a number of larger, more powerful versions of it are theoretically possible. The Block 1 version is 322 ft tall and capable of 8.8 million pounds of thrust in the first stage with its four RS-25 engines and solid rocket boosters. It can carry 209,000 pounds to Earth orbit.

You’ll notice that none of those numbers are as big as the ones for Starship. Starship is bigger, significantly more powerful, and capable of carrying a much larger payload. What’s more, Starship can be partially or even fully reusable, compared to the entirely expendable SLS. This means SLS will be very (very) expensive compared with other potential launch vehicles.

Of course at this point SLS has a major plus that Starship lacks—it has actually flown without exploding. Artemis I proved that this orange beast can fly and successfully deliver a capsule into lunar orbit. Its next launch will have people aboard, as the Artemis II crew rides it into space to circle the Moon, theoretically in 2024. And when Artemis III heads out there to put people back on the Moon, it will be SLS that brings them to lunar orbit, with the Starship landing vehicle traveling separately.

That lunar landing is supposed to happen in 2025. Again, that is highly dependent on the Starship program  getting a few wins under its belt quickly.

Those are the rockets that are getting most of the attention, but there are a couple of other new kids on the block waiting to test their mettle.

Vulcan Centaur

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In the past two decades or so if you were an American company had a heavy payload to get into space, odds are you put it on either an Atlas V or a Delta IV Heavy. Both produced by United Launch Alliance, they were each highly reliable heavy-lift rockets that successfully got many a mission into space (including some great NASA missions). And now ULA has retired both of these Big Guys more or less at the same time. Which means somebody needs to step into their shoes…or, well, engines I suppose.

Behold the Vulcan Centaur. Doing comparisons to any of the rockets we’ve already talked about is a bit like apples and watermelons, since Vulcan Centaur isn’t intended to be in the same lift class as those monsters. It will, however, be able to carry something like 60,000 pounds to orbit. It just needs to complete its testing first.

This process was pushed back when a test of the Centaur upper stage back in March resulted in a minor explosion. By SpaceX’s standards it would have hardly even counted, but it turns out it was caused by a hydrogen leak and hydrogen leaks do like to explode, given the opportunity, so it’s good for rockets to, you know, not have them.

On June 7^th, ULA successfully test fired the engines for this bird, but ULA is still investigating the Hydrogen Leak Incident and therefore not committing to a launch date. They suspect they’ve found the issue, and fixing it will require another pressure test. If everything runs smoothly (which they very rarely do when it comes to flying new rockets) Vulcan Centaur might still get let off the leash before the end of the year.

Ariane 6

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So if you were an American company or space program you may have used ULA rockets in the last couple of decades, but if you were a European company, including the European Space Agency, there’s a pretty good chance you were using an Ariane 5. This is the rocket that so perfectly carried the James Webb Space Telescope to orbit on Christmas Day 2025, as part of the ESA’s partnership with NASA. Built by Arianegroup, this rocket has been Europe’s primary heavy-lift vehicle since the 90s. So naturally it’s also retiring now.

Its replacement will be the Ariane 6—whenever that finally happens. I’m afraid I don’t have as many updates to provide for this rocket as I do for the others. It started undergoing firing tests for the upper stage in late 2022, but not a lot of progress has been made since then. This rocket was originally supposed to have its first test launch at the end of this year, but since that is most definitely not going to happen, Arianegroup is eying 2024. We’ve already seen how launch dates can slip dramatically though, so I’m going to give that a great big We’ll See.

New Glenn

I’m pretty sure this rocket is a myth, based on some big claims and a few hazy sightings of hardware in the wild. It’s the rocket version of Bigfoot. Theoretically this Blue Origins-built rocket exists, or will. Theoretically it’s going to be launching space missions by 2024. Theoretically it will be carrying Blue Moon lunar landers to orbit by 2029.  Seeing as one of these hasn’t seen the light of day yet, I’m gonna hold out for some hard evidence of its existence first.

Ad Astra

So: when will Starship attempt to fly again? Will Vulcan Centaur launch this summer? Is the New Glenn rocket actually kind of long-con prank? At the moment I have none of those answers for you (though I’m guessing the answer to the last question is “probably not”). But there’s no denying it’s an exciting time for rocket watchers, and we’ll just have to see which of these birds will be the next to fly. Stay tuned.

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