Welcome to Edition 7.27 of the Rocket Report! Thursday was an eventful day in super heavy lift launch, with Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket having a highly successful debut launch before dawn in Florida, at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Then, on Thursday afternoon, an upgraded Starship took flight from South Texas. The first stage performed well, but the Starship upper stage experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent. Ars will, of course, have full and ongoing coverage.

As always, we welcome reader submissions , and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

RFA receives launch license . The UK Civil Aviation Authority has issued Rocket Factory Augsburg a vertical launch license to conduct the inaugural flight of its RFA ONE rocket from SaxaVord Spaceport in Scotland, European Spaceflight reports . The license is for the launch of the company's RFA One rocket, which has an advertised payload of 1.3 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. RFA said it intends to complete the launch sometime this year.

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Welcome to Edition 7.27 of the Rocket Report! Thursday was an eventful day in super heavy lift launch, with Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket having a highly successful debut launch before dawn in Florida, at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Then, on Thursday afternoon, an upgraded Starship took flight from South Texas. The first stage performed well, but the Starship upper stage experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent. Ars will, of course, have full and ongoing coverage.

As always, we welcome reader submissions , and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

RFA receives launch license . The UK Civil Aviation Authority has issued Rocket Factory Augsburg a vertical launch license to conduct the inaugural flight of its RFA ONE rocket from SaxaVord Spaceport in Scotland, European Spaceflight reports . The license is for the launch of the company's RFA One rocket, which has an advertised payload of 1.3 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. RFA said it intends to complete the launch sometime this year.

Read full article

Comments

Welcome to Edition 7.27 of the Rocket Report! Thursday was an eventful day in super heavy lift launch, with Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket having a highly successful debut launch before dawn in Florida, at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Then, on Thursday afternoon, an upgraded Starship took flight from South Texas. The first stage performed well, but the Starship upper stage experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent. Ars will, of course, have full and ongoing coverage.

As always, we welcome reader submissions , and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

RFA receives launch license . The UK Civil Aviation Authority has issued Rocket Factory Augsburg a vertical launch license to conduct the inaugural flight of its RFA ONE rocket from SaxaVord Spaceport in Scotland, European Spaceflight reports . The license is for the launch of the company's RFA One rocket, which has an advertised payload of 1.3 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. RFA said it intends to complete the launch sometime this year.

Read full article

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SpaceX launched an upgraded version of its massive Starship rocket from South Texas on Thursday, but the flight ended less than nine minutes later after engineers lost contact with the spacecraft.

For a few moments, SpaceX officials discussing the launch on the company's live webcast were unsure of the outcome of the test flight. However, within minutes, residents and tourists in the Turks and Caicos Islands, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico shared videos showing a shower of debris falling through the atmosphere along Starship's expected flight corridor.

The videos confirmed Starship — the rocket's upper stage — broke apart in space, or experienced a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" in SpaceX-speak. This happened well short of the company's plan of sending the spacecraft halfway around the world and splashing down in the Indian Ocean after more than an hour of flight.

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SpaceX launched an upgraded version of its massive Starship rocket from South Texas on Thursday, but the flight ended less than nine minutes later after engineers lost contact with the spacecraft.

For a few moments, SpaceX officials discussing the launch on the company's live webcast were unsure of the outcome of the test flight. However, within minutes, residents and tourists in the Turks and Caicos Islands, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico shared videos showing a shower of debris falling through the atmosphere along Starship's expected flight corridor.

The videos confirmed Starship — the rocket's upper stage — broke apart in space, or experienced a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" in SpaceX-speak. This happened well short of the company's plan of sending the spacecraft halfway around the world and splashing down in the Indian Ocean after more than an hour of flight.

Read full article

Comments

SpaceX launched an upgraded version of its massive Starship rocket from South Texas on Thursday, but the flight ended less than nine minutes later after engineers lost contact with the spacecraft.

For a few moments, SpaceX officials discussing the launch on the company's live webcast were unsure of the outcome of the test flight. However, within minutes, residents and tourists in the Turks and Caicos Islands, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico shared videos showing a shower of debris falling through the atmosphere along Starship's expected flight corridor.

The videos confirmed Starship — the rocket's upper stage — broke apart in space, or experienced a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" in SpaceX-speak. This happened well short of the company's plan of sending the spacecraft halfway around the world and splashing down in the Indian Ocean after more than an hour of flight.

Read full article

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Cell phones are magnets for our attention, but you can, of course, face significant legal jeopardy for giving them that attention. Just ask the "safety driver" of an Uber self-driving vehicle, which hit and killed a pedestrian in Arizona in 2018. According to authorities, the driver was watching The Voice on Hulu just before the crash—and was then charged with negligent homicide.

These kinds of cases are always tragic because they feel so easily avoidable, but they also happen with enough regularity that it's easy to tune them out. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 3,308 people were killed by distracted drivers in 2022 alone —and "texting is the most alarming distraction."

That's why states continue to crack down on cell phone use while driving. A Colorado law that went into effect on January 1, for instance, bans a driver from using any mobile electronic device unless it is hands-free. Thirty US states now have such bans in place.

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Cell phones are magnets for our attention, but you can, of course, face significant legal jeopardy for giving them that attention. Just ask the "safety driver" of an Uber self-driving vehicle, which hit and killed a pedestrian in Arizona in 2018. According to authorities, the driver was watching The Voice on Hulu just before the crash—and was then charged with negligent homicide.

These kinds of cases are always tragic because they feel so easily avoidable, but they also happen with enough regularity that it's easy to tune them out. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 3,308 people were killed by distracted drivers in 2022 alone —and "texting is the most alarming distraction."

That's why states continue to crack down on cell phone use while driving. A Colorado law that went into effect on January 1, for instance, bans a driver from using any mobile electronic device unless it is hands-free. Thirty US states now have such bans in place.

Read full article

Comments

Cell phones are magnets for our attention, but you can, of course, face significant legal jeopardy for giving them that attention. Just ask the "safety driver" of an Uber self-driving vehicle, which hit and killed a pedestrian in Arizona in 2018. According to authorities, the driver was watching The Voice on Hulu just before the crash—and was then charged with negligent homicide.

These kinds of cases are always tragic because they feel so easily avoidable, but they also happen with enough regularity that it's easy to tune them out. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 3,308 people were killed by distracted drivers in 2022 alone —and "texting is the most alarming distraction."

That's why states continue to crack down on cell phone use while driving. A Colorado law that went into effect on January 1, for instance, bans a driver from using any mobile electronic device unless it is hands-free. Thirty US states now have such bans in place.

Read full article

Comments