Rocket Report: South Korea’s SpaceX dilemma, Rocket Lab finds a quick fix - Ars Technica

A lot of the most interesting news this week came in the world of small launch, with Electron announcing a quick return to flight as well as boosting the capacity of its Electron booster.

Astra attempts launch of second orbital rocket.

"Our team has now reliably replicated the issue in test and identified that it can be mitigated through additional testing and procedures." Separately, Rocket Lab also announced an impressive increase in Electron's payload capacity from 225kg to 300kg to low Earth orbit.

ABL Space Systems, a three-year-old startup developing a launch vehicle for small satellites, announced this week that it has received two US Air Force contracts worth $44.5 million, and secured $49 million in new private funding.

ABL says it is planning the first orbital launch of its RS1 vehicle in 2021.

Virgin Orbit will carry NASA payloads on second launch.

Updating second Launch Demo mission ...

On July 31, with less than three minutes to go in the countdown, the launch of an Ariane 5 rocket carrying three satellites was called to a halt.

This week, Arianespace announced a new launch date for the mission, August 14, "with the possibility of an optimization in the process for the mission to be performed one day earlier." This is an important mission and the first to fly from Kourou since the spaceport shut down earlier this year due to COVID-19.

This will be SpaceX's first launch to carry a full set of Starlink satellites equipped with new sunshades, or visors, in an attempt to make the spacecraft less visible to ground-based telescopes, addressing concerns voiced by astronomers that thousands of Starlink satellites could interfere with scientific observations.

"But the South Korean government's outcomes in its rocket projects were far behind the Falcon 9 rocket produced by SpaceX." (submitted by JohnCarter17).

In separate news releases, SES announced deals with America's two leading launch companies.

SpaceX will provide launch capability for up to three of its C-band satellites over two Falcon 9 launches, and one United Launch Alliance Atlas V will carry the two stacked satellites.

The launch of the C-band satellites will facilitate the distribution of the 5G network across the United States.

Secondly, the ULA mission will fly on an Atlas V, rather than a Vulcan rocket.

Swarm to launch on a Falcon 9 rideshare.

Swarm Technologies is working with Exolaunch of Germany to send 24 SpaceBee satellites into orbit on the SpaceX Falcon 9 small-satellite ride-share mission scheduled to launch in December.

Exolaunch, a ride-share launch and satellite-deployment company, will handle launch, integration, and deployment of SpaceBee satellites in sun-synchronous orbit, SpaceNews reports.

Earlier this year, Exolaunch announced an agreement with SpaceX to send multiple small satellites into orbit on the December ride-share flight.

For the December launch, Exolaunch plans to integrate microsatellites and cubesats on a Falcon 9 Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Secondary Payload Adapter port and to send the satellites into orbit with EXOpod, the firm's proprietary deployment system?

The Atlas V launch to Mars sure was gorgeous.

Last Thursday, an Atlas V rocket launched NASA's latest rover, Perseverance, to the Red Planet.

For this mission, NASA chose an Atlas V rocket with four solid rocket boosters.

The rocket built by United Launch Alliance took flight under clear skies from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and, well, we'll stop writing because the photos of this epic launch speak for themselves.

We're not sure we've ever seen a more breathtaking Atlas V launch.

7: Rocket 3.1 | Second launch attempt of Astra booster | Kodiak Island, Alaska | 02:00 UTC