First launch of Stoke Space’s Nova launch vehicle. Asteroid mining technologies company AstroForge will fly a spacecraft on this launch. Planned reusability of the 2 stages is TBD.
Stoke Space’s Nova launch vehicle is a planned fully reusable 2-stage rocket. The 1st stage uses 7 Zenith Full-flow staged-combustion (FFSC) engines using Liquified natural gas/liquid oxygen (LNG/LOX) as fuel, with restartable capability and landing legs for landing. The 2nd stage is unconventionally designed around a 24-thrust chamber liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen (LH2/LOX) expander cycle rocket engine that surrounds a regeneratively cooled heat shield, thus enabling the upper stage to return to Earth from orbit without thermal tiles. The nozzle accommodates deep throttle operation even in the presence of atmospheric pressure and serves as an actively cooled metallic heat shield during atmospheric reentry. There is also a center passive bleed that aims to create an aerospike engine-like effect for improved efficiency.
See Details"If I needed to fly on another vehicle, what would that look like?"
Stoke Space completed proto-qualification of the first stage of its Nova rocket at its testing… The post Stoke Space completes Nova Stage 1 structural verification appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.
Share ride of 8 satellites to sun-synchronous orbit, including Jilin-1 HR-07C-04. Details TBD.
A batch of 29 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Test flight of the H3-30 variant of the H3 launch vehicle with 3 LE-9 engines in the first stage and no SRBs. The flight will carry a dummy main payl…
A batch of 24 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Sub-orbital launch under Rocket Lab’s Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron (HASTE) program, details TBD.
Chinese classified satellite claimed to be for communication technology test purposes. Actual mission not known.
A pair of demonstration satellites for Direct-To-Cell (DTC) communications from Low Earth Orbit for SpaceSail and China Mobile: * SpaceSail DTC 01…
A batch of 29 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
A batch of 21 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system. 2 US military Stars…
18 Low Earth Orbit communication satellites with Ku, Q and V band payloads for the G60 constellation operated by Shanghai Spacesail Technologies with…