Welcome to Edition 9.17 of the Rocket Report! It's been a while since an American company announced plans for a medium-lift new launch vehicle, but that's what happened this week when a startup named Cowboy Space revealed specs for its Big Iron rocket, named for the classic country-western song by Marty Robbins. I'm a huge fan of the name. Maybe Cowboy Space is striking while the iron is hot as the space industry frets over demand for launch outpacing supply. However, Cowboy Space lags far behind so many other launch providers nearing the launch pad with their medium-class rockets, and the company didn't have much hardware to show at this week's big reveal. In other words, don't mistake style for substance. But we're rocket fans at Ars, and we wish them luck.
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.
Virgin's new rocket plane reaches home port. The first of Virgin Galactic's new Delta-class rocket planes left its Arizona factory Wednesday for a trip to Spaceport America in neighboring New Mexico, where it will undergo preparations for a test campaign culminating in suborbital flights to the edge of space, Ars reports. Virgin Galactic expects the craft's first commercial spaceflight to take place "early" in the second quarter of 2027, but like every other projected date in aerospace, this should be taken with a grain of salt. Virgin Galactic halted commercial flights of its previous vehicle, VSS Unity, in 2024.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket rises from its California launch pad, sending 130 payloads into orbit. (Credit: SpaceX via X)
Starfish Space’s first full-scale Otter satellite servicing vehicle went into orbit today, marking a major milestone for the Tukwila, Wash.-based startup.
The Otter spacecraft was among 130 payloads launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Otter is roughly the size of a kitchen oven, with solar arrays that were folded up for launch.
Other payloads on the satellite rideshare mission, known as Transporter-18, included Cowboy Space’s first power-beaming satellite, a prototype for Google’s AI data-center constellation, and a NASA-funded probe that will track the energy released by galaxies and supernovas.
Today’s liftoff through surface-level fog — and the return of the Falcon 9’s first-stage booster to a nearby landing pad — proceeded like clockwork. A little more than an hour after launch, Otter separated from the rocket’s upper stage and powered up for orbital operations.
Once Otter is fully commissioned, it will rendezvous with and inspect a series of inoperable satellites for a $15 million NASA mission known as Small Spacecraft Propulsion and Inspection Capability, or SSPICY for short. The capabilities demonstrated by SSPICY could be used during future missions to check the health of active satellites, or dispose of defunct satellites.
SSPICY may not be the only mission that Otter takes on during its operating lifetime.
“Success in the mission is to actually go and provide this commercial inspection service on a number of these different spacecraft, and that will be a huge win in and of itself,” Starfish co-founder Trevor Bennett told GeekWire last week. “But we’re also bringing Otter along to provide servicing well beyond that, so we could go and inspect more spacecraft, or potentially do some additional docking past the initial mission.”
This inaugural Otter mission follows up on two orbital flight tests involving smaller-scale Otter Pup prototypes. The first test fell short of linking up with its target satellite but was able to demonstrate Starfish’s satellite-tracking system. The second Otter Pup went into orbit last year and is currently closing in on its target.
The blue circle highlights the placement of Starfish Space’s Otter spacecraft inside the Falcon 9 rocket’s upper stage prior to launch. (Credit: Starfish Space / SpaceX)
Google’s Project Suncatcher M1 prototype, built by Planet Labs, will test the tensor processing units that Google plans to use for its orbital AI data-center constellation. The prototype is “designed to gather in-orbit data on how our TPUs handle the physical stress of spaceflight and the radiation and thermal extremes of space,” Google said in a blog post.
Star Catcher’s Protostar satellite will be involved in an experiment to beam power from the main spacecraft to a smaller deployable satellite equipped with off-the-shelf solar panels. The Protostar mission is meant to blaze a trail for the orbital power grid that Star Catcher hopes to create.
The SPRITE CubeSat is part of a $4 million mission funded by NASA and led by the University of Colorado that will study how stars and galaxies shaped the evolution of the early universe. The satellite is equipped with a far-ultraviolet imaging spectrograph. SPRITE stands for Supernova Remnants and Proxies for Reionization Testbed Experiment.
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