Welcome to version 8.39 of Rocket Report! There’s a lot of news to share this week in the universe of Mighty Rockets, and we’re happy to summarize it all in this week’s edition. The biggest rocket of them all, Starship, had a relatively quiet week as SpaceX aims to launch the vehicle’s next test flight, probably sometime in May. The outcome of that flight and Blue Origin’s first attempt to land on the Moon with its Blue Moon cargo lander in the coming months should tell us a lot about NASA’s real chances of landing astronauts on the lunar surface in 2028.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. 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 at the next three launches on the calendar.
These 12 companies are developing SBI. As Ars reports, the US Space Force on April 24 released a list of a dozen companies working on space-based interceptors for the Pentagon’s Golden Dome initiative, a multilayer defense system to protect US territory from drone and ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missile attacks. The roster of Golden Dome space-based interceptor (SBI) contractors, some of which were previously reported, include Anduril Industries, Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics Mission Systems, GITAI USA, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Quindar, Raytheon, Sci-Tech, SpaceX, True Anomaly, and Turion Space. Companies will contribute across sectors to develop and deliver SBI prototypes for testing. The agreements have a maximum combined value of $3.2 billion. Contracts for full-scale production would come later with significantly higher prices.
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