Welcome to Edition 9.18 of the Rocket Report! Blue Origin packed a lot of news into one afternoon Thursday with the reveal of a new kick stage for the New Glenn rocket, a new rocket engine design, and the minor and widely expected delay for New Glenn's return-to-flight mission from December until January. The reconstruction of Blue Origin's wrecked launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, continues apace after a catastrophic explosion nearly six months ago. There's a lot of pent-up demand from NASA, Amazon, and the Space Force for Blue Origin to get New Glenn back in action.

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.

SpaceX vets work on water-fed propulsion. Three brothers who worked at SpaceX in the Falcon 9 era are now building satellites that run on water, a potentially harvestable resource on the Moon and found all over the Solar System, Ars reports. In late 2022, the three Carlisle brothers founded Argo Space to build infrastructure in space. Their vision was not just in-space transportation but also removing the need to use propellants from Earth to move around the heavens. Argo Space's satellites will use water not only as a propellant, but also as a coolant and radiation shield.

Read full article

Comments

© NASA/Keegan Barber

The crash, in a popular tourist area during the autumn climbing season, highlighted the safety challenges posed by growing numbers of aircraft in the Himalayas.

Tens of thousands gathered in India’s capital in a clamor of banging drums, chants and billowing flags, with participants from across the country.

© Bhawika Chhabra/Reuters

Tens of thousands gathered in India’s capital in a clamor of banging drums, chants and billowing flags, with participants from across the country.

© Bhawika Chhabra/Reuters

News organizations owned by two billionaires close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi say the legislation could make investigative reporting nearly impossible.

© Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters

Jio Platforms shares surged on their first day of trading, even as questions mount about the telecom firm’s growth prospects and a new generation takes charge.

© Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters

The storm, Arnab, is forecast to make landfall Wednesday on the country’s eastern coast and then cut inland and head north toward Nepal.

© Ahamad Shaik/Reuters

The Indian leader, facing a volatile youth uprising, appears to be deliberately drawing into the fray a political rival he’s beaten before.

© Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times

Potential leadership transition and listing of Tata Sons would not immediately affect the ratings of the companies in the salt-to-software conglomerate, S&P Global ‌said on Tuesday, saying that changes to the financial policies are likely to be gradual.

Gold prices could face further pressure in the coming days as rising US Treasury yields and expectations of additional Federal Reserve rate hikes sap demand for the non-yielding metal.