The 9.18th edition of Rocket Report covers a busy week for Blue Origin, including a new kick stage and rocket-engine design, a minor and widely anticipated delay to the New Glenn return-to-flight mission in December and January, and rapid reconstruction of the company’s destroyed launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The report also looks at Argo Space, a startup founded by three SpaceX veterans that is developing satellites powered by water-derived hydrogen and oxygen.
Blue Origin packed a significant amount of news into one Thursday afternoon. The company announced a new kick stage for its New Glenn rocket and a new rocket-engine design, while confirming a minor delay to the rocket’s return-to-flight mission. Reconstruction of the New Glenn launch pad at Cape Canaveral is progressing rapidly after a devastating explosion nearly six months ago. NASA, Amazon, and the US Space Force are all awaiting the resumption of New Glenn missions.
As always, we welcome reader contributions. Readers who do not want to miss an issue can subscribe using the box below, although the form does not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site. Each report includes information about small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, along with a summary of the next three launches on the calendar.
SpaceX veterans develop water-based propulsion
Three brothers who worked at SpaceX during the Falcon 9 era are now developing a satellite powered by water, a resource that can be harvested on the Moon and could potentially be found throughout the solar system, Ars reports. In late 2022, the Carlyle brothers founded Argo Space to build infrastructure in space. Their goal is to reduce the need to transport propellants from Earth, both for reaching orbit and for movement within space. Argo Space’s satellites use water as a propellant, coolant, and radiation shield.
How the propulsion system works
Argo Space flew its first mission in July, but the spacecraft failed when one of its solar arrays did not deploy, leaving insufficient time to test its propulsion system. The company has two more missions scheduled for 2027 to demonstrate its water-based thrusters.
The propulsion system is essentially a small rocket that uses hydrogen and oxygen as propellants. Instead of carrying separate tanks of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, however, the satellite carries a tank of liquid water. In space, the vehicle uses solar energy to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen gases, which are then combusted to generate thrust.
Source: arstechnica.com
