Welcome to edition 7.45 of the Rocket report! Let's talk about space aircraft. Since the Space Shuttle, space planes are at best a niche part of the space transport sector. The non-written X-37b of the US Air Force and a similar vehicle managed by the Chinese army are the only space planes that have reached a job in 2011 since the last shuttle flight, and both require a lift from a conventional rocket. The suborbital space tourism platform of Virgin Galactic is also a kind of space aircraft. A generation or two ago was one of the most important arguments in favor of space planes that they were easier to repair and reuse. Nowadays, SpaceX reused routine capsules and rockets that look much more like conventional space vehicles than the winged designs of the past. SpacePlanes are unmistakably tempting, but they have the disadvantage of wearing extra weight (wings) in the room that is only used in the last minutes of a mission. So do they have a future?
As always, we welcome submissions from readers. If you don't want to miss a problem, you can subscribe to the box below (the form does not appear on versions of AMP-compatible versions of the site). Each report contains information about small, medium -sized and heavy rockets, as well as a quick look at the following three launches on the calendar.
One of China's commercial rockets returns to the flight. The Kinetics-1 rocket was first launched on Wednesday, because a failure to reach his earlier attempt to reach the track in December, according to the developer and the operator of the vehicle, Cas Space. The Kinetics-1 is one of the many small Chinese fixed launch vehicles that are managed by a commercial company, although with strict government supervision and support. Cas Space, a spin-off from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the Kinetica-1 Rocket has used several payloads with “excellent orbit accusation.” This was the seventh flight of a Kinetics-1 rocket since the debut in 2022.
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