Home Science Rocket Report: Starship V3 test-fired; ESA’s tentative step toward crew launch

Rocket Report: Starship V3 test-fired; ESA’s tentative step toward crew launch

April 17, 2026

Welcome to Edition 8.37 of the Rocket Report! NASA is still climbing down from the high of the Artemis II mission, the first flight by humans to the Moon since 1972. What a mission it was! Now, attention turns to completing development of a lander to get astronauts down to the Moon’s surface. Among other things, we chronicle the latest progress of NASA’s two lunar lander contractors, SpaceX and Blue Origin, in this week’s Rocket Report.

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 ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Moonshot from the last frontier. Israel-based space launch company Moonshot Space will site its first electromagnetic accelerator in Fairbanks, Alaska, under a memorandum of understanding signed at Space Symposium with spaceport operator Alaska Aerospace Corporation (AAC), Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. Moonshot, which emerged from stealth mode in December with $12 million in fundraising, is developing a high-power electromagnetic launcher system to propel payloads and enable cargo deliveries into space at hypersonic speed using electricity rather than chemical fuels, The Times of Israel reports.

Favoring the bold... “This agreement reflects AAC’s commitment to pioneer innovation in the Last Frontier,” said John Oberst, AAC’s CEO. “We are working to align infrastructure, partnerships, and regulatory pathways to support next-generation space access with visionary companies like Moonshot Space.” Moonshot’s chief operating officer and co-founder, Shahar Bahiri, admits the company’s vision is “extremely brave” and having a spaceport operator embrace it “is not taken for granted.” Moonshot’s approach is, indeed, unusual. Even if the company gets the technology to work, the kinetic launch approach comes with the downside of extreme accelerations, which could damage or destroy normal satellites. Instead, Moonshot envisions shooting raw materials in orbit for in-space manufacturing.

Rocket Lab goes electric. Rocket Lab on Tuesday added a high-performance, Hall-effect satellite thruster to its growing catalog of space technologies and flight services, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. The company has established a production line capable of manufacturing up to 200 of the xenon-fueled electric thrusters, named Gauss, per year. “Proliferated constellations are now the norm for commercial and national security space users, but the propulsion systems needed to maneuver these spacecraft in orbit have simply not been reliably available at any kind of scale. Rocket Lab is solving this bottleneck with Gauss,” said Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO, in a statement.

Diversified offerings... The announcement of the Gauss thruster continues Rocket Lab’s strategy to become an end-to-end space manufacturing and services company. Beck founded Rocket Lab in New Zealand as a rocket company, a fact that’s probably not surprising given its name. Today, Rocket Lab builds and operates the highly successful Electron light-class launcher and is developing a partially reusable medium-lift rocket named Neutron. What’s more, through long-term investments and acquisitions, Rocket Lab now builds satellites, spacecraft components like solar panels, reaction wheels, and star trackers, separation systems, and a hypersonic test vehicle. With Gauss, you can add electric thrusters to the list. “We’ve successfully scaled other satellite components to thousands of units per year to meet the market’s needs for volume and speed. Now we’re giving electric satellite propulsion the same treatment,” Beck said.

SpaceX launches Cygnus to ISS. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched a Cygnus cargo ship from Northrop Grumman on Saturday, kicking off a resupply flight to the International Space Station, Spaceflight Now reports. The Cygnus supply ship, named for late NASA astronaut Steve Nagel, delivered about 11,000 pounds (5,000 kilograms) of science and supplies to the ISS on Monday. The items onboard the Cygnus spacecraft included hardware for the station’s Cold Atom Laboratory for quantum technology research and a new contingency cooling system for the station’s avionics systems.

Riding with the competition... This was the fourth time Northrop Grumman has turned to SpaceX to launch a cargo mission to the ISS. Northrop Grumman and SpaceX are NASA’s two primary resupply contractors for the space station program, each with their own rockets and cargo ships. But Northrop’s Antares rocket is out of service after losing access to Russian rocket engines in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Until a new booster is ready with US-made engines, Cygnus cargo ships will launch on SpaceX Falcon 9s. Officially, the next Cygnus mission is supposed to launch on the new Antares 330 rocket with US-made engines from Firefly Aerospace. We’ll see if that plan holds as Northrop and Firefly continue developing the new Antares booster stage. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

China’s next reusable rocket could launch soon. China has conducted what appears to be a wet dress rehearsal, or fueling test, for its Long March 10B rocket, paving the way for a potential launch within weeks, Space News reports. The Long March 10B is a commercial variant of China’s Long March 10 rocket family being developed by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, the country’s top state-owned launch enterprise. While the Long March 10 and 10A will be used for crew launches to the Moon and low-Earth orbit, respectively, the Long March 10B is tailored for satellite launches. All versions of the Long March 10 family will have reusable boosters, and China appears to be readying for an attempt to recover the Long March 10B booster in the South China Sea downrange from its launch pad on Hainan Island.

Another try… This would be the third attempt by a Chinese rocket company to recover an orbital-class booster, following two failed landings on the inaugural flights of the Zhuque-3 and Long March 12A rockets in December. Those rockets use downrange landing pads in the Gobi Desert of northwestern China, while the Long March 10B booster is intended to be recovered with a net system on a ship in the South China Sea.

ESA plans for a launch abort demonstrator. The European Space Agency has opened its call for proposals to develop a Crew Launch Abort Demonstrator, a project first announced last November, European Spaceflight reports. With the call now open, the agency has published additional information about the project, including a budget of 1 million euros ($1.2 million) for this initial phase of the demonstrator’s development. ESA officially opened the call for proposals April 10 for the “system level definition phase” for the launch abort program. This is a first step, focusing on modeling a launch abort sequence with an Ariane 6 rocket, with a particular emphasis on pad abort scenarios. This phase is expected to last no longer than 12 months.

All talk?… There appears to be a connection between the Crew Launch Abort Demonstrator project and ESA’s Low-Earth Orbit Cargo Return Service, which seeks to support development of a European cargo transportation system that could undergo initial tests at the International Space Station. One of ESA’s requirements for the cargo vehicle is that it be capable of adaptation into a crew vehicle. ESA has flirted with the idea of an independent human spaceflight capability before, but none of the concepts have ever reached the launch pad. The agency has historically relied on the United States and Russia to send its astronauts into space and will probably need to look abroad for the foreseeable future. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

ULA’s Vulcan woes continue. The US Space Force is still dealing with the near-term implications of the second grounding of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket in less than two years, Ars reports. The experience is likely to influence how the Pentagon buys launch services in the future, a three-star general said Tuesday. The Vulcan rocket is one of the two primary launch vehicles the Space Force uses to put satellites into orbit, alongside SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Despite a backlog of nearly 70 launches, ULA’s Vulcan has flown just four times since debuting in January 2024. On two of those flights, the Vulcan launcher suffered anomalies with one of its solid rocket boosters. The rockets continued on into orbit, but the booster nozzle malfunctions suggest something is seriously amiss at ULA and its booster supplier, Northrop Grumman.

More swaps coming?… The Vulcan rocket is many months from returning to flight for the US military. One industry source told Ars that the Space Force may not fly another mission on Vulcan before the end of the year. Space Systems Command has moved four launches of new GPS navigation satellites from ULA to SpaceX in the past two years as Vulcan encountered delays. Col. Eric Zarybnisky, head of Space Systems Command’s Space Access office, said the military is “working through a significant number” of potential additional rocket swaps from Vulcan to another launch vehicle, likely SpaceX’s Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy.

ESA’s first Mars rover finally has a ride. NASA confirmed Thursday that SpaceX will launch the European Space Agency’s Rosalind Franklin Mars rover, perhaps as soon as late 2028, on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, Ars reports. So why is NASA deciding which rocket will launch a flagship European Mars mission? It’s a long story involving the search for extraterrestrial life, crippling political hatchets, and of all things, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ars explores the mission’s tortured history, a nearly quarter-century of broken promises, technical setbacks, and geopolitical drama.

Taking aim on Mars… The announcement is also notable because it is the first time SpaceX has won a launch contract for a mission to Mars. The red planet is the apple of Elon Musk’s eye, with utopian concepts for a settlement on Mars to go along with SpaceX’s more tangible work on a massive rocket to actually fly there. This new rocket, named Starship, is still a ways away from being able to reach Mars. Therefore, it’s likely SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, no slouch itself, will make the company’s first Mars run on behalf of NASA and the European Space Agency.

Next-gen Starship tested at Starbase. The new, juiced-up version of SpaceX’s Starship mega-rocket cleared a big hurdle this week on the path to its first-ever launch, Space.com reports. That liftoff, targeted for early or mid-May, will be the 12th overall for Starship but the first for the vehicle’s “Version 3,” which is bigger and more powerful than its predecessors. The first Starship V3 vehicle fired its six Raptor engines Tuesday while anchored on a test stand in South Texas. The static fire test follows a series of cryogenic proof tests earlier this year.

And then, Super Heavy… One day later, SpaceX fired up 33 engines on the Super Heavy booster that will send Starship V3 skyward. This short-duration test occurred directly on SpaceX’s launch pad at Starbase, Texas. The same booster was test-fired with 10 of its engines last month, but Wednesday’s static fire was the first time all 33 engines were ignited on the new Super Heavy. The upgrades debuting with Starship V3 include higher-thrust Raptor engines. Therefore, it can be said the Super Heavy booster lit Wednesday became the most powerful rocket booster ever fired. But the real fun will come with the launch, and it can’t come soon enough. It has been six months since the last Starship test flight. Starship V3 is needed to begin demonstrating in-orbit refueling, an enabling capability for turning Starship into a human-rated Moon lander for NASA’s Artemis program. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Blue Origin awarded new pad at Vandenberg. Blue Origin has been chosen to move to the next phase of the process toward launching its monstrous New Glenn rocket from a yet-to-be-built facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, Noozhawk reports. On Tuesday, the Space Force announced the selection of the firm for a lease at Space Launch Complex-14, which would become the southern-most launch facility at Vandenberg and would be built on previously undisturbed land. “By taking the next steps to further develop heavy and super-heavy space launch capabilities at SLC-14, we’re continuing to unleash our capacity to execute full-spectrum space operations for the nation,” said Col. James Horne III, commander of Space Launch Delta 30 at Vandenberg.

Still some work to do… “Establishing a New Glenn launch site to provide efficient access to high-inclination orbits for our customers is a priority, and SLC-14 represents a viable option,” Blue Origin said in a statement. The selection of Blue Origin for Vandenberg moves the effort to the next phase, with several crucial milestones still remaining before any heavy or super-heavy rockets blast off from SLC-14. The selection will lead to talks between Blue and the Space Force to hash out terms and conditions of a real property use agreement for the land. Teams must also complete safety and environmental assessments.

Meanwhile, at Cape Canaveral. Blue Origin crews are prepping to launch the company’s third New Glenn rocket the morning of Sunday, April 19, Florida Today reports. The Jeff Bezos-founded space company announced the two-hour launch window will extend from 6:45 am EDT to 8:45 am EDT at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The New Glenn’s first stage, reused from a launch in November, fired its seven BE-4 main engines on the launch pad shortly after sunrise Thursday. This was a key milestone for Blue Origin, marking the first time a previously flown New Glenn booster has been fired again.

But there’s something new… Dave Limp, Blue Origin’s CEO, confirmed earlier this week that the seven engines flying on this weekend’s launch are not the same ones that powered the booster on its first flight last year. Those flight-proven engines will be used on future flights, Limp said. Blue Origin aims to land the booster again after the upcoming launch, which will carry a cellular broadband satellite into low-Earth orbit for AST SpaceMobile. (submitted by EllPeaTea)