Rocket Report: Virgin Orbit targets Mars, SpaceX to launch rideshares on time

Enlarge / The mighty Delta IV Heavy rocket takes to the skies. (credit: Aurich Lawson/United Launch Alliance)

Welcome to Edition 2.18 of the Rocket Report! This week has produced a lot of news about medium-lift rockets, particularly around the issue of commercial crew-is the hardware finally ready?-as well as rideshare missions. There's also some nifty news about the Falcon 9 brute-forcing its way into a polar orbit from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

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.

Virgin Orbit to launch Mars smallsat mission. In what would be a landmark for small-satellite launch vehicles, Virgin Orbit announced this week that it plans to become the first private company to send cubesats to Mars. The company said it is partnering with nearly a dozen Polish universities and a Polish satellite maker called SatRevolution to design up to three robotic missions to the Red Planet over the next decade, The Verge reports.

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