Rocket Report: Electron’s crazy midair test, SLS work delayed for “weeks”

Enlarge / A Falcon 9 rocket launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base. (credit: SpaceX)

Welcome to Edition 2.39 of the Rocket Report! We're celebrating a huge milestone this weekend, with the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 13. We'll have more coverage of that on Ars, so keep your eyes open. In the meantime, the launch industry continues to move along in fits and starts despite the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world. As a result there's lots of news, so we'll jump right into it.

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.

Rocket Lab completes midair tests of Electron. The company said it successfully completed a midair recovery test, which involved snagging an Electron test stage from the sky with a helicopter. The successful test was deemed "a major step forward" in Rocket Lab's plans to reuse the first stage of its Electron launch vehicle for multiple missions.

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