Rocket Report: Virgin Galactic delays flight, Falcon Heavy nets NASA mission

Enlarge / Inspiration4 reflected in the shores of the St. Johns River on the space coast of Florida. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann / Ars Technica)

Welcome to Edition 4.16 of the Rocket Report! We've experienced an inspiring week of spaceflight thanks to the launch of the Inspiration4 mission on Wednesday, but there is much more happening around the world when it comes to launch.

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 Galactic delays next flight. The space tourism company said Friday that it was delaying the next flight of its VSS Unity vehicle to no earlier than mid-October. As a reason, Virgin Galactic said, "During preparation for the Unity 23 test flight, a third-party supplier recently flagged a potential manufacturing defect in a component of the flight control actuation system that they supply to Virgin Galactic."

Read 28 remaining paragraphs | Comments