Rocket Report: Surprise Israeli launch, Britain decides to bail out OneWeb

Enlarge / An Atlas V payload fairing with NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover secured inside arrives at the Vertical Integration Facility this week. (credit: NASA)

Welcome to Edition 3.07 of the Rocket Report! This week, we're getting close to the opening of the Mars launch window, which occurs about every two years when Earth and the Red Planet align. It looks like United Arab Emirates' Mars Hope mission will the first of three probes to launch this summer, possibly as early as July 14.

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.

Second-stage failure leads to loss of Electron rocket. On Sunday morning, local time, in New Zealand, Rocket Lab launched its 13th mission. The booster's first stage performed normally, but just as the second stage neared an altitude of 200km, something went wrong, and the vehicle was lost, Ars reports. The mission, dubbed "Pics Or It Didn't Happen," carried 5 SuperDove satellites for the imaging company Planet, as well as commercial payloads both for Canon Electronics and In-Space Missions.

Read 26 remaining paragraphs | Comments