Rocket Report: NASA buys a SpinLaunch, Space Force brass visits Starbase

Enlarge / SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and the Endeavour spacecraft await the Axiom-1 crew launch on Friday. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann)

Welcome to Edition 4.38 of the Rocket Report! We're already in the second quarter of 2022, hard as it is to believe. This means that many companies with aspirations to debut new rockets this year, including United Launch Alliance, ABL Space Systems, Relativity Space, and Arianespace, are down to less than nine months to work with.

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 ready for helicopter grab. After several experimental tests, Rocket Lab announced it will attempt a mid-air capture of the Electron rocket's first stage for the first time. The company will make this attempt during its next flight, with a launch window that opens on April 19 for the "There and Back Again" mission to deploy 34 small satellites. After the first stage completes its boost phase, at 2 minutes and 30 seconds, it will separate and begin descending at speeds up to 8,300 km per hour.

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