Rocket Report: Chinese firm suffers another failure; Ariane 6 soars in debut

Enlarge / The Ariane 6 rocket takes flight for the first time on July 9, 2024. (credit: ESA - S. Corvaja)

Welcome to Edition 7.02 of the Rocket Report! The highlight of this week was the hugely successful debut of Europe's Ariane 6 rocket. They will address the upper stage issue, I am sure. Given Europe's commitment to zero debris, stranding the second stage is not great. But for a debut launch of a large new vehicle, this was really promising.

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.

Chinese launch company suffers another setback. Chinese commercial rocket firm iSpace suffered a launch failure late Wednesday in a fresh setback for the company, Space News reports. The four-stage Hyperbola-1 solid rocket lifted off from Jiuquan spaceport in the Gobi Desert at 7:40 pm ET (23:40 UTC) on Wednesday. Beijing-based iSpace later issued a release stating that the rocket’s fourth stage suffered an anomaly. The statement did not reveal the name nor nature of the payloads lost on the flight.