Welcome to Edition 8.31 of the Rocket Report! We have some late-breaking news this week with an update Thursday afternoon from Rocket Lab on the timing of its much-anticipated Neutron rocket. Following the failure of a first stage tank during testing, the company is pushing the medium-lift rocket’s debut into the fourth quarter of this year. Effectively that probably means 2027 for the booster, which is disappointing because we all very much want to see another reusable rocket take flight.
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.
The ghost of Vector lives on. Tucson, Arizona-based satellite and rocket developer Phantom Space, co-founded by Jim Cantrell in 2019, has acquired the remnants of Vector Launch, Space News reports. The announcement is notable because Cantrell left Vector as its finances deteriorated in 2019. Cantrell said some of the assets, comprising flight-proven design elements, engineering data, and other technology originally developed for Vector, will be immediately integrated into Phantom’s Daytona vehicle architecture to reduce development risk.
What’s your vector, Victor? … “As the original architect of Vector’s vision, it’s deeply meaningful to bring these assets home to Phantom,” Cantrell said in a statement. “This acquisition isn’t just about technology, it’s about momentum. We’re accelerating Daytona, creating high-tech aerospace jobs in Tucson, and moving faster toward orbital capability.” The small-lift Daytona rocket could use some acceleration since it has been delayed year after year for a while now. At present, it is slated to debut during the second half of 2027.
UK limits launch liability. An amendment to the United Kingdom’s Space Industry Act will mandate that limits are set on how much launch operators are financially liable if something goes wrong, European Spaceflight reports. According to Sarah Madden, a space lawyer at the London-based law firm Winckworth Sherwood, the amendment to the legislation removes the risk that operators launching from the UK might face unlimited liability.