Rocket Report: Neutron’s pad opens for business; SpaceX gets Falcon 9 green light

Welcome to Edition 8.09 of the Rocket Report! The biggest news of the week happened inside the Beltway rather than on a launch pad somewhere. In Washington, DC, Congress has pushed back on the Trump administration’s plan to stop flying the Space Launch System rocket after Artemis III. Congress made it clear that it wants to keep the booster in business for a long time. The big question now is whether the Trump White House will blink.

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.

Israel launches SAR satellite. The Israel Ministry of Defense, Israel Defense Forces, and Israel Aerospace Industries successfully launched the Ofek 19 satellite on Tuesday from the Palmachim Airbase. The launch was carried out by the country’s solid-propellant Shavit 2 rocket. Ofek 19 is a synthetic aperture radar observation satellite with enhanced capabilities, 7 Israel National News reports.

A unique launch posture … This was the seventh launch of the Shavit-2 vehicle, which made its debut in June 2007. The most recent launch prior to this week occurred in March 2023. Because of its geographic location and difficult relations with surrounding countries, Israel launches its rockets to the west, over the Mediterranean Sea. (submitted by MarkW98)

Canadian launch firm invests in launch site. Earlier this summer, Reaction Dynamics, an Ontario-based launch company, closed on a Series A funding round worth $10 million. This will support the next phase of development of the Canadian company’s hybrid propulsion system, of which an initial suborbital demonstration flight is planned for this winter. Now the company has taken some of this funding and invested in a launch site in Nova Scotia, SpaceQ reports.

Getting in on the ground floor … In a transaction worth $1.2 million, Reaction Dynamics is investing in Maritime Launch Services, which is developing the Spaceport Nova Scotia facility. Reaction Dynamics intends to launch its Aurora-8 rocket from the Canadian launch site. Bachar Elzein, the CEO of Reaction Dynamics, said the move made sense for two reasons. The first is that it secures “a spot to launch our very first orbital rocket,” with Elzein adding, “we believe in their vision,” and thus wanted to invest. That second factor had to do with all the work, the heavy lifting, MLS has done to date, to build a spaceport from the ground up. (submitted by JoeyS)