Kuiper launch scrubs due to hardware issue. United Launch Alliance and its customer, Amazon, will have to wait longer for the second launch of Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellites following a scrub on Monday afternoon. “United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 551 carrying Amazon’s second Project Kuiper mission, Kuiper 2, is delayed due to an engineering observation of an elevated purge temperature within the booster engine,” ULA said in a statement. “The team will evaluate the hardware, and we will release a new launch date when available.”
Back to the VIF in a spiff… On Tuesday, ULA rolled the Atlas V rocket back to its Vertical Integration Facility to address the issue with the nitrogen purge line on the vehicle. In addition to this mission, ULA has six more Atlas 5 rockets that have been purchased by Amazon to fly satellites for its constellation. As of Friday morning, ULA had not set a new launch date for the Kuiper 2 mission, but it could take place early next week. (submitted by ElllPeaTea)
Varda’s next launch will use in-house spacecraft. Varda Space Industries is preparing to launch its fourth spacecraft, W-4, on a SpaceX rideshare mission scheduled to launch as soon as June 21 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, Space News reports. The Los Angeles-based startup manufactures pharmaceuticals in orbit and returns them to Earth using specialized reentry capsules.
No longer using Rocket Lab… For its first three missions, Varda had partnered with Rocket Lab to use its Photon spacecraft for in-space operations. However, with W-4, Varda is debuting its first spacecraft built entirely in-house. The company is consolidating design and production internally in an effort to shorten the timeline between missions and increase flexibility to tailor vehicles to customer requirements. Varda decided that vertical integration was essential for scaling operations. (submitted by MarkW98)
Vandenberg becomes SpaceX west. One of the defining events early in the history of SpaceX is when the company was effectively booted from Vandenberg Space Force Base in 2005 after completing the first successful test firing of the Falcon 1 rocket there. This set the company off on a long romp to Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean before acquiring a launch site at Cape Canaveral, Florida. When SpaceX finally returned to Vandenberg half a decade later, it had the Falcon 9 rocket and was no longer the scrappy upstart. Since then, it has made Vandenberg its own.
