Via Satellite reports, “Rocket Lab reached a new record for revenue and annual launches in 2025, but its sunny financial progress was clouded by another delay for the first Neutron launch. Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck told investors on Thursday that after a stage 1 tank ruptured during testing in January, Rocket Lab uncovered a manufacturing defect in the tank. The company is making minor design changes to the first stage tank, which will now have to undergo a test and qualification campaign. This pushes the first launch to the fourth quarter of this year. ”
Full Story (Via Satellite)
Tag: Continues
Embraer’s Phenom 300 Remains Top-Selling Business TwinJet
Aviation International News reports, “Following the release of the 2023 year-end delivery numbers by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, Embraer announced that for the 12th consecutive year, its Phenom 300 was the best-selling jet in its class, with 63 of the series delivered last year.” The light jet is also “the top-selling twinjet for the fourth year in a row,” and remains the “fastest light jet in production.”
More Info (Aviation International News)
NASA Spacecraft Continues its 17-Year Journey
The Washington Post reports that for nearly 17 years, NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory-A spacecraft “drifted through space on a lonely mission.” It traveled “around the sun far ahead of Earth, conducting groundbreaking research on the solar system’s star.” Like many NASA spacecraft, STEREO-A “outlived its mission life span of two years.” Instead, it “traveled further and further away from Earth on a journey that became fraught with uncertainty as it passed behind the sun in 2015, temporarily severing contact with NASA.” The same year, the agency “lost contact with STEREO-A’s sibling vessel, STEREO-B, which was traveling a similar path.” But STEREO-A kept going. And its orbital trajectory “around the sun meant that it had a chance to do what very few other NASA spacecraft could: eventually make its way back toward home.”
Full Story (Washington Post)
Assembly on Dream Chaser Spacecraft Continues
The Orlando (FL) Sentinel reports the launch of the first Dream Chaser spacecraft could take place by this time next year. The first Dream Chaser, named Tenacity, “has undergone aeroshell and wing deployment system installation at the company’s headquarters in Colorado, shown in a time-lapse video posted to the company’s YouTube channel on Tuesday.” Dream Chaser “will join SpaceX and Northrop Grumman for bringing cargo to the International Space Station, but the company is already planning to build out a human-rated version that could become one of the players to launch crew to the ISS or other private space stations, including their own, this decade.”
Full Story (Orlando Sentinel)