Test launch this morning from Boca Chica, a Texas launch facility.
Godspeed, Stoke Space! Rocket startup gets John Glenn’s launch pad at the Cape
BY ALAN BOYLE on March 8, 2023 at 7:00 am Share 3.3k
Kent, Wash.-based Stoke Space says it’s won the go-ahead to take over the Florida launch complex where John Glenn began the trip that made him the first American in orbit in 1962.
That’s the upshot of the U.S. Space Force’s decision on Tuesday to allocate Space Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to Stoke Space for use as a launch operations center.
“We are over the moon excited by this opportunity,” Julia Black, Stoke Space’s director of launch operations, said in a news release. “To be trusted with the reactivation of the historic Launch Complex 14 is an honor, and we look forward to adding to its well-distinguished accomplishments for America’s space program.”
Space Launch Delta 45, which manages Cape Canaveral’s launch facilities, said the allocation is part of a new Space Force strategy to maximize the use of excess launch property and the Eastern Range extending from the Florida Coast.
This first round of pad allocations focused on small-class launch vehicles, and Stoke Space wasn’t the only beneficiary. Launch Complex 15, which supported the Titan missile program from 1959 to 1964, went to ABL Space Systems. Phantom Space and Vaya Space will use Launch Complex 13 — which played a role in early Atlas launches, and more recently in SpaceX rocket landings.
Launch Complex 14 was the site for John Glenn’s historic liftoff and for the three Mercury-Atlas missions that followed. After Mercury, it was used in support of the Gemini program — but became inactive after 1966. The site’s original blockhouse was restored and converted into a conference center and occasional tourist stop in the 1990s.
Jennifer Thompson, Stoke Space’s head of marketing, said Tuesday’s announcement came as something of a surprise. “We’re already talking about how to preserve this site and its historical significance while building it out to support the future of space,” she told GeekWire in an email.
Stoke Space CEO Andy Lapsa said “the opportunity to reactivate this site is a profound responsibility that our entire team holds in the highest regard.”
“As we bring LC-14 back to life and carry its legacy into the future, we will be sure to do so in a way that preserves its existing history and pays homage to those who came before us,” Lapsa said.
Stoke Space was founded in 2019 by Lapsa and Tom Feldman, both of whom previously worked for Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture. Their company aims to develop a fully reusable two-stage rocket, starting with the upper stage.
In addition to its 21,000-square-foot engineering and manufacturing headquarters in Kent, Stoke Space has a 75-acre rocket test facility in Moses Lake, Wash.
Rocket engine tests have been proceeding for now in Moses Lake. Upcoming technical milestones include a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing “Hopper” flight of the upper stage, analogous to the hopper tests that SpaceX conducted for Falcon 9 rocket prototypes in 2012-2013, and for Starship prototypes in 2019-2021. Stoke Space plans to start its hopper tests in Moses Lake later this year.
Launch Complex 14 is most likely to come into play when Stoke Space is gearing up for full-up flight tests. The timetable for orbital launches hasn’t been announced — and the development of a brand-new rocket typically takes longer than anticipated.
Stoke Space’s relatively rapid rise has been fueled by a $9.1 million seed funding round, followed by a $65 million Series A funding round that was led by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures in late 2021. The company has also brought in research grants from NASA, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Air Force.
We’ve updated this report with further details about Stoke Space’s plans for rocket testing, and a fresh figure for the acreage of the company’s Moses Lake testing facility.
https://www.geekwire.com/2023/stoke-space-john-glenn-launch-pad/
GeekWire contributing editor Alan Boyle is an award-winning science writer and veteran space reporter. Formerly of NBCNews.com, he is the author of “The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference.” Follow him via CosmicLog.com, on Twitter @b0yle, and on Facebook and MeWe. Reach him via email at alan@geekwire.com.
Watch: SpaceX readies for South Texas launch that could remake space exploration
Elon Musk gives the flight a 50-50 chance of success, but all eyes will be on Boca Chica Beach beginning at 8 a.m.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is about to take its most daring leap yet with a round-the-world test flight of its mammoth Starship.
It’s the biggest and mightiest rocket ever built, with the lofty goals of ferrying people to the moon and Mars.
Jutting almost 400 feet into the South Texas sky, Starship could blast off as early as 8 a.m CT Monday, with no one aboard. Musk’s company got the OK from the Federal Aviation Administration on Friday.
It will be the first launch with Starship’s two sections together. Early versions of the sci-fi-looking upper stage rocketed several miles into the stratosphere a few years back, crashing four times before finally landing upright in 2021. The towering first-stage rocket booster, dubbed Super Heavy, will soar for the first time.Related:SpaceX expects Texas site to launch humans to the moon and Mars
For this demo, SpaceX won’t attempt any landings of the rocket or the spacecraft. Everything will fall into the sea.
“I’m not saying it will get to orbit, but I am guaranteeing excitement. It won’t be boring,” Musk promised at a Morgan Stanley conference last month. “I think it’s got, I don’t know, hopefully about a 50% chance of reaching orbit.”
Here’s the rundown on Starship’s debut:
SUPERSIZE ROCKET
The stainless steel Starship has 33 main engines and 16.7 million pounds of thrust. All but two of the methane-fueled, first-stage engines ignited during a launch pad test in January — good enough to reach orbit, Musk noted. Given its muscle, Starship could lift as much as 250 tons and accommodate 100 people on a trip to Mars. The six-engine spacecraft accounts for 164 feet (50 meters) of its height. Musk anticipates using Starship to launch satellites into low-Earth orbit, including his own Starlinks for internet service, before strapping anyone in. Starship easily eclipses NASA’s moon rockets — the Saturn V from the bygone Apollo era and the Space Launch System from the Artemis program that logged its first lunar trip late last year. It also outflanks the former Soviet Union’s N1 moon rocket, which never made it past a minute into flight, exploding with no one aboard.
GAME PLAN
The test flight will last 1 1/2 hours, and fall short of a full orbit of Earth. If Starship reaches the three-minute mark after launch, the booster will be commanded to separate and fall into the Gulf of Mexico. The spacecraft would continue eastward, passing over the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans before ditching near Hawaii. Starship is designed to be fully reusable but nothing will be saved from the test flight. Harvard astrophysicist and spacecraft tracker Jonathan McDowell will be more excited whenever Starship actually lands and returns intact from orbit. It will be “a profound development in spaceflight if and when Starship is debugged and operational,” he said.Onlookers watch as SpaceX’s Starship, the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket, stands ready for launch in Boca Chica, Texas, Sunday, April 16, 2023. The test launch is scheduled for Monday. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)(Eric Gay / ASSOCIATED PRESS)
LAUNCH PAD
Starship will take off from a remote site on the southernmost tip of Texas near Boca Chica Beach. It’s just below South Padre Island, and about 20 miles from Brownsville. Down the road from the launch pad is the complex where SpaceX has been developing and building Starship prototypes for the past several years. The complex, called Starbase, has more than 1,800 employees, who live in Brownsville or elsewhere in the Rio Grande Valley. The Texas launch pad is equipped with giant robotic arms — called chopsticks — to eventually grab a returning booster as it lands. SpaceX is retooling one of its two Florida launch pads to accommodate Starships down the road. Florida is where SpaceX’s Falcon rockets blast off with crew, space station cargo and satellites for NASA and other customers.
THE ODDS
As usual, Musk is remarkably blunt about his chances, giving even odds, at best, that Starship will reach orbit on its first flight. But with a fleet of Starships under construction at Starbase, he estimates an 80% chance that one of them will attain orbit by year’s end. He expects it will take a couple years to achieve full and rapid reusability.Related:Rocket fans, SpaceX workers flock to South Texas for Elon Musk’s Starship update
CUSTOMERS
With Starship, the California-based SpaceX is focusing on the moon for now, with a $3 billion NASA contract to land astronauts on the lunar surface as early as 2025, using the upper stage spacecraft. It will be the first moon landing by astronauts in more than 50 years. The moonwalkers will leave Earth via NASA’s Orion capsule and Space Launch System rocket, and then transfer to Starship in lunar orbit for the descent to the surface, and then back to Orion. To reach the moon and beyond, Starship will first need to refuel in low-Earth orbit. SpaceX envisions an orbiting depot with window-less Starships as tankers. But Starship isn’t just for NASA. A private crew will be the first to fly Starship, orbiting Earth. Two private flights to the moon would follow — no landings, just flyarounds.A Space X Starship SN9 rocket exploded on landing during a test flight in February 2021 near Boca Chica, Texas.(- / SPACEX/AFP via Getty Images)
OTHER PLAYERS
There are other new rockets on the horizon. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is readying the New Glenn rocket for its orbital debut from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the next year or so. Named after the first American to orbit the world, John Glenn, the rocket towers over the company’s current New Shepard rocket, named for Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard’s 1961 suborbital hop. NASA will use New Glenn to send a pair of spacecraft to Mars in 2024. United Launch Alliance expects its new Vulcan rocket to make its inaugural launch later this year, hoisting a private lunar lander to the moon at NASA’s behest. Europe’s Arianespace is close to launching its new, upgraded Ariane 6 rocket from French Guiana in South America. And NASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket that will carry astronauts will morph into ever bigger versions.
Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press
