A follow-up to previous milestones.

German launch startup HyImpulse has released an updated design of its SL1 rocket, which features a 20% performance boost over its previous iteration.

When it was first announced, the three-stage SL1 rocket was expected to be 27 metres tall, with a traditional tube-shaped profile and a black livery. It was designed to carry payloads of up to 500 kilograms to low Earth orbit.

The new design now has the rocket reaching 33 metres in height with a squared-off aft section that will better accommodate the first stage hybrid rocket motor cluster. The rocket’s HyPLOX 75 motors, which will power its first and second stages, have also received a performance upgrade, boosting the rocket’s payload capacity to 600 kilograms to low Earth orbit. The company has also officially added an optional kick stage to the SL1 offering.

In a 26 March update, ESA announced that after the very first two mirrors were warmed by just 34 degrees, Euclid’s sight was restored, with the telescope’s optics achieving a 15% gain in sensitivity. The process only took a few minutes, with the mirror being warmed from -147 to -113 degrees. The procedure was so successful that it has given operators the confidence to repeat it every couple of months, if necessary, without much impact on Euclid’s six-year survey.

“We expect ice to cloud the VIS instrument’s vision again in the future,” explained Reiko Nakajima, Euclid VIS instrument scientist. “But it will be simple to repeat this selective decontamination procedure every six to twelve months and with very little cost to science observations or the rest of the mission.”

I'm always happy to see more missions to the ice moons!

Following ESA’s announcement that the maiden flight of Ariane 6 would not occur until 2024, The Exploration Company announced in September 2023 that it had shifted its 40-kilogram Mission Bikini demonstrator to an ISRO PSLV rideshare flight. When the announcement was made, the rideshare mission was expected to be launched in January 2024. By March 2024, the company, through its CEO Hélène Huby, during a Bloomberg interview, revealed that the Bikini demonstrator mission was slated for a mid-June launch. At the time, it was assumed that this meant that the PSLV flight would be occurring in June. However, it’s now clear that this was the first confirmation that the mission was returning to the Ariane 6 payload manifest.

On 14 March 2024, ESA published an updated list of the payloads that would be flown aboard the maiden Ariane 6 flight. The Bikini demonstrator was one of two reentry capsules listed, the other being the ArianeGroup SpaceCase SC-X01. Soon after the announcement, European Spaceflight requested a comment from The Exploration Company confirming whether or not the mission had shifted back to Ariane 6. On 29 March, the company finally responded, stating, “Mission Bikini is currently being re-baslined on Ariane 6 because we want to launch it on the first available launcher.”

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/9661722

RFA uploaded a short overview video of their ARGO vehicle:
Youtube link
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