Welcome to Edition 1.05 of the Rocket Report! This collaborative effort with readers of Ars Technica seeks to diversify our coverage of the launch industry. The Rocket Report publishes as a newsletter on Thursday and on this website every Friday morning.

We welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe in the box below. 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.

Company plans to launch rockets from drone plane. An Alabama-based startup called Aevum is developing plans to launch small payloads from an autonomous air-launch system that it is calling Ravn. The aircraft could launch rockets every three hours, according to the company. Per Space.com, Aevum is working toward beginning flight testing in 2019. If the entire flight test campaign goes according to plan, Aevum has three launches planned for the fourth quarter of 2019.

That's a lot of launches... On its website, Aevum says it will release technical details about the launch system in three months. We will withhold comment about it until that time. But launching within a little more than a year from now is certainly ambitious even though the company says it has spent 13 years "engineering your access to space." (submitted by: biceps and Unrulycow)

China has a plan for space tourism (a decade from now). The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, an academy in Beijing's southern outskirts that is part of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, is reportedly designing a new spacecraft to send anyone willing to pay $200,000 to $250,000 on a suborbital journey.

An uncertain market... The fixed-wing aircraft would carry 20 tourists on a journey that would provide 10 minutes of weightlessness during a half-hour flight. However, the reusable spacecraft is not expected to enter service until 2028. Thanks to efforts nearing fruition by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, we're about to see how big the space tourism market will be. It's difficult to know what it will be like a decade from now, but this is an attractive option, offering 10 minutes versus the few minutes offered by Blue and Virgin.

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Launch by centrifuge company raises piles of money. A stealthy Silicon Valley startup called SpinLaunch says it has raised a total of $40 million from a high-profile array of investors to get a space catapult system ready for launch by 2022, GeekWire reports. The company has been working on an electric-powered kinetic-energy launch system that starts by whipping the vehicle around on a centrifuge, then catapults it spaceward at hypersonic speeds.

It sounds crazy, right?... Maybe, but those investor dollars speak loudly. This is yet another example of why this is an amazing time to be following the launch industry and the raison d'etre for this newsletter. We'll try to remain on top of things. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Spaceport America Cup rocket competition begins. The second annual Spaceport America Cup got underway Tuesday at the Las Cruces Convention Center in New Mexico. University students from 10 countries displayed the rockets that will be launched and recovered at the spaceport. A total of 124 teams is competing, reports the Las Cruces Sun News.

Will anyone win?... The universities are vying to be the first to achieve a rocket altitude beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, but it seems unlikely that any will reach the Karman line. And that is OK, as the students are there mostly to learn from their failures before going on to bigger and better things. This is a great event that we hope will continue on an annual basis.

European Space Agency approves Ariane 6 completion. During a meeting in Paris, the participating states of ESA agreed to fund the completion of the Ariane 6 rocket through its test phase and into fully operational capability. These expenditures include completion of the P120C solid rocket motor, which is a strap-on booster scheduled to be test fired for the first time in the coming weeks.

Responding to SpaceX... The Ariane 6 rocket will replace the workhorse Ariane 5 rocket and should cost less to build and fly. This is ESA's answer to the Falcon 9 booster, which has gobbled up a lot of commercial launch contracts. It remains unclear how competitive the Ariane 6 booster will be with a reusable Falcon 9, but the European booster will have some guaranteed launch contracts, as Europe does not want to become entirely reliant on rockets from other continents.

SpaceX may launch twice in 30 hours. The SpaceX launch manifest remains ever in flux, but Teslarati notes that the company may fly a pair of Block 5 boosters on July 18 and 20 on the East and West Coasts, with just 30 hours between missions. The Florida launch will be the Telstar 19 VANTAGE communications satellite, and the California launch will be another batch of 10 satellites for Iridium.

Cadence, cadence, cadence... While these will be two different Block 5 boosters, two launches in two days is another sign that SpaceX is delivering on its promise of regular, rapid flights and fulfilling its lengthy manifest. The landed Block 5 boosters will also provide the company more data as to whether the Falcon 9 rocket optimized for reusability has been optimized enough.

Apollo astronaut says SLS is the "right rocket." In an "exclusive" article published by Politico as a part of its space newsletter (which is sponsored by Boeing), Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt makes what the publication claims "is a detailed case for NASA's SLS over SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket." Boeing is the prime contractor for development of the Space Launch System for NASA.

Apples and oranges... In the article, Schmitt compares the capability and price of the Falcon Heavy rocket (which by the way, exists today) and the SLS Block 1B variant, which probably won't exist until at least 2025. Schmitt also fails to mention that the development costs of this upgraded SLS rocket, which will use the Exploration Upper Stage, will probably run at least $5 billion. For what it's worth, in an interview in 2014, Schmitt told the author of this newsletter that he thought the SLS was a jobs program. "Apollo was sustained because Congress and the country agreed that we ought to do it," he said. "It's not quite so clear now, at least in the Congress, that the motivation is anything more than jobs.” (submitted by HoboWhisperer)

Canadian astronaut says SLS (and other rockets) aren't going to Mars. In an interview with Business Insider, Chris Hadfield was asked for his thoughts about NASA's SLS, SpaceX's Big Falcon Rocket, and Blue Origin's New Glenn. "Personally, I don't think any of those three rockets is taking people to Mars," Hadfield said. "I don't think those are a practical way to send people to Mars because they're dangerous and it takes too long." Hadfield cited radiation, long transits, and other hazards that would make the risk of traveling to Mars too high for any government to accept for now.

He's correct... While there is a ton of activity surrounding large rockets in industry and at NASA, there is precious little work being done to develop the spaceships that could safely take humans to and from Mars. Boeing and SpaceX have spent nearly a decade building capsules to fly astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit through the commercial crew program. How long will it take for vehicles that must work continuously for years to do the same thing for much more challenging round trips to the Red Planet?

Russian holding company to build large Soviet rocket engines. Originally intended for the unsuccessful Soviet N-1 Moon rocket, the first and second-stage NK-33 and NK-43 rocket engines may reenter production according to a report in Sputnik. Russia's S7 Space plans to build a plant in Samara to produce Soviet-designed NK-33 and NK-43 rocket engines for super heavy-lift launch vehicles, and it intends to purchase production capacities from the state-owned United Engine Corporation for this purpose, S7 Space General Director Sergey Sopov said in an interview.

Using old engines... The deal seems speculative, as the Russian rocket industry is in flux as it is beset by outside competition and internal reliability problems. Until production facilities can be restored (in 5-6 years), the company intends to use three dozen NK-33 and NK-43 engines available in storage facilities. We are not sure about the expediency of using old Russian engines for new rockets.

SLS mobile launch tower nears rollout tests. NASA plans to test the giant crawler transporter and mobile launcher in August as part of a preparation for the maiden Space Launch System in a couple of years. The transporter and mobile launcher have rolled out together before, back in 2011, reports NASASpaceFlight.com. However, this was in their Constellation Program configuration, before the ML was heavily modified from hosting Ares I rockets to SLS.

Leaning in... Yes, this is the same mobile launcher that is reportedly leaning. NASA says the problem is understood and not a major issue. Although the lean will not impact the ability to transport the mobile launcher up and down the crawlerway, it will provide some additional considerations during the mating process with SLS.

Next three launches

June 23: Long March 2C | Unknown satellite payload | Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China | TBD

June 23: Electron | It's Business Time commercial flight | Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand | 00:30-04:30 UTC

June 29: Falcon 9 Full Thrust | NASA CRS-15 mission | Cape Canaveral, Florida | 09:41 UTC