It’s rare, but astronauts have been off the planet for their child’s birth before. Most recently, NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, set to command the Artemis III mission next year, was flying aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2009 when his wife gave birth to their daughter in Houston. This launch was delayed several weeks to fix a leaky valve on Dragon’s propulsion system, work that involved cutting out the suspect valve and welding in a new one, an unusual but apparently successful repair method.
Canadian company pursues medium-lift rocket. More countries are becoming interested in developing their own access to space, including those that have historically paid US companies to launch their satellites. Canada is no different, and the Trump administration’s seeming obsession with lobbing threats and tariffs across the northern border has only crystallized Canadian interest in sovereign access to space.
This spring, the Canadian government announced the first awards to three companies—NordSpace, Reaction Dynamics, and Canada Rocket Company—to support work on rockets with “light lift” capability. Now, one of these rocket developers, Canada Rocket Company, says it is skipping over the small launch segment and going straight to a more ambitious medium-lift rocket, Ars reports.
R-2 V2? … Canada Rocket Company is following the lead of several US launch providers in going for a bigger rocket. “The advice we got from having spoken with about 150 engineers, from the director of Starship engineering all the way down to some entry-level folks, is that you’re not going to be able to de-risk a rocket development program by building a smaller rocket,” said Hugh Kolias, chief executive of the Canada Rocket Company, in an interview with Ars.
The company’s R-2 rocket somewhat resembles SpaceX’s Falcon 9 in renderings, with nine engines and landing legs that signal a future path toward reuse of the first stage. It could carry up to 12.5 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. If all goes well, Kolias said, the company could be ready to launch by 2032.