Month: April 2020

Enlarge / The Rocket Report is published weekly. (credit: Arianespace)

Welcome to Edition 2.40 of the Rocket Report! This was a big week for Virgin Orbit, which not only won a contract for three launches but also took a final technical step toward LauncherOne's first orbital attempt. The fact that the company flew a captive-carry test on Easter Sunday suggests they are serious about getting into space. We eagerly await the rocket's debut.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). 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.

Virgin Orbit completes major pre-launch test. Virgin Orbit completed a captive-carry test flight of its LauncherOne system on Easter Sunday, the final major milestone before the company performs its first orbital launch attempt, SpaceNews reports. Virgin Orbit had performed captive-carry test flights in the past, but this was the first with a flight version of LauncherOne, filled with RP-1 fuel and liquid nitrogen, attached.

Enlarge / Shingled Magnetic Recording drives—unlike this Los Angeles-class submarine—aren't on anybody's list of "Fast Attack" vessels. (credit: Michael Meilen / ETC Robert Gulini)

Storage vendors, including but reportedly not limited to Western Digital, have quietly begun shipping SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) disks in place of earlier CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording) disks.

SMR is a technology which allows vendors to eke out higher storage densities, netting more TB capacity on the same number of platters—or fewer platters, for the same amount of TB.

Until recently, the technology has only been seen in very large disks, which were typically clearly marked as "archival". In addition to higher capacities, SMR is associated with much lower random I/O performance than CMR disks offer.