Month: November 2020

Enlarge / China's new carrier rocket CERES-1, developed by the Beijing-based high-tech company Galactic Energy, blasts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on November 7, 2020. (credit: Chen Xiao/VCG via Getty Images)

Welcome to Edition 3.23 of the Rocket Report! After virtually no vacation during this year of years, the author of this report is going to try to take most of the next two weeks off (Starship hops permitting). Because of this, the Rocket Report will not return until December 3. Thank you for your patience.

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.

Relativity Space conducts full-duration engine test. Relativity Space said Monday that the company has successfully completed a full-duration test-firing of its Aeon 1 rocket engine, running it at full power for 187 seconds. The test at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi took place with all of the engine's key components—including turbopumps, injector, and combustion chamber—operating in a flight-like configuration. Surprisingly, the company met this milestone two months ahead of schedule.

Enlarge / Municipality employees remove the famous blue chairs on the "Promenade des anglais" in Nice, southern France, in order to limit opportunities for people to gather. (credit: VALERY HACHE / Getty Images)

With the dramatic rise in infections in the United States, there's increasing discussion of whether states need to go back to severe social restrictions or even lockdowns, in which only essential workers are allowed to leave their homes. But many people aren't happy about the idea of re-entering lockdowns because lockdowns exact both an economic and an emotional cost.

While we're likely to get lots of hard data on economic costs eventually, some researchers in New Zealand decided to look at the emotional toll. They performed a detailed survey at the height of lockdown and found that, as expected, the restrictions had an impact on people trapped in their houses for weeks. But the impact was more pronounced on the young and those who had experienced psychological distress previously.

Lockdown NZ

The public health officials who advocate for lockdowns in response to soaring infection rates recognize that lockdowns exact an emotional toll on people who have to stay in their homes. The trade-off for this toll is the avoidance of death, severe illness, overloading of healthcare systems, etc. And the lockdowns are meant to be temporary; once infection rates drop sufficiently, then less draconian control measures (like social distancing, limiting gatherings, and mask use) can keep the infection rates low.