Month: October 2021

Enlarge / Blue Origin's New Shepard launches its second human spaceflight on Wednesday. (credit: Blue Origin)

Welcome to Edition 4.20 of the Rocket Report! If this is edition 4.20 of the newsletter, you know we're going to bring extra smoke. So let's get to it.

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 Galactic substantially delays next mission. The space tourism company announced Thursday afternoon that it will delay a planned human flight for the Italian Air Force, Unity 23, and begin a "planned enhancement program" for its VMS Eve carrier aircraft and VSS Unity spacecraft. Effectively, this means that the vehicles will be taken out of service for the next eight months for repairs and upgrades. As one reason for this decision, the company cited a recent test that "flagged a possible reduction in the strength margins of certain materials used to modify specific joints, and this requires further physical inspection."

Enlarge (credit: Nintendo)

Metroid Dread developer Mercury Steam has been criticized by multiple former members of the company whose names were left out of the credits, the ex-staffers say.

Speaking to the Spanish outlet Vandal, several former employees who contributed to Dread's development—which was handled primarily by the Madrid-based studio with nominal oversight from Nintendo EPD in Japan—said they were not acknowledged for their efforts despite working on the game for months. The outlet also confirmed a company policy at Mercury Steam that stipulates any employee must work on at least 25 percent of a project's total development to be included in its credits.

"The policy of the studio requires that anyone must work on the project at least 25% of the time, of the total development of the game, to appear in the final credits," a studio representative said in an email to Vandal (via our google translated-script). "Of course, exceptions are sometimes made when making exceptional contributions." Sources in the story put the game's total development time at between three to four years.