Rocket Report: Another Chinese launch failure, Minotaur IV soars

Enlarge / Northrop Grumman successfully launched its Minotaur IV Rocket into orbit on Wednesday morning. (credit: Northrop Grumman)

Welcome to Edition 3.08 of the Rocket Report! We are now approaching the middle of the 2020 Mars launch window, and it appears as though we will see the UAE, China, and United States all launch missions to the Red Planet during the last 10 days of the month. Exciting times ahead!

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.

Chinese Kuaizhou-11 launch ends in failure. The launch of a new Chinese Kuaizhou-11 commercial solid rocket ended in failure last Friday, resulting in the loss of two satellites, SpaceNews reports. Terse reports from Chinese media state that the specific cause of the failure is "under further analysis and investigation."