The first flight of the largest battery-electric aircraft to take to the skies lasted nearly half an hour while costing just $5 of electricity. That aviation feat comes at a time when jet fuel prices have skyrocketed because of the US war with Iran.

The test flight of Heart Aerospace’s X1 demonstrator aircraft took place at Plattsburgh International Airport in upstate New York on August 12. The X1 aircraft is comparable in size to a small regional airliner and can achieve a maximum takeoff weight exceeding 25,000 pounds with the help of four wing-mounted electric motors. The battery-electric propulsion system delivered more than one megawatt of power during the maiden flight.

All-electric aircraft can offer quieter and cleaner flight without the emissions that come from burning jet fuel. They may also prove more reliably cost-effective than conventional aircraft that come with jet fuel costs subject to geopolitical disruptions.

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A decade ago, SpaceX began to land the first stages of the Falcon 9 rocket with some regularity, but it's only within the last five years that the company has begun flying the rocket dozens and then hundreds of times a year.

As a result, SpaceX has very rapidly become responsible for more than three-quarters of all mass launched into orbit. Much of this is the company's Starlink satellites, but due to cost and the lack of alternatives, SpaceX has also stepped up to launch payloads from all comers, including direct competitors such as Amazon, Northrop Grumman, AST Space Mobile, OneWeb, and more.

New research is beginning to quantify just how much the introduction of the Falcon 9 rocket, the adoption of reuse, and the vehicle's high cadence have upended the global launch market.

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Welcome to Edition 9.06 of the Rocket Report! Rocket Lab made a lot of news this week with its quarterly update, and it is clear the company is making impressive progress as it becomes much more than a launch company. But at the end of the day, a lot of the company's success is predicated on the Neutron vehicle, and I'm not thrilled with Rocket Lab's ambiguity around its readiness. As a user on X noted, the company's language on Stage 2 being ready to ship to the launch site has not changed much in 12 months.

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.

Rocket Lab decides to get flexible. Rocket Lab plans to start launching its Electron vehicle even more frequently and flexibly, thanks to a new portable spaceport system called GHOST, Space.com reports. GHOST—short for "Global Hypersonic & Orbital Spaceport Technology"—turns the company's "Electron and HASTE rockets into a launch-anywhere, launch-anytime capability for multi-launch flight campaigns and critical national security missions," the company said this week.

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