We have plenty of missions from SpaceX this week but they’re mostly Starlink launches. Things will get a bit more interesting at the end of the week when SpaceX performs another test launch of its Starship rocket. Read on to see what it’s objectives are for that mission.
Sunday, 10 March
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Who: SpaceX
- What: Falcon 9
- When: 11:04 p.m. - 3:34 a.m. UTC
- Where: Florida, US
- Why: SpaceX will be using a Falcon 9 rocket to launch 23 Starlink satellites into a low Earth orbit. This bunch of satellites are designated as Starlink Group 6-43, this can be used with apps like ISS Detector to identify the satellites you can see moving across the sky at night time. Have you noticed any Starlink satellites in the sky before? Let us know in the comments!
Monday, 11 March
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Who: SpaceX
- What: Falcon 9
- When: 2:13 - 6:49 a.m. UTC
- Where: California, US
- Why: Similar to the previous mission, SpaceX will be launching a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 22 Starlink satellites. This batch will be known as Starlink Group 7-17.
Tuesday, 12 March
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Who: Rocket Lab
- What: Electron
- When: 2:00 p.m. UTC
- Where: Mahia, New Zealand
- Why: Rocket Lab will launch an Electron rocket carrying the StriX 3 satellite for Synspective. The satellite is a synthetic aperture radar satellite and is part of a 25 satellite constellation. It is the fourth StriX satellite to be launched.
Thursday, 14 March
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Who: SpaceX
- What: Falcon 9
- When: 12:29 - 3:00 a.m. UTC
- Where: Florida, US
- Why: SpaceX will use a Falcon 9 to launch 23 Starlink satellites designated as Starlink Group 6-44. The Starlink constellation is used to provide internet connectivity on Earth and is particularly useful for people in more remote areas.
- Who: SpaceX
- What: Starship
- When: 12:00 p.m. UTC
- Where: Texas, United States
- Why: SpaceX will be performing its second suborbital test flight of its massive Starship rocket, the mission is called IFT-3 (Integrated Flight Test). This mission has several objectives, there will be an attempted opening and closing of Starship’s payload door, a propellant transfer demonstration, a re-light of a Raptor engine in space, and a controlled reentry of Starship. On this mission, SpaceX is expecting Starship to land in the southeastern Indian Ocean.
Recap
- The first mission that we got last week was from SpaceX. It launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Crew-8 mission. A Crew Dragon spacecraft called Endeavour has several astronauts from NASA and Roscosmos aboard, delivering them to the International Space Station.
- The next rocket to take off was another Falcon 9 but this time it was carrying 53 satellites as part of the Transporter-10 rideshare mission.
- The final launch we got was a Falcon 9 launch but this time carrying Starlink satellites. After the launch, the Falcon 9 first stage performed a landing.
That’s it for this week, check in next time!