Thanks to a few delays last week, This Week in Rocket Launches has a stellar set of upcoming missions. The excitement will begin on Sunday with the launch of Starship"s fifth test flight and the launch of Blue Origin"s New Shepard. Later in the day, SpaceX will launch NASA"s Europa Clipper mission to the Galilean moon Europa.
Sunday, 13 October
Who: SpaceX
What: Starship
When: 12:00 - 13:07 UTC
Where: Texas, US
Why: SpaceX will launch Starship on its fifth suborbital test flight, the mission is designated IFT-5. SpaceX will use this mission to re-attempt the first-ever controlled re-entry of Starship. Starship will try to land in the southern Indian Ocean, west of Australia, while the Super Heavy booster will try to land at the launch tower.
Who: Blue Origin
What: New Shepard
When: 13:00 - 16:00 UTC
Where: Texas, US
Why: Blue Origin will launch its New Shepard suborbital rocket as part of an uncrewed mission. This is a little bit unusual before, as New Shepard launches are known for their crewed launches to the edge of space for paying customers. The rocket will fly with tech upgrades to improve its performance and reusability.
Some of the 12 payloads include new nav systems for New Shepard and New Glenn, LIDAR sensors for the Lunar Permanence program, and ultra-wide proximity operations sensors as part of NASA"s TechFlights grant. The mission is NS-27.
Who: SpaceX
What: Falcon Heavy
When: 16:12 UTC
Where: Florida, US
Why: SpaceX will launch a Falcon Heavy rocket carrying the Europa Clipper mission for NASA. The Europa Clipper space probe will study Jupiter"s moon, Europa, by doing flybys while in Jupiter"s orbit. It will carry nine science instruments and use them to study Europa"s icy surface and its subsurface ocean to see whether the moon can support life. Europa Clipper is NASA"s biggest-ever planetary exploration spacecraft with a span of 30 meters when its solar arrays are extended. The spacecraft will do a flyby gravity assist of Mars with its closest approach in February 2025. It will then use the Earth to get a gravity assist in December 2026, and then it will enter Jupiter orbit on April 11, 2030, with 45 orbits planned.
Monday, 14 October
Who: SpaceX
What: Falcon 9
When: 05:48 - 09:48 UTC
Where: Florida, US
Why: SpaceX will use a Falcon 9 to launch 22 Starlink satellites into a low Earth orbit. This batch of satellites is known as Starlink Group 10-10. You can use this identifier to find the satellites in orbit using various satellite tracking services. The first stage of the Falcon 9 should perform a landing too.
Tuesday, 15 October
Who: SpaceX
What: Falcon 9
When: 08:03 UTC
Where: California, US
Why: The first launch on Tuesday will be another Falcon 9 from SpaceX. This batch of 20 satellites will be known as Starlink Group 9-7 and will contain 13 direct-to-cell Starlink satellites. Like the previous launch, these satellites will go into a low Earth orbit, and the first stage of the Falcon 9 will perform a landing.
Recap
The first mission we got last was the launch of a Falcon 9 by SpaceX carrying the European Space Agency"s Hera mission. The Hera mission will study the Didymos binary asteroid system previously hit by NASA"s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft.
The second and final launch was a Long March 3B from China, which launched the WHG-03 high-orbit internet services from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. The satellite entered its orbit successfully.
That"s all for this week; check back next time.