We have a fair few launches coming up This Week in Rocket Launches, but the most interesting will be a crewed mission by SpaceX. It will perform the highest-ever orbit around the Earth before descending to a lower orbit. Then, the crew will perform the first commercial spacewalk.
Sunday, 25 August
- Who: SpaceX
- What: Falcon 9
- When: 07:14 - 11:14 UTC
- Where: California, US
- Why: SpaceX will launch a Falcon 9 carrying 21 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit, where they will beam internet connectivity back to Earth. The group will include 13 direct-to-cell (DTC) Starlink satellites. This batch of Starlink satellites is called Starlink Group 9-5. You can use this identifier on apps like ISS Detector if you want to spot them in the sky. The first stage of the rocket should perform a landing.
Tuesday, 27 August
- Who: SpaceX
- What: Falcon 9
- When: 06:13 - 10:13 UTC
- Where: Florida, US
- Why: SpaceX will launch a Falcon 9 carrying 20 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit, where they will beam internet connectivity back to Earth. The group will include 13 direct-to-cell (DTC) Starlink satellites. This batch of Starlink satellites is called Starlink Group 8-6. You can use this identifier on apps like ISS Detector if you want to spot them in the sky. The first stage of the rocket should perform a landing.
- Who: SpaceX
- What: Falcon 9
- When: 07:38 - 11:10 UTC
- Where: Florida, US
- Why: SpaceX will use a Falcon 9 to launch a Crew Dragon spacecraft. The mission will be called Polaris Dawn and aim to achieve the highest Earth orbit ever. It will perform seven orbits at an altitude of 1,400 km before descending to 700 km, where the crew will perform the first commercial spacewalk.
The crew consists of mission commander Jared Isaacman and civilian astronauts Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis, and Anna Menon. Their spacewalk will last about two hours, and they will also test Starlink laser-based communications. The five-day mission will involve more than 35 experiments.
Thursday, 29 August
- Who: Blue Origin
- What: New Shepard
- When: 13:00 UTC
- Where: Texas, US
- Why: Blue Origin will perform a New Shepard suborbital rocket launch with the NS-26 crew aboard. The crew consists of Nicolina Elrick, Rob Ferl, Eugene Grin, Dr. Eiman Jahangir, Karsen Kitchen, and Ephraim Rabin. Notably, Karsen Kitchen will become the youngest woman ever to cross the Kármán line. She is 21.
Recap
- Last week, we received the first launch: a SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying 22 Starlink satellites known as Starlink Group 10-5. The mission took off from Florida, US, and the Falcon 9"s first stage landed ready for reuse.
- The second and final launch of the week was a Long March 7A carrying ChinaSat 4A. This is a communications satellite that can provide voice, data, radio, and television transmission services.
That"s all for this week; check back next time.