Blue Origin's New Glenn set for historic debut on Wednesday - TWIRL #195

TWIRL logo in front of New Glenn

We have a pretty exciting schedule coming up this week in rocket launches. On Wednesday, Blue Origin will launch its New Glenn rocket on its first-ever mission. Then, on Friday, we will get the anticipated seventh launch of Starship, which includes Starlink simulators.

Monday, 6 January

Who: SpaceX
What: Falcon 9
When: 16:44 UTC
Where: Florida, US
Why: In this mission, SpaceX will launch one of its trust Falcon 9 rockets carrying 24 Starlink satellites into a low Earth orbit. This batch of satellites has the designation Starlink Group 6-71; you can use this identifier to track them in space on apps like ISS Detector. Following the launch, the first stage of the Falcon 9 will perform a landing so that it can be reused.

Tuesday, 7 January

Who: SpaceX
What: Falcon 9
When: 15:51–19:51 UTC
Where: Florida, US
Why: In this launch, SpaceX will use a Falcon 9 to carry 21 Starlink satellites to a low Earth orbit, with the designation Starlink Group 12-11. Among these satellites are 13 direct-to-cell satellites, which are more modern. After the launch, the first stage of the rocket will perform a landing.

Wednesday, 8 January

Who: Blue Origin
What: New Glenn
When: 06:00–09:45 UTC
Where: Florida, US
Why: This is the most notable mission this week, as it marks Blue Origin's first launch of the New Glenn rocket. The mission is called NG-1 and launches with two payloads. The first is called Blue Ring demonstrator, a satellite support system. The second is DS-1 flight system developed by Blue Origin.

The first stage of the rocket, which is reusable, contains seven BE-4 engines, while the second stage has two BE-3U engines. The first stage of the rocket will land on the Jacklyn LPV1 sea-based platform.

NASA's EscaPADE mission was supposed to be a payload on this mission, but it has been delayed for a later New Glenn launch.

Friday, 10 January

Who: SpaceX
What: Starship
When: 22:00–23:37 UTC
Where: Texas, US
Why: This is the seventh test mission of the Starship rocket from SpaceX. Now that much progress has been made in the launches and landing, SpaceX thinks it's time to send 10 Starlink simulators to orbit on this rocket. These simulators will be a similar size and weight as real Starlink satellites. Interestingly, this mission will include a Raptor engine on the Super Heavy booster that was also used for the fifth test flight.

To read more about this mission, refer to Neowin's dedicated coverage.

Recap

The first launch we got this week was from SpaceX. It used a Falcon 9 to launch Starlink Group 11-3 to orbit before the first stage of the rocket performed a landing.

Next up was another launch with a SpaceX Falcon 9, but this time, it was carrying four satellites for Astranis, a mission that has been delayed a few times. The first stage of the rocket landed too.

For the third mission of the week, India launched a PSLV rocket carrying the SpaDeX mission, which is a cost-effective docking test between two small spacecraft.

On the last day of the year, SpaceX launched Starlink Group 12-6 on a Falcon 9 before landing the first stage of the rocket.

In the final mission of the week, another SpaceX Falcon 9 was used to launch the Thuraya 4 mission. The Thuraya-4 NGS (Next Generation Satellite) was place into a geosynchronous transfer orbit.