We have a pretty busy week in This Week in Rocket Launches. All of the launches are uncrewed so there's nothing super exciting going on. The most interesting launch is the Dragon 2 mission taking some science experiments up to the International Space Station (ISS).
Tuesday, 7 November
- Who: SpaceX
- What: Falcon 9 B5
- When: 6:47 p.m. UTC
- Where: Space Launch Complex 40, Cape Canaveral, Florida, US
- Why: This is SpaceX’s Transporter 9 rideshare mission. The company will be launching several payloads including the Vigoride 7 space tug and several other satellites. The payloads will be delivered to a Sun-synchronous orbit.
Wednesday, 8 November
- Who: SpaceX
- What: Falcon 9 B5
- When: 3:00 a.m. UTC
- Where: Space Launch Complex 40, Cape Canaveral, Florida, US
- Why: SpaceX will be launching 23 Starlink satellites to bolster its Starlink constellation. If you want to have a look at this batch of satellites on apps like ISS Detector then you’ll need to look for Starlink Group 6-27. Like other recent Starlink satellites, these ones have an anti-reflective coating so that they don’t interrupt astronomers as much.
Thursday, 9 November
- Who: CNSA
- What: Long March 3B/E
- When: 11:30 a.m.
- Where: Xichang Satellite Launch Centre
- Why: It’s not clear what the purpose of this mission as the payload is unknown.
Friday, 10 November
- Who: SpaceX
- What: Falcon 9 B5
- When: 1:28 a.m. UTC
- Where: SpaceX LC-39A, Florida, US
- Why: SpaceX will be launching a Dragon 2 spacecraft on a cargo delivery mission to the International Space Station. It will be carrying the Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE), and the laser communications terminal ILLUMA-T. This mission is part of the Commercial Resupply Service contract that SpaceX has with NASA.
Saturday, 11 November
- Who: SpaceX
- What: Falcon 9 B5
- When: 11:08 p.m. UTC
- Where: Space Launch Complex 40, Cape Canaveral, Florida, US
- Why: SpaceX will be launching two O3b mPOWER broadband internet satellites to a medium Earth orbit for SES of Luxembourg. They will provide internet services over much of the world and were built by Boeing.
Recap
- The first launch last week was a Falcon 9 carrying 22 Starlink satellites to orbit. This group of satellites is Starlink Group 7-6.
- Next up, SpaceX launched Starlink Group 6-25 consisting of 23 Starlink satellites.
- The third launch was a Long March 6A carrying the TianHui 5 satellite. It’s going to be used for geographic mapping, land resource survey, scientific experiments, and other missions.
- This week we also got the fifth commercial spaceflight and sixth successful human space mission in six months from VIrgin Galactic.
- In China we got an interesting test mission from private space firm iSpace which did a test flight and landing of its Hyperbola 2 rocket.
- Next, China launched a Long March 7a carrying the TJSW-10 comms tech test satellite. It will be used for multi-band and high-speed comms tech experiments.
- Lastly, SpaceX launched another group of 23 Starlink satellites to orbit. This group is Starlink Group 6-26.
That’s all for this week, check back next time.
