SpaceX to launch secretive government spaceplane - TWIRL #142

This Week in Rocket Launches we have a fair few launches but among them the most interesting is the launch of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy which will be carrying the secretive X-37B spaceplane. It will be carrying a mission for NASA where it will expose seeds to radiation.

Sunday, 10 December

• Who: CNSA
• What: Long March 2D
• When: 1:58 a.m. UTC
• Where: Xichang Satellite Launch Center
• Why: China is planning to launch three Yaogan 39 satellites on this mission. They will perform various tasks including scientific experiments, land and resource surveys, agricultural production estimates, and disaster prevention and mitigation.

Monday, 11 December

• Who: SpaceX
• What: Falcon Heavy
• When: 1:14 a.m. - 4:31 a.m. UTC
• Where: SpaceX LC-39A, Florida, US
• Why: The Falcon Heavy will launch the USSF-52 mission of the US Space Force. The primary payload is the X-37B spaceplane, which is flying on its seventh mission. The X-37B will be used to conduct several tests including one for NASA called Seeds-2 which will expose plant seeds to harsh radiation and help develop the way for future crewed space missions.

• Who: SpaceX
• What: Falcon 9 B5
• When: 4:00 a.m.
• Where: Space Launch Complex 40, Cape Canaveral, Florida, US
• Why: SpaceX will be launching 23 Starlink satellites into a low Earth orbit. They have an anti-reflective coating to reduce the glare for astronomers. This batch of satellites is known as Starlink Group 6-34 and if you use any satellite tracking services you’ll probably be able to identify viewing times for these satellites based on this identifier.

Thursday, 14 December

• Who: SpaceX
• What: Falcon 9 B5
• When: 9:00 p.m. UTC
• Where: Space Launch Complex 40, Cape Canaveral, Florida, US
• Why: In this mission, SpaceX will launch the Ovzon 3 satellite for Ovzon AB, a Swedish company. The satellite is a geostationary communications satellite for mobile broadband services.

Friday, 15 December

• Who: CNSA
• What: Long March 5
• When: 12:10 p.m.
• Where: Wenchang Satellite Launch Center
• Why: This rocket is launching an unknown payload into space so we don’t know what it will do.

Saturday, 16 December

• Who: Roscosmos
• What: Soyuz 2.1b
• When: Unknown
• Where: Baikonur Cosmodrome
• Why: Russia is going to launch the second Arktika-M remote sensing satellite and communications satellite which will be used for weather forecasting and monitoring the climate and environment in the Arctic.

Recap

• The first launch last week was a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites. The first stage of the rocket landed too so that it can be reused.

• Next up, China launched a Long March 2C carrying the MisrSat-2 and and group of StarPool satellites.

• Galactic Energy launched a Ceres-1 rocket carrying the TianYan-16 and StarPool-1A satellites. The first is a meteorological satellite and the other is a remote sensing satellite.

• The China Academy of Launch Technology (CALT) flew a Smart Dragon-3 rocket next from a sea platform, carrying a new satellite internet technology test satellite.

• Iran launched an interesting rocket motor in the week called Salman. It placed a 500kg space bio-capsule 130 km above the Earth. The Salman rocket motors are described as a new class of launchers capable of carrying half-ton payloads to space. Salman itself is pretty small but this is because it can be coupled with the Qased and Qaem-100 satellite launch vehicles.

• Next, SpaceX launched more Starlink satellites and landed the first stage of the Falcon 9.

• Finally, we got another Starlink launch from SpaceX.

That’s it for this week, be sure to check in next time.