Vulcan rocket's second test flight on schedule for 12:00 UTC this Friday - TWIRL #183

The TWIRL logo in front of Vulcan rocket

We have several rocket launches coming up This Week in Rocket Launches, but one of the notable ones will be the second test flight of United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket. It will be flying with a mass simulator, experiments, and instrumentation. This is only the second launch, so it's a good opportunity to see a new rocket do a launch.

Monday, 30 September

Who: SpaceX
What: Falcon 9
When: 06:49 UTC
Where: California, US
Why: SpaceX will launch a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 20 satellites for OneWeb. These satellites will be placed into a near-polar orbit at 500 km altitude, where they will raise themselves to an operational orbit of 1,200 km. Like SpaceX's Starlink satellites, these will also beam internet connectivity down to Earth for customers. The flight is designated at OneWeb L20.

Wednesday, 2 October

Who: SpaceX
What: Falcon 9
When: 08:50 - 12:50 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. This identifier can be used to see the satellites in space post-launch with apps like ISS Detector. These satellites will beam internet to customers on Earth.

Friday, 4 October

Who: United Launch Alliance
What: Vulcan
When: 12:00 UTC
Where: Florida, US
Why: United Launch Alliance will launch its Vulcan rocket on its second flight. It will include a mass simulator, experiments, and instrumentation. It will fly in a VC4L vehicle configuration with a double-engine Centaur upper stage, four solid rocket boosters, and a large fairing. We don't see too much of this rocket, so it will be interesting to see the launch.

Saturday, 5 October

Who: SpaceX
What: Falcon 9
When: 06:52 UTC
Where: Florida, US
Why: SpaceX will launch a batch of 23 Starlink satellites known as Starlink Group 6-61. They will be placed in a low Earth orbit where they will serve customers. There's a high likelihood that the first stage of the Falcon 9 will perform a landing after the launch.

Recap

The first launch we got last week was pretty interesting. Chinese firm Deep Blue Aerospace performed a test launch of a development version of its Nebula-1 reusable launch vehicle. Nebula-1 is a vertical takeoff, vertical landing rocket. The company said that the ten objectives of the mission were successful, but the landing wasn't.

Next up, China Rocket Co. Ltd launched a Smart Dragon-3 rocket carrying eight satellites from a sea platform. The satellites successfully launched were called Tianyi-41, Star Age-15, Star Age-21, Star Age-22, Yuxing-2 05, Fudan-1, Tianyan-15, and JiTianxing A-01.

The third mission of the week was also from China. This time CAS Space launched the Kinetica-1 rocket carrying several satellites which successfully reached their orbits. Satellites included AIRSAT-01/02, Zhongke-01/02, Jilin SAR01A, and Yunyao-21/22

By the fourth mission, we were finally back in the US when SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 carrying 20 Starlink satellites, Group 9-8. Following the launch, the first stage of the Falcon 9 performed a landing.

For the next mission, we went back to Japan where Mitsubishi Heavy Industries launched the H-IIA launch vehicle carrying the IGS Radar-8 satellite. The satellite is a radar reconnaissance satellite. It got into its orbit successfully.

The final mission of the week takes us back to China where a Long March-2D was launched carrying the Shijian-19 satellite from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China. The satellite is the country's first reusable and returnable test satellite.