This Week in Launch: SpaceX owns the week

This week we expect to see three rocket launches and all three will be from SpaceX. While two of those will be Starlink missions, which I guess could be exciting if we knew which boosters were flying, one of the missions will be for a new NASA science mission.

This week’s launches:

• February 6 (Tuesday)
  • SpaceX | Falcon 9 | PACE | 1:33 A.M. ET
    • SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
  • SpaceX | Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 7-13 | 5:38 P.M. PT
    • SLC-4E, Vandenberg Space Force Base, California
• February 10 (Saturday)
  • SpaceX | Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 6-39 | 1:00 A.M. ET
    • SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florda

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SpaceX to launch NASA mission to… study plankton?

It’s exciting to see every time SpaceX launches something other than a batch of Starlink missions to space. The livestreams are always more entertaining with more things to talk about and show. There’s also a higher chance of the use of one of SpaceX’s landing zones instead of the droneship.

But yes, NASA is launching a spacecraft that is going to study plankton in our world’s oceans. Called PACE, Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem, its goal will be to gain much more high fidelity data on Earth’s oceans, with a focus on plankton levels.

While it might seem rather weird that a space agency would be so interested in a small life form on Earth, its study will support NASA’s missions to understand and track climate change. However, hence its name, other instruments on the spacecraft will also study aerosols in the atmosphere and clouds as well.

This will be a late night launch so get a cat nap in this afternoon if you don’t want to miss out on a few hours of sleep before Tuesday morning’s alarm hits.