This Week in Launch: Starship and Starliner share the stage, Virgin Galactic reenters chat?

Spoiler alert: This is looking to be a very busy week for rocket launches and not a single one is coming from a company outside the US (Rocket Lab is an exception). Starship, Starliner, and Virgin Galactic all have big missions this week.

This week’s launches:

• June 4 (Tuesday)
  • SpaceX | Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 8-9 | 8:04 P.M. ET
    • SLC-41, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
  • Rocket Lab | Electron | PREFIRE And Ice | 11:00 P.M. ET
    • LC-1B, Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand
  • SpaceX | Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 8-8 | 1:12 A.M. 10:12 P.M. ET
    • SLC-4E, Vandenberg Space Force Base, California
• June 5 (Wednesday)
  • ULA | Atlas V N22 | Boeing Starliner CFT | 10:52 A.M. ET
    • SLC-41, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
• June 6 (Thursday)
  • SpaceX | Starship | Flight 4 | 7:00 A.M. CT
    • Pad A, Starbase, Texas
• June 7 (Friday)
  • SpaceX | Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 10-1 | 6:58 P.M. ET
    • SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
• June 8 (Saturday)
  • Virgin Galactic | SpaceShipTwo | Galactic-07 | TBD
    • VMS Eve, Spaceport America, New Mexico

Which will launch first, Starship or Starliner?

Starship and Starliner have launch dates currently one day a part from each other. Starliner will have a first go at with its third launch attempt on Wednesday. The Boeing spacecraft has had issues for over a month now in getting its first crewed mission off the ground, literally. Both launch day scrubs have not been because of Starliner, however, but because of its rocket, ULA’s Atlas V.

Like all crewed missions, flight rules for rocket’s ability to launch are heightened so this leads to more scrubs than usual.

Starship’s launch date is still up in the air, currently it has the ability to launch with the FAA stating another launch would not pose a safety risk to the public. But SpaceX has yet to gain permission to launch with a new amendment to its license for another launch.

SpaceX has conducted a full wet dress rehearsal and we’re just waiting on more signs that SpaceX will be attempting the launch on Thursday. So far, there’s nothing that shows they won’t.

And Virgin Galactic is back

Oh yes, Virgin Galactic might be launching too this week! No details have been shared other than a post to social media that the mission is planned for this coming Saturday.

The flight will use VSS Unity like all the others and could likely be its final before Galactic plans to focus entirely on its next generation spaceplanes. “Galactic-07” will be a research mission and as we’ve become use to it over the last few flights, we usually won’t get details until just before the event.