Launch

Alongside possibly two other missions, SpaceX is launching a science mission co-sponsored by ESA and JAXA, beating both agencies home-built rockets. This week we’ll also see a resupply mission to the ISS by Russia and two mysterious launches from a Chinese company within a few days of each other.

For the fourth time, Boeing’s Starliner CFT makes an appearance as it struggles with leakage and propellent issues in the spacecraft’s service module.

This week SpaceX will attempt another three launch week, with two of those mission scheduled from the West Coast. The headline mission for the week will actually come out of China, a Long March 5 rocket is scheduled to liftoff Friday with the country’s next lunar sample return mission, this time from the far side of the Moon.

This week we’re looking to be a rather busy one with a launch everyday from either SpaceX, China, and Rocket Lab up to Friday. China will be launching its next crew rotation to their space station and SpaceX might have a four launch week.

This week we’re only seeing three launches, all of which are from SpaceX and two of those are for Starlink missions out of Florida. About what we expect from a company doing the majority of Earth’s launch capability.

Friday evening SpaceX launched a Starlink mission that while not newsworthy anymore, the booster it launched on was. B1062, first launched in 2020, has now reached the big 20 mission milestone.

After some delay due to technical issue, ULA is back to attempting to get its final Delta IV Heavy off the ground and firmly into retirement. Russia is also launching a decade old rocket that is still in development for some reason.

We’ve seen a lot of changes to the space launch market over the last decade, from hopeful underdogs to defacto monopolies. Now we’re going through another large shift in the companies launching rockets, not launching rockets. Payload spoke with the top executives about the change and here’s what they said.

This week SpaceX will be launching as many as four Falcon 9s, mostly for its internal programs like Starlink. One, however, will be for its rideshare program with a new name, Bandwagon. Although Monday’s Starlink mission out of California has potential to be an amazing twilight launch for local residents.

While it’s a rather slow week for rocket launches, SpaceX makes up for it with one big exciting mission. For the first launch of March, by just a few minutes, SpaceX will be launching Crew-8 for NASA to the ISS for a six month stay in space.

After a few weeks of featuring at least one big name launch that makes writing these articles easy, we’re back to more standard communication satellites. Two launches from SpaceX are on the schedule with a third possible over the weekend. China, not to be left out is also scheduled for a Long March 5 with an unknown payload on top.

On Valentines Day SpaceX showed us its love for lifting rockets off into space with a double header from both LC-39A and SLC-40. The two launches, roughly eight hours apart, were for Intuitive Machines‘ Nova-C lunar lander and a classified payload for the US Space Force.

This week SpaceX is here with three launches, the biggest of the three being on Wednesday. Oh wait, all of SpaceX’s launches this week will be on Wednesday, fun day.

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.

After an end of month rally by SpaceX to get to 10 launches in January, the company will have only one launch this week but it will be a big one. With the retirement of its primary rocket, Northrop Grumman will fly its Cygnus spacecraft on a Falcon 9 this week to the ISS.

This week Rocket Lab will reattempt its first launch of 2024 and possibly Virgin Galactic will fly Friday on one of its final missions before it goes quiet. For SpaceX however, this month has been far below its 13 launches a month goal, although this year’s start looks to be stronger than last year’s.

Thursday afternoon SpaceX launched the Axiom-3 mission out of Kennedy Space Center making it its first human spaceflight mission of the year. Another milestone first was it being the first entirely European crewed mission ever with all four astronauts holding citizenship from a European nation.

We have two firsts for 2024 this week. First SpaceX is set to launch the Axiom-3 mission on Wednesday as the first human spaceflight mission of the year. Then, just a few hours later, Rocket Lab plans to make its 2024 debut with a Electron launch out of New Zealand.

While it looks like a light week for launches from SpaceX, over in the Pacific Ocean, China will be busy launching several rockets from around its country. Also, Japan will chime in with a rare H-II launch.

At 2:18:38 A.M. ET Monday morning, ULA debuted its Vulcan rocket after years of delays and setbacks. With a highly expected successful deployment of Astrobotic‘s first Peregrine lunar lander, Vulcan kickstarts ULA’s new commercial launch future as well as NASA‘s new exploration of the Moon.

Last year SpaceX shared that it wanted to launch as many as 144 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets in 2024. This week, the man in charge in making that a reality shared the milestones it needs to hit to meat that goal.

Late last night, SpaceX launched its first rocket of 2024 out of Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. On top, in addition to the Starlink V2 mini satellites were used to, were six Starlink satellites capable of connecting directly to standard 5G cellphones. These satellites are the first following a partnership with T-Mobile announced back in 2022 to feature the connectivity, and are a major step forward for SpaceX’s satellite internet constellation.