A pair of missions to space stations headline the launches for the week of Jan. 10 to Jan. 17. Axiom-3 will be flying four private astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), becoming the first crew launch of 2024. Crew Dragon Freedom will fly from Florida, with a multinational crew, for a mission to the Station lasting around two weeks.
The Tianzhou 7 cargo spacecraft headed for the Chinese Space Station Tiangong is also flying this week, and Japan is launching a military reconnaissance satellite aboard one of its last H-IIA rockets. In addition, the Gravity-1 rocket developed by the Chinese firm OrienSpace is making its maiden flight. Galactic Energy’s Ceres-1 and Starlink 6-37 are also now on the schedule for this week.
These launches would continue what is a rapid cadence of flights so far this year. 2023 featured 220 orbital launch attempts which is a new record, but 2024 is likely to eclipse this.
Ceres-1 lifts off on its maiden flight in November 2020
Galactic Energy Ceres-1 | Unknown Payload
CAS Space had been thought to be flying its Kinetica-1 vehicle, but it is now believed that Galactic Energy is flying the Ceres-1 instead while Kinetica may fly on Jan. 23. The Ceres-1 is scheduled to launch at 03:55 UTC on Thursday, Jan. 11 from Site 95A at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.
Ceres-1, also known as the Gushenxing-1, is a solid-fueled small satellite launcher with three solid stages and a liquid-fueled hypergolic fourth stage, capable of flying up to 300 kilograms to a sun-synchronous orbit. The flight, the 12th for the Ceres-1 rocket, is believed to be launching into a sun-synchronous orbit, but the payload is currently not known.
However, there is still also a possibility this flight could involve a different rocket; a CZ-2D with YZ-3 upper stage has been mentioned. Details regarding many Chinese launches are not confirmed in advance of the flight.
The Gravity-1 launch vehicle before its maiden flight. (Credit: OrienSpace)
OrienSpace Gravity-1 Y1 | Jilin-1
A new launch vehicle is making its debut, developed by the Chinese commercial sector. OrienSpace’s Gravity-1 is a new medium-lift rocket that promises to be the most capable all-solid fueled vehicle in the world.
Gravity-1’s maiden flight, also known as Y1, is scheduled to launch on Thursday, Jan. 11 at 03:00 UTC from the purpose-built launch ship Dongfang Hangtiangang in the East China Sea just off the Chinese coast near the port city of Haiyang. The rocket is thought to be carrying three satellites, and a NOTAM hints at a 50-degree inclination orbit. The three satellites are thought to be the Langfang Kongjina-1, the Taian (Xingshidai-16), and the Jilin-1 Gaofen 05 spacecraft. However, the exact details are highly uncertain.
Gravity-1 has three solid-fueled stages and four solid-fueled strap-on boosters. The rocket’s listed payload capacity to low-Earth orbit is 6,500 kilograms, which would also make Gravity-1 able to lift heavier payloads than any other Chinese commercial launcher built so far. This capacity is also higher than the Delta II 7000H series, the highest-performing variant of that retired rocket family.
An H-IIA 202 rocket rolls out ahead of the IGS-Optical 6 mission in February 2018. (Credit: Bill Ingalls / NASA)
Mitsubishi H-IIA F48 | IGS-Optical 8
While Japan is working on returning the H-III to flight after its initial launch failure, the country is flying out the last H-IIA vehicles. H-IIA F48 is the third to last flight of the system that started operations in 2001 and will be replaced by the H-III.
The H-IIA 202 series rocket is scheduled to fly on Thursday, Jan. 11, at 04:00 UTC from LA-Y1 at the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan. The flight will launch the IGS-Optical 8 military reconnaissance and civil disaster observation satellite into a sun-synchronous polar orbit.
Once this H-IIA leaves the ground there will be just two flights left for the veteran launcher. The GOSAT-GW greenhouse gas monitoring satellite and the IGS-Radar 8 reconnaissance satellite will be the last payloads flown by a vehicle that has served Japan for over two decades.
A view of a stack of Starlink satellites including a Starlink Direct To Cell satellite at the top. The deployable antenna and its hinge can clearly be seen in this image. (Credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-37
SpaceX has added the Starlink 6-37 launch to this week’s schedule. This flight is currently slated for launch no earlier than Jan. 13 (Jan. 14 UTC) from SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The booster is currently not yet known, nor is the method of booster recovery.
Like all other current Starlink launches, this flight will be sending a batch of v2 Mini satellites to orbit. As part of SpaceX’s effort to launch 144 Falcon family missions in 2024, some Starlink missions could fly a reduced number of satellites to orbit while being able to return to the launch site (RTLS) and land on a concrete pad instead of using a drone ship. It is not yet known whether this flight will make use of an RTLS landing.
The Tianzhou-6 spacecraft. (Credit: CASC)
The first launch to a space station scheduled for this week is the Tianzhou 7 cargo ship set to fly to the Chinese Space Station. This flight would be delivering cargo needed for the Shenzhou 17 crew aboard the Chinese Space Station now.
Tianzhou 7 is scheduled to fly on Monday, Jan. 15 at 13:00 UTC from LC-201 at the Wenchang Space Launch Site on Hainan Island. The Chang Zheng 7 Y8 vehicle will be tasked with sending Tianzhou 7 and its cargo to the space station, which is in a 391 by 386-kilometer low-Earth orbit inclined 41.5 degrees to the Equator. For comparison, the International Space Station is in a 422 by 413-kilometer orbit inclined 51.6 degrees to the Equator.
The Tianzhou spacecraft is larger than the Progress, Cargo Dragon, and Cygnus vehicles that supply the International Space Station with cargo. This is because the Tianzhou cargo ship is derived from China’s first space station, Tiangong-1, which reached orbit in 2011.
Crew Dragon Freedom undocks from the ISS following the Crew-4 mission. (Credit: NASA TV)
The Axiom-3 (AX-3) mission, using the Crew Dragon C212 Freedom, is scheduled to fly four private astronauts, representing five nations, to the ISS for an approximate two-week mission.
AX-3 is scheduled to launch on Wednesday, Jan. 17, at 5:11 PM EST (22:11 UTC) from LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It had been thought that this would be the first crewed launch from SLC-40, but a Starlink launch will now be using it. A crew access arm and launch tower were built and finished last year at SLC-40 to provide redundancy in the event of a mishap or other issue that would place Pad 39A out of commission.
Falcon 9 B1080 would be making its fifth flight on this mission, while Crew Dragon Freedom would be making its third flight. B1080 would conduct a return to the launch site and land at the LZ-1 concrete pad, while Freedom would dock with the Station in the early hours of Jan. 19.
B1080’s first flight was the Axiom-2 mission which also used Crew Dragon Freedom making its second flight. This booster also has flown the Euclid telescope as well as Starlink 6-11 and Starlink 6-24.
The Axiom-3 crew in a prelaunch photo. (Credit: Axiom Space)
Dual US/Spanish citizen Michael Lopez-Alegria, a veteran of previous Space Shuttle and Crew Dragon missions, would command the crew. At least one astronaut on a private mission to ISS must have Station experience, which Lopez-Alegria does have.
Astronaut Walter Villadei of Italy, who has flown to the edge of space aboard the VSS Unity during a suborbital flight, is going to orbit for the first time while Alper Gezeravci would become the first Turkish person to fly to space. ESA astronaut Marcus Wandt of Sweden would conduct the “Muninn” mission for the agency alongside Danish ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen, conducting what is dubbed the “Huginn” mission during his six-month stay aboard the Station.
The AX-3 flight would be the fifth SpaceX launch of 2024, as the company attempts to fly up to 144 missions this calendar year. In addition, it is the first of two crewed flights scheduled for this month, and the first of at least 12 currently planned for this year.
(Lead image: B1080 carrying Crew Dragon Freedom rolls toward LC-39A on a prior mission. Credit: SpaceX)
The post Launch Roundup: Axiom-3 crew and Tianzhou 7 cargo space station missions this week appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.
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