Launch Roundup: Falcon 9 launches continue, Rocket Lab to launch two Electrons, Russia to fly to ISS

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Following the sixth flight of SpaceX’s Starship on Tuesday, four additional orbital launches are planned worldwide. Rocket Lab will launch an experimental hypersonic testbed payload using a modified Electron from Wallops. What’s more, a second Electron will launch a batch of nanosatellites into low-Earth orbit from New Zealand.

Meanwhile, SpaceX plans to launch three Starlink missions aboard Falcon 9 rockets this week as the company pushes to meet its end-of-the-year targets for Falcon 9’s launch cadence. SpaceX continues to trim its turnaround times for Falcon boosters, pads, and recovery vessels and is currently launching almost every other day.

In Russia, Roscosmos will fly a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS), Progress MS-29, atop a Soyuz 2.1a rocket. Blue Origin will fly a suborbital New Shepard mission, and China plans to close out the week with the launch of an unknown payload aboard a Chang Zheng 2C rocket.

Progress MS-29 at the pad in Baikonur. (Credit: Roscosmos)

Roscosmos Soyuz 2.1a | Progress MS-29

The Progress MS-29 mission will launch from Site 31/6 at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday, Nov. 21, at 12:22 UTC. The ISS cargo resupply mission will rendezvous and docking on the Russian segment of the orbiting laboratory at 14:40 UTC the same day, assuming no issues during launch and rendezvous operations.

Progress MS-29 will deliver 2,500 kg of cargo to the Station, including 869 kg of fuel, 420 kg of drinking water for the crew of Expedition 72, and 42 kg of compressed nitrogen, as well as a variety of food, clothing, equipment, and science experiments. This will be the Progress spacecraft’s 182nd flight.

Soyuz 2.1a is powered by four RD-107A engines on the first stage (arranged around the second, core stage), a single RD-108A engine on the core stage, and an RD-0110 engine on the third stage. Each stage uses liquid oxygen and kerosene (RP-1) as propellants.

SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 6-66

SpaceX is set to continue its Starlink launch campaign from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Starlink Group 6-66 is scheduled to launch on Thursday, Nov. 21, at 10:52 AM EST (15:52 UTC) during a four-hour launch window. The currently unknown booster will fly a southeasterly trajectory before landing on one of SpaceX’s east coast droneships.

Falcon 9’s first stage booster is powered by nine Merlin 1D engines and is reusable, while the second stage utilizes a single vacuum-optimized Merlin engine and is not recovered. The two payload fairings used to encapsulate the batch of Starlink satellites at the top of the second stage are recovered and reused on subsequent flights.

This mission will be the 400th Falcon 9 mission of all time.

A HASTE-modified Electron atop its launch pad at Rocket Lab’s facility in Wallops Island, Virginia. (Credit: Rocket Lab)

Rocket Lab Electron | Leidos Mission 2

Rocket Lab has two launches planned for this week. The first of these will fly from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 2 at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Thursday, Nov. 21, at 7:45 PM EST (Friday, Nov. 22, at 00:45 UTC).

The Leidos Mission 2 will be Rocket Lab’s second of four missions for the Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonics Test Bed (MACH-TB) program. The MACH-TB program was created by the Department of Defense (DoD) to reduce hypersonic risks and swiftly transition to innovative technologies. The payload is expected to be an experimental hypersonic glide body, although the details of the payload remain classified. The first Leidos mission for the MACH-TB program flew on June 17, 2023.

The booster for this mission is a Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron (HASTE), a modified Electron optimized for hypersonic testing using custom fairings and a modified kick stage. The rocket launches the payload on a suborbital trajectory, providing acceleration towards hypersonic speeds, or over five times the speed of sound.

SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 9-13 

The next batch of Starlink v2 Mini satellites, Group 9-13, is expected to launch from SLC-4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Thursday, Nov. 21, at 11:13 PM EST (Friday, Nov. 22, 04:13 UTC). The launch window for this mission also extends over four hours.

The unannounced booster will fly the regular southeasterly trajectory and will land on the autonomous droneship Of Course I Still Love You, which will be stationed approximately 600 km downrange from Vandenberg.

Blue Origin New Shepard | NS-28 

The ninth crewed flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket will launch on Friday, Nov. 22, at 10:30 AM EST (15:30 UTC) from Launch Site One at Blue Origin’s West Texas facility. After flying a suborbital trajectory to just above the Kármán Line, the booster will vertically and propulsively land nearby at the North Landing Pad with the capsule landing under parachutes nearby.

The crew of six consists of four civilians flying for the first time: Emily Calndrelli, Austin Litteral, James Russell, and Henry Wolfond. The two remaining crew members, Sharon and Marc Hagle, are flying on New Shepard for the second time.

Rocket Lab Electron | Ice AIS Baby

Rocket Lab’s second launch of the week will see Electron lift five Kinéis satellites into low-Earth orbit from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 at the Māhia Peninsula in New Zealand. Launch is targeted for 03:49 UTC on Saturday, Nov. 23.

The payload, a batch of satellites numbered 11 to 15, will form the third batch of five Internet of Things (IoT) satellites for the French company Kinéis. The five satellites, which mass 30 kg each, are classified as nanosatellites.

The normal, non-HASTE-modified Electron is a two-stage booster with an additional kick stage. The first stage features nine Rutherford sea-level engines, each producing 21 kN of thrust at liftoff and peaking at 25 kN of thrust during ascent. The second stage includes a vacuum-optimized Rutherford engine that produces 25.8 kN of thrust. Both variants of Rutherford are powered by electric pumps as opposed to traditional gas turbines. The kick stage utilizes an unspecified bi-propellant fuel-powered Curie engine. Both the Rutherford and Curie engines are largely 3D-printed, and Electron’s two stages are constructed with carbon composite.

SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 12-1 

While there has been no official announcement regarding this particular mission as of yet, current permits and filings show that SpaceX plans to launch the Starlink Group 12-1 mission from Florida on Sunday, Nov. 24 at 4:59 AM EST (09:59 UTC).

SpaceX will start a new group of v2 Mini satellites with this launch, Group 12. The booster will land on one of SpaceX’s two east coast droneships. No details are currently available regarding the vehicle or support vessels for this mission.

Chang Zheng 2C | Unknown Payload 

A Chinese Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) has been issued for a mission launching from Site 9401 (SLS-2) at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China on Sunday, Nov. 24, at 23:40 UTC.

No other details have been released, but, based on previous launches and hazard notices, a Chang Zheng (Long March) 2C is rumored to be the rocket being used to launch this mission.

(Lead image: Launch of Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from New Zealand. Credit: Jack Beyer for NSF)

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