This week is set to be a busy one in the world of spaceflight, with 10 orbital launches planned throughout the week. China is expected to continue its launch cadence from last week with three more launches this week. SpaceX plans to launch five Falcon 9 missions in five days with the launches of four Starlink missions and one customer payload.
India’s PSLV-XL launch vehicle will loft a pair of European spacecraft into orbit to study the Sun, and the much-delayed European radar satellite Sentinel-1C is expected to finally launch atop a Vega C from French Guiana. Lastly, Russia is expected to launch a delayed military satellite aboard a Soyuz rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia.
Outside of the launch manifest for the week, SpaceX’s CRS-31 Cargo Dragon is expected to depart from the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, Dec. 5, and return to Earth via a splashdown. Following splashdown, Cargo Dragon will be recovered and refurbished for use on future cargo resupply missions to the ISS.
Little is known about the first Chinese launch of the week. Launch is expected to occur on Tuesday, Dec. 3, at 05:55 UTC from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China. The rocket set to be used for this mission is believed to be a Chang Zheng (Long March) 3B, which features three stages and stands 56.3 m tall.
The payload for this mission is unknown. The rocket will follow a southeasterly trajectory following launch.
A Soyuz 2.1b rocket launches Cosmos 2576 from Site 43/4 at Plesetsk in May 2024. (Credit: Russian Ministry of Defence)
Soyuz 2.1b | Cosmos 2580 (Unknown Payload)
A Soyuz 2.1b rocket was initially expected to launch the Cosmos 2580 mission, featuring another Lotos-S satellite, into orbit last week, but has since been rescheduled to Tuesday, Dec. 3, at 16:00 UTC. The Soyuz 2.1b is expected to launch from an unconfirmed pad at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia during a three-hour launch window, carrying the payload to an orbit inclined by 67 degrees. Additional launch opportunities extend through early December.
The Lotos reconnaissance satellites form part of a wider, classified, orbital electronic intelligence system known as Liana. This Electronic Signals Intelligence, or ELINT, system intercepts radar and electromagnetic radiation signals for the location and characterization of sites, ships, and aircraft of military interest. Four were procured by the Russian Ministry of Defense back in 2017, one of which has yet to be launched and could, therefore, be this payload. A further batch was subsequently ordered in August 2022 and is assumed to still be in production. Previous Lotos launches have been accompanied by a secondary payload, which has been deployed shortly after the primary satellite is released.
SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 9-14
The first of at least three Starlink launches this week will liftoff on Tuesday, Dec. 3, at 4:29 PM PST (Wednesday, Dec. 4, at 00:29 UTC). Starlink Group 9-14 will launch from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The booster for this flight has not yet been announced. Following launch and separation, the booster will land on SpaceX’s west coast droneship Of Course I Still Love You, which will be stationed approximately 600 km southeast of Vandenberg.
Falcon 9’s first stage booster is powered by nine Merlin 1D engines, while the second utilizes a single vacuum-optimized Merlin engine. Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are the first and only reusable orbital rockets in service today, with some Falcon boosters having flown over twenty flights. The two payload fairings are also recovered and reused.
Starlink Group 9-14 will be the 120th Falcon 9 mission of 2024.
CASC Kuaizhou 1A | Unknown Payload
The second Chinese launch of the week is planned for Wednesday, Dec. 4, at 04:50 UTC. Any information currently known about this launch is known from published hazard warnings, and more detail may be made known as launch time approaches.
The mission will launch from a Mobile Launcher Pad at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China. Flight characteristics found in warning notices point to the launch vehicle being a Kuaizhou 1A vehicle, a quick-reaction vehicle with three solid-fuelled stages. The vehicle is capable of lifting 400 kg into low-Earth orbit (LEO).
SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 6-70
On Wednesday, Dec. 4, at 3:29 AM EST (08:29 UTC), a SpaceX Falcon 9 will launch the Starlink Group 6-70 mission to LEO. This batch of 24 Starlink satellites will be launched from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Falcon 9 is set to follow a southeasterly trajectory out of Florida following launch. The booster for this mission is not yet known, but is expected to land ~600 km downrange on one of SpaceX’s two east coast droneships, A Shortfall of Gravitas.
Just 3 days to go!
The trusted PSLV is ready to shine with the PSLV-C59/PROBA-3, a mission by NSIL enabled by ISRO, in collaboration with ESA.
This mission will place ESA’s PROBA-3 satellites (~550kg) into a unique highly elliptical orbit, reinforcing PSLV’s reliability for… pic.twitter.com/qOYdtT10bo
— ISRO (@isro) December 1, 2024
The first of two European Space Agency (ESA) payloads being launched this week is PROBA-3, which will launch atop India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) on Wednesday, Dec. 4, at 10:38 UTC from the First Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India. The two 340 kg PROBA 3 spacecraft will be deployed by PSLV in a highly elliptical high-Earth orbit of 600 km by 60530 km with an orbital period of 19.7 hours. After a short preparatory period, the two satellites will be separated and injected into a safe relative tandem orbit.
The PROBA-3 mission uses two satellites to create artificial solar eclipses to study the Sun’s corona. The two spacecraft will maneuver precisely in Earth orbit so that, when flying in formation, one casts a shadow onto the other. This allows the other spacecraft to observe the Sun’s corona without being blinded by sunlight
“It’s an experiment in space to demonstrate a new concept, a new technology,” said Damien Galano, the PROBA project manager at ESA. “It’s very challenging because we need to control very well the flight path of the two spacecraft.”
In the XL configuration being used for this mission, India’s PSLV rocket stands 44 m tall. Six strap-on solid rocket motors assist the rocket’s four stages and power the vehicle into orbit.
Arianespace Vega C | Sentinel-1C
The second ESA mission of the week is the long-delayed Sentinel-1C mission. Launch is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 4, at 21:20 UTC from pad ELV-1 at the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana atop a Vega C booster.
Copernicus Sentinel-1C is the third Sentinel-1 satellite, following Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-1B, which were launched in April 2014 and April 2016, respectively. The three satellites are identical, each carrying an advanced radar instrument to provide an all-weather, day-and-night supply of imagery of Earth’s surface. The mission has been used to monitor the movement of icebergs, ice sheets, glaciers, ground deformation from subsidence and earthquakes, floods after severe storms, and much more.
Throwback to the deployment tests of the Airbus-built Sentinel-1C Radar Antenna
As the deployed antenna does not fit into the fairing of the Vega-C rocket, it has to be folded around the spacecraftand will be deployed once in orbit.
— Airbus Space (@AirbusSpace) December 2, 2024
The satellite boasts a large, 12 m-long radar antenna and twin 10 m-long solar arrays, all of which unfold during the satellite’s initialization phase once in orbit.
Sentinel-1C has been ready to launch since early 2023. ESA intended to launch as soon as possible, particularly as the Sentinel-1B satellite had developed a terminal fault while in orbit in December 2021. However, Sentinel-1C’s launch was significantly delayed following the December 2022 failure of a Vega C vehicle during launch and an anomaly during a test fire of the redesigned nozzle that was intended to fix the original failure.
Vega C is a four stage rocket standing 35 m in height. The first three stages are solid rocket motors, while the fourth stage, known as AVUM, uses a liquid-propelled motor. AVUM compensates for the performance scattering of the first three solid propulsion stages, circularizes the orbit, and executes the final deorbiting maneuvers of the stage following payload deployment.
Check it out! The SXM-9 satellite has successfully shipped to the launch base, ready for its upcoming launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from the #KennedySpaceCenter.
This latest satellite marks another milestone in our over two-decade relationship with @SiriusXM, featuring… pic.twitter.com/1qkJSRUewH
— Maxar Space Systems (@MaxarSpace) October 24, 2024
The latest cycle of launches from each of SpaceX’s three Falcon launch pads will be completed with the SXM-9 mission, which is set to launch from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Launch is planned for Thursday, Dec. 5, at 1:10 AM EST (16:10 UTC), and Falcon 9 will deploy SXM-9 into a geostationary transfer orbit after flying a due east trajectory out of the Cape.
Operated by SiriusXM, SXM-9 is the first in a series of almost identical third-generation satellites that will update the fleet. The satellite is the 10th high-powered, digital, audio radio satellite built by Maxar (SSL) for SiriusXM. Subsequent missions are planned to launch once per year up to SXM-12 in 2027. Built on Maxar’s 1300-class platform and massing around 7,000 kg, SXM-9 will support both Sirius and XM services’ broadcasting of sports, music, news, and entertainment content via satellite radio. The satellite includes a large mesh reflector, which measures almost 10 m in length when unfurled and has an expected 15-year lifespan.
SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 11-2
SpaceX plans to launch the Starlink Group 11-2 mission from SLC-4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Saturday, Dec. 7, at 1:24 PM PST (21:24 UTC). The currently unknown booster will attempt to land on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You around eight minutes after launch.
SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 12-5
The fifth and final Falcon 9 launch of the week will be the launch of the Starlink Group 12-5 mission from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Sunday, Dec. 8, at 12:10 AM EST (05:10 UTC). The booster will attempt to land on one of two east coast droneships SpaceX utilizes for Falcon missions.
The final Chinese launch of the week will launch from pad LC-9A at Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in China. Launch was expected to occur on Monday, Dec. 2, at 05:53 UTC, but a scrub seems to have occurred and a new date is not yet known. Launch notices point to a Chang Zheng (Long March) 6A (CZ-6A) rocket being used for this mission. CZ-6A consists of two stages with four additional strap-on engines. A 4.2 m diameter, 5.7 m tall fairing is fitted atop the second stage, giving the vehicle a height of 50 m.
The payload being launched on this mission is not known.
(Lead Image: Launch of a Starlink mission atop a Falcon 9 from Florida. Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF)
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