The week ahead includes four launches scheduled for Wednesday and the third Electron rocket to fly within 12 days. SpaceX kicked off the week with the launch of a classified mission on Monday. Firefly Aerospace will attempt the sixth flight of its Alpha rocket following a delay due to range constraints earlier in the month. Three Starlink missions and a Chang Zheng 3B are also scheduled to launch this week.
Following a scrub on Monday due to unfavorable winds. Isar Aerospace is expected to conduct the first orbital launch by a European rocket from continental Europe on Tuesday. This maiden launch of its Spectrum rocket will also be the inaugural orbital launch from the Andøya Spaceport in Norway.
This week will also mark the conclusion of the first quarter of 2025 and, with it, new turnaround records and a revised annual cadence target for SpaceX. Booster B1088 set a new first-stage turnaround record of just over nine days on last week’s NROL-57 mission from Vandenberg on March 21. This quickly followed the launch of the SPHEREx and PUNCH mission from the same pad at SLC-4E on March 11 and was a notable improvement on the previous booster turnaround record of 14 days.
The company also set a pad turnaround record at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on March 15. The Starlink Group 12-16 mission launched from SLC-40 just two days, eight hours, 59 minutes, and 40 seconds after the Starlink Group 12-21 mission from the same pad, breaking the previous record by nearly six hours. This launch also set another record for SpaceX, marking its third launch in 12.5 hours following the Crew-10 and Transporter-13 missions.
SpaceX recently revised its goal to launch 180 times this year in reaction to recent challenges regarding the loss of booster B1086 and the increased refurbishment time for some of its recovered Falcon 9 boosters. The company’s new target of 170 averages out to 14 monthly launches. Pending how volatile this week’s schedule proves to be, SpaceX looks to complete the first quarter with 38 launches across its fleet. This puts the company only a handful of launches away from meeting its revised cadence goal, with plenty of time to catch up.
Rocket Lab is ahead of last year’s cadence, with five Electron launches in the first quarter of 2025. Two of these launches occurred last week within three days of each other. This week’s planned launch would set another company record with three launches within two weeks. Electron will finish the quarter as the second most launched rocket of the year and is on course to surpass last year’s record of 14 orbital launches. As the month comes to a close, there will have been 67 orbital launch attempts worldwide, a six percent increase from the previous year.
Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket awaits its maiden launch on the pad at Andøya Spaceport. (Credit: Isar Aerospace, Brady Kenniston for NSF)
Spectrum | Going Full Spectrum
Isar Aerospace is preparing for the first-ever orbital launch attempt of a European rocket from continental Europe (outside of Russia). Delayed from the weekend, an attempt on Monday was scrubbed due to unfavorable winds. The launch attempt has been rescheduled to Tuesday, March 25, at 11:30 UTC.
The company’s two-stage Spectrum launch vehicle will make its maiden flight from the Andøya Spaceport on the Norwegian island of Andøya. The spaceport has supported over 1,200 suborbital and sounding rocket launches since 1962 and is now planning to support up to 30 orbital missions per year.
The launch will fly on a northwest trajectory out of Andoya, which would place a payload in a retrograde orbit. This demonstration flight, however, is carrying no deployable payload and will instead deliver valuable in-flight data to inform future iterations of the vehicle.
Spectrum stands 28 m high with a two-meter diameter and can deliver 1,000 kg to low-Earth orbit (LEO) or 700 kg to Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). Nine 3D-printed Aquila engines on the first stage burn liquid propane and oxygen as propellants. The second stage is powered by a single vacuum-optimized Aquila engine, which is capable of in-orbit restarts. The company notes that these high-pressure turbopump-fed engines have been designed in-house and offer clean propulsion that delivers the highest density-specific impulse of all carbon fuels.
Illustration of Lockheed Martin’s LM 400 satellite bus technology demonstrator in orbit. (Credit: Lockheed Martin)
Firefly Aerospace is planning the sixth launch of its Alpha rocket this week after standing down from last week’s attempt due to an unspecified range conflict. The “Message In A Booster” mission is set to be the first of four worldwide orbital launch attempts scheduled for Wednesday, March 26. Alpha will launch from Space Launch Complex 2W (SLC-2W) at the Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) in California during a 69-minute launch window that opens at 8:37 AM PDT (13:37 UTC).
A technology demonstrator for Lockheed Martin’s LM400 satellite bus is flying on this mission as the primary payload. This versatile new mid-sized satellite bus can accommodate a variety of missions, including remote sensing, communications, imaging, and radar operations. The LM400 Pathfinder will help prove the technology in orbit and contribute towards risk reduction before flying customer missions. While this demonstrator will be deployed to LEO, the platform is adaptable to multiple orbits and launch configurations, catering to military, civil, and commercial applications.
Payload encapsulation of Lockheed Martin’s LM 400 in mid-March. (Credit: Firefly Aerospace)
This flight marks the first of up to 25 flights for Lockheed Martin as part of a multi-launch agreement with Firefly, which will span the next five years. The two-stage expendable Alpha vehicle stands just under 30 m in height and can deliver 1,030 kg to LEO. Four high-performance Reaver engines on the first stage burn liquid kerosene and oxygen in a tap-off cycle, while a single Lightning engine using the same technology powers the upper stage.
NASASpaceflight is providing launch live stream production services for Firefly Flight A006.
Electron/Curie | Finding Hot Wildfires Near You
Rocket Lab will launch its third Electron in two weeks on Wednesday, March 26, at 15:30 UTC from Launch Complex 1B (LC-1B) at the company’s launch facility in New Zealand. “Finding Hot WildFires Near You” will mark a significant achievement in rapid launch cadence for Rocket Lab, with the payloads onboard being launched within four months of signing the launch services contract. The mission will deploy the latest group of eight satellites for OroraTech’s OTC-P1 constellation into a 550 km SSO.
Patch for Rocket Lab’s “Finding Hot Wildfires Near You” mission. (Credit: Rocket Lab)
Thermal infrared cameras enable satellites to monitor wildfires globally and support a faster response to safeguard forests, communities, and critical infrastructure. Combining real-time data with AI algorithms, the technology delivers early detection of hotspots from over 25 satellite and ground data sources for customers that include governments and industry partners. The company plans to increase the constellation to 100 satellites by 2028. This mission will bring the total number of satellites launched by Electron to 224.
Chang Zheng 3B/E | Unknown Payload
A Chang Zheng 3B/E (CZ-3B/E) is expected to launch on Wednesday, March 26, at 15:55 UTC from Launch Complex 2 (LC-2) at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China. This is one of three active pads at Xichang, situated in the Sichuan Province of southwestern China, and one of two that conduct orbital launches. LC-2 is commonly used to loft satellites into geostationary orbits, including those for the Beidou navigation constellation. While details of the payload are currently unknown, the mission’s launch window lasts 35 minutes.
This would be the fifth flight of a CZ-3B/E this year. The four preceding flights carried payloads to a geostationary transfer orbit with two classified TJSW missions, the ChinaSat 10R communication satellite, and the Shijian 25 technology demonstrator.
Starlink Satellites are deployed during the Group 12-8 mission. (Credit: SpaceX)
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 11-7
Starlink Group 11-7, the first of three scheduled Starlink missions this week, will fly from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at VSFB in California. The typical four-hour launch window opens on Wednesday, March 26, at 3:00 PM PDT (22:00 UTC). This mission has been delayed from the weekend and will fly on a southeast trajectory carrying another batch of Starlink v2-Mini satellites to LEO.
The booster for this mission has not yet been confirmed but is expected to land downrange on the autonomous droneship Of Course I Still Love You, which will be stationed in the Pacific. To date, every Starlink Group 11 mission has flown from VSFB, with another due to fly Sunday evening.
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 6-80
A Falcon 9 will fly the second Starlink mission of the week, Starlink Group 6-80, from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Sunday, March 30. A four-hour launch window opens at 5:16 PM EDT (19:16 UTC), during which another batch of Starlink v2-Mini satellites will be lofted into LEO.
Ahead of this launch, 71 previous Starlink missions carried satellites into the Group 6 shell — by far the largest of the Starlink shells. Satellites within the Group 6 shell operate in a 43-degree orbit at an altitude of 559 km. The booster and droneship supporting this mission are not yet known.
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 11-13
Starlink Group 11-3 will launch from SLC-4E at VSFB on Sunday, March 30, at 5:23 PM PDT (00:23 UTC on March 31), with the typical four-hour launch window available. Assuming an on-time launch, this mission will come just four days after Starlink Group 11-7.
The booster for this mission has not yet been confirmed but is expected to land atop Of Course I Still Love You, which will be stationed downrange from SLC-4E in the Pacific. This mission will mark the 37th Falcon 9 mission of 2025 and the 67th orbital launch globally.
(Lead image: Falcon 9 launches from Florida. Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF)
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