This week features several missions scheduled to launch from sites all around the world. China is due to launch its next cargo resupply mission to the Tiangong space station, while Gilmour Space is expected to attempt the maiden launch of its Eris rocket from Australia.
As usual, SpaceX is set to have a busy week of launching internet satellites. The company will launch three Starlink missions in addition to a batch of Kuiper satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper internet constellation — a direct competitor of Starlink.
The Tianzhou-9 cargo spacecraft during preparations. (Credit: CCTV)
The next cargo supply mission headed to China’s Tiangong space station is due to lift off on Monday, July 14, at 21:40 UTC. A Chang Zheng 7 rocket will loft the Tianzhou 9 (or “heavenly ship”) cargo vehicle from pad LC-201 at the Wenchang Space Launch Site on the island of Hainan.
In advance of this mission, the previous Tianzhou 8 vehicle undocked from the Tianhe aft port at the station on July 9 and broke up upon reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. Tianzhou 9 will dock to Tiangong at the Tianhe port approximately three hours after liftoff. Onboard will be food, clothes, and other consumables for the Shenzhou 20 crew, in addition to life support supplies, scientific experiments, propellants for stationkeeping, and other items for station maintenance.
Also aboard will be two upgraded Feitian extravehicular activity (EVA) suits, which will replace a pair that were disposed of on Tianzhou 8. The new suits have a lifespan of 20 usages over four years. The outgoing pair of suits had already far exceeded their designed 15-use lifespans and were one spacewalk shy of this upgraded goal.
Tianzhou 9 is expected to spend six to seven months at the station and measures 10.6 m long and 3.35 m in diameter. The vehicle docks autonomously and can carry up to 7,400 kg of cargo. SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon, by comparison, can carry around 6,000 kg of pressurized and unpressurized cargo, while Cygnus can carry 3,750 kg. Both of these vehicles are due to fly resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard Falcon 9 vehicles in the next two to three months.
View of the Eris rocket and the launch pad at the spaceport in Bowen, Australia. (Credit: Gilmour Space)
Gilmour Space will make a second attempt at the maiden launch of its Eris small satellite rocket on Wednesday, July 16, at 7:30 AM AEST (21:30 UTC on Tuesday, July 15). The company stood down from its previous attempt, which was scheduled for May 16, after the fairings were prematurely triggered by the separation system during overnight launch preparations. An unexpected power surge from other devices downstream had caused the vehicle to shut down, causing the issue, which has since been mitigated.
The launch will take place from the Bowen Orbital Spaceport at Abbot Point, north of the coastal town of Bowen. As the emblem on the rocket body proudly declares, the three-stage launcher is “Australian-made.” TestFlight 1 is poised to become the first orbital launch from Australian soil performed by a sovereign-built vehicle.
Comparable to Rocket Lab’s Electron, Eris stands a little taller at 25 m in height. The vehicle also has a slightly larger 1.5 m fairing and boasts a payload mass of up to 215 kg to a 500 km Sun-synchronous orbit, or 305 kg to 500 km equatorial orbits. The first stage is propelled by four Sirius engines — a proprietary hybrid engine that uses a 3D-printed solid fuel grain and hydrogen peroxide as the oxidizer. A single Sirius engine powers the second stage. A successful orbital launch would also be the first for a hybrid rocket design.
Gilmour Space announced last week that it had signed a new partnership with Tokyo-based Space BD that will open up dedicated and rideshare opportunities aboard its Eris rocket and ElaraSat platform for Japanese and global satellite customers.
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 15-2
A Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch a batch of 26 Starlink v2-Mini internet satellites into low-Earth orbit (LEO) on Monday, July 12. Liftoff is planned from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at the top of a launch window which opens at 7:13 PM PDT (02:13 UTC on Tuesday, July 15).
Despite the mission name, SpaceX has already launched eight other flights into the Group 15 shell of its Starlink constellation. Every launch into this shell has occurred from SLC-4E, and this will be the first launch from the pad since the Group 15-7 mission in late June, which marked the 500th flight of Falcon 9.
Following deployment, the satellites will make their way to an orbit at 535 km altitude, inclined 70 degrees. The booster supporting this mission has not been confirmed and is expected to land downrange on the west coast droneship Of Course I Still Love You. At the start of the week, SpaceX had launched 9,165 Starlink satellites. Of these, 1,197 have reentered Earth’s atmosphere, and 7,028 have moved into their operational orbits.
A year has now passed since the second-stage engine failed to restart during SpaceX’s Starlink Group 9-3 mission, ending a streak of 325 consecutive successful missions for the company. SpaceX has since rebuilt the count of consecutive Falcon missions to nearly half that during the 12 months since that anomaly on July 12, 2024 — the streak stood at 149 at the end of last week’s Commercial GTO-1 mission. SpaceX will, therefore, reach a notable milestone with Starlink Group 15-2, marking the 150th successful mission in a row.
Starlink satellites are released during Starlink Group 15-5, which also launched from SLC-4E on May 16. (Credit: SpaceX)
Falcon 9 | Project Kuiper (KF-01)
SpaceX will launch its first contracted batch of Amazon’s Kuiper satellites on Wednesday, July 16, from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The four-hour launch window opens at 2:10 AM EDT (06:10 UTC), when the vehicle will carry at least 20 of the satellites to LEO. The booster supporting this mission has yet to be confirmed and is expected to land on one of SpaceX’s two autonomous droneships serving the east coast.
Kuiper satellites are planned to occupy 98 orbital planes in layers at altitudes of 590 km, 610 km, and 630 km. To meet expectations in its license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the full constellation of 3,236 satellites must be launched by the end of July 2029. The more pressing deadline is in one year’s time, when Amazon is required to have deployed half of its constellation — 1,618 of the satellites — by July 30, 2026.
To this end, two further launches have been booked aboard Falcon 9 and will fly in the next quarter, 12 are booked aboard Blue Origin’s New Glenn, and 18 aboard Arianespace’s Ariane 6. The United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Atlas V has already lofted two initial batches of 27 Kuiper satellites, with one batch launching in April and another in June. ULA will now switch to its Vulcan rocket, in the VC6L configuration with six solid boosters, to carry at least one more batch to LEO by the end of the year. ULA has been contracted to launch 38 missions for the constellation.
As noted above, this mission is due to become the 150th consecutive successful Falcon mission since the anomaly during the Starlink Group 9-3 mission this time last year.
Atlas V launches a batch of Kuiper satellites for Amazon. (Credit: Max Evans for NSF)
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 17-3
A second Falcon 9 launch from SLC-4E in Vandenberg is scheduled for Wednesday, July 16, at 7:08 PM PDT (02:08 UTC on July 17). Starlink Group 17-3 will be the second mission to carry satellites into the Group 17 shell of the Starlink constellation, the first of which launched from this same pad almost two months ago. This had been the first Starlink launch to a Sun-synchronous orbital inclination in over two years.
The booster supporting this mission has not yet been confirmed but is expected to land downrange on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You around eight minutes into the mission. As with the previous Group 17 mission, Falcon 9 is expected to fly almost directly south into an orbit with an inclination of over 97 degrees. Following deployment, the satellites will make their way to an orbit at an altitude of 535 km.
Starlink satellites are released during Starlink Group 15-5, the 125th mission from SLC-4E. (Credit: SpaceX)
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 17-2
SpaceX will launch a third batch of Starlink satellites into the Group 17 shell of the constellation on Sunday, July 20, at 7:09 PM PDT (02:09 UTC on July 21). The mission will launch from the same pad as the other two missions for this group, SLC-4E in California, and fly due south to an orbit inclined 97 degrees.
The booster for this mission has not yet been identified, and will once again be expected to land on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You.
(Lead image: Falcon 9 launches from Florida. Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF)
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