A Chinese rocket, a pair of Russian missions, a trio of Falcon 9 launches, and the long-awaited tenth flight of Starship are scheduled to fly this week. In Russia, a Soyuz rocket is to fly a modernized version of the Vostok capsule that flew crewed missions in the 1960s from Baikonur, while an Angara rocket is flying from the Russian military launch site in Plesetsk.
Besides Starship Flight 10, SpaceX is flying one Starlink mission, a national security mission featuring the X-37B, and a Cargo Dragon flight to the International Space Station. Both of these missions will launch from Florida, while Starlink Group 17-6 will fly from California.
CAS Space of China is flying its second Kinetica 1 mission of 2025 this week. The flight of Kinetica-1 Y10 is set for Tuesday, Aug. 19, with T0 at 07:35 UTC. Launching from Site 130 at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China, the mission will fly on a southward trajectory carrying seven satellites to Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO).
Kinetica 1, also known as Lijian-1, is a 31 m tall, 2.65 m diameter, four-stage rocket that first flew in July 2022. All four stages utilize solid fuel and solid rocket motors, and Kinetica-1 is the largest entirely solid-fueled launch vehicle in the Chinese launch industry.
Two Mexican femtosatellites, massing less than 100 grams each, will be onboard. ThumbSat 1 and 2 are CAS Space’s first international commercial mission, and these satellites are meant to make space more accessible to students and citizen scientists in Mexico. ThumbSat-1 has a selfie payload, and ThumbSat-2 carries an artistic payload.
The other payloads on this flight are not yet known. This flight is the eighth overall mission for Kinetica-1 and comes just days after the ZhuQue-2 launch failure that forced a short delay in launches from Jiuquan.
The Bion-M no. 2 spacecraft being integrated before launch. (Credit: Roscosmos)
Roscosmos is scheduled to launch the Bion-M no. 2 mission aboard a Soyuz 2.1a rocket from Site 31/6 at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, Aug. 20, at 17:13 UTC. The Soyuz will take a northeast trajectory, lofting the Bion-M spacecraft to a 300-370 km altitude, high-inclination low-Earth orbit (LEO) that might be used for the future Russian ROS space station.
The 6,300 kg Bion-M is derived from the Vostok spacecraft that launched Yuri Gagarin to space on April 12, 1961, as well as several other Soviet cosmonauts in the early days of the Space Race. The Soviet — and later Russian — program kept using the Vostok’s basic design for various uncrewed missions, as it is capable of returning to Earth intact with biological experiments or other cargo.
The Soviet program flew many biological research missions, known as Bion, and reconnaissance satellites, known as Zenit, derived from the Vostok, and invited NASA to fly joint uncrewed biological research missions aboard these spacecraft in the early 1970s. The first joint NASA-Soviet biological research mission flew aboard Kosmos 782 — known as Bion 3 — in 1975.
Bion-M no. 1 after its return to Earth in 2013. (Credit: Institute of Medical and Biological Problems)
The current Bion-M spacecraft uses the same reentry capsule design as the Vostok, but is attached to a service module derived from the Yantar spacecraft. This service module offers maneuvering capability, and its solar panels support mission durations of up to six months. The original Bion spacecraft used service modules more directly derived from the Vostok spacecraft.
Bion-M’s first flight, in 2013, flew a German-built aquarium with fish as well as mice, gerbils, geckos, snails, and microorganisms for 30 days before returning to Earth with a landing in Orenburg, Russia. Bion-M1 notably featured experiments from NASA, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Poland, and other countries.
Bion-M no. 2 will fly 75 mice and study how these mice are affected by radiation on the molecular level. What’s more, 1,000 fruit flies will also be onboard, along with plants and microorganisms. The mission is scheduled to last for 30 days before the spacecraft returns to Earth. This flight will be the fourth Soyuz 2.1a launch of 2025.
Angara 1.2 launches Cosmos 2577 & 2578. (Credit: Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation)
A Russian Angara 1.2 rocket is flying an unknown payload — presumably a Russian military satellite — from Plesetsk in Russia’s far north. Launch is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 21, at 08:30 UTC from Site 35/1 at Plesetsk Cosmodrome, with Angara flying the payload to a polar orbit.
Polar orbits are commonly used by reconnaissance satellites as they allow satellites to cover virtually all of Earth’s surface. The Plesetsk launch site is Russia’s equivalent of Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB), which is used for many U.S. national security missions. The Angara 1.2 can carry up to 2,400 kg to a polar SSO.
The Angara 1.2 uses a single universal rocket module (URM-1) as its first stage, compared to the Angara 5 that uses one URM-1 as the core and four URM-1s as strap-on boosters. The URM-1 uses one RD-191 engine with liquid kerosene and liquid oxygen as propellants, and these propellants are also used on the second stage. This flight is the second Angara 1.2 mission of 2025.
X-37B after returning from orbit. (Credit: U.S. Space Force)
The U.S. Space Force’s USSF-36 mission is scheduled to fly aboard a Falcon 9 from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) on Thursday, Aug. 21, at 11:40 PM EDT (03:40 UTC). Following launch, which will see Falcon 9 fly to the northeast, the currently unknown booster will perform a return-to-launch-site landing at Landing Zone 2 (LZ-2).
Landing Zone 2 will be used for all future RTLS missions until landing pads are built at LC-39A and Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40). Landing Zone 1 is expected to be no longer used for Falcon landings, with the pad hosting its last landing during the launch of the Crew-11 mission.
Unlike other USSF missions, the primary payload for USSF-36 is known. A X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) is flying the program’s eighth mission since the OTV-1 mission in 2010 aboard an Atlas V. OTV Vehicle 1 will be making its fourth flight, after it flew the OTV-1, OTV-3, and OTV-6 missions.
Unlike OTV-7, the last X-37B flight, which was launched by a Falcon Heavy in December 2023, OTV-8 will fly into LEO. OTV-8 will perform demonstrations of high-bandwidth inter-satellite laser link communications and navigation using the highest performing quantum inertial sensor in space.
This flight will be the 101st Falcon 9 launch of 2025, as SpaceX works to fly up to 160 missions this year. It will also be the first flight from LC-39A since Crew-11 launched on Aug. 1.
Starlink satellites are released during Starlink Group 15-5, which also launched from SLC-4E on May 16. (Credit: SpaceX)
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 17-6
The lone Starlink mission this week is scheduled to fly on Friday, Aug. 22, at 8:44 AM PDT (15:44 UTC) from Space Launch Complex-4E (SLC-4E) at VSFB. The four-hour launch window lasts until 12:44 PM PDT (19:44 UTC). This flight, like other Group 17 launches, will fly on a southerly trajectory to place its satellites in SSO.
The booster, B1081-17, will perform a recovery on SpaceX’s Of Course I Still Love You droneship. B1081’s career started with the Crew-7 mission, and it has flown the CRS-29, PACE, Transporter 10, EarthCARE, NROL-186, Transporter 13, TRACERS, and eight Starlink missions.
B1081 has the distinction of not only flying a crewed spacecraft but also flying from all three of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch facilities on both coasts. Starlink Group 17-6 will be the 102nd Falcon 9 launch of 2025 and the company’s 545th mission overall, counting all launch vehicle families.
Falcon 9 lifts off from LC-39A carrying the CRS-26 mission and Cargo Dragon C211 to resupply the ISS. (Credit: Sawyer Rosenstein for NSF)
The next launch in the International Space Station’s (ISS) regular schedule of Cargo Resupply Services (CRS) missions is SpaceX’s CRS-33 mission, which is scheduled for Sunday, Aug. 24, at 2:45 AM EDT (06:45 UTC) from SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The launch window is instantaneous.
Falcon 9 will fly on a northeast trajectory to launch Cargo Dragon C211 to the ISS, which flies in a LEO inclined 51.6 degrees to the equator. The booster, B1090-7, will be recovered on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship in the Atlantic. The booster started its career with the O3b mPOWER 7 & 8 mission, and also has flown Crew-10, Bandwagon-3, O3b mPOWER 9 & 10, and two Starlink missions, all from Florida.
Cargo Dragon C211 will use a trunk capable of performing reboost burns for the Station, and will also carry more than 2,200 kg of supplies and experiments to ISS. Experiments that will be flown onboard include an engineered liver tissue study, an investigation into the effects of microgravity on bone marrow stem cells, and an orbital data center experiment involving a Red Hat Device Edge platform.
This flight will be the 103rd Falcon 9 launch of 2025 and the second CRS Cargo Dragon mission of the year.
Ship 37 rolls into the launch site for a second time. (Credit: Jack Beyer for NSF)
The Starship program looks to recover from recent setbacks as Ship 37, mounted to Booster 16, is scheduled to fly from Pad 1 at Starbase, Texas, on Sunday, Aug. 24. Launch is currently scheduled for 6:30 PM CDT (23:30 UTC). Starship will use a similar flight path to previous launches, flying eastward over the Gulf and Caribbean.
Booster 16 will be directed to a splashdown off the coast of Brownsville as it conducts tests during its descent, including a possible engine-out scenario. These tests will inform future catches of the Block 3 boosters that will fly with Raptor 3 engines.
Ship 37 was initially set to fly on Flight 11, while Ship 36 and Flight 10 were working toward a launch in late June or July. However, Ship 36 exploded on the test stand at Masseys just before it was supposed to perform a six-engine static fire, forcing SpaceX to reassign Ship 37 to Flight 10.
The explosion knocked the Massey’s Test Facility out of service for at least several months for static fire testing. To work around the lack of testing infrastructure, SpaceX designed a mount to static fire Ship 37 on the orbital launch mount at Pad 1. Ship 37 conducted a single-engine and a six-engine static fire test at the launch pad, but an issue with an engine necessitated an engine swap.
After Ship 37 completed a spin prime test with its new engine, the launch pad was reconfigured to host a full stack. Flight 10’s objectives are the same as the earlier Starship flights of 2025 that did not complete the needed tasks. On this flight, Ship 37 is carrying eight dummy Starlink satellites to be deployed, and SpaceX will attempt to get valuable reentry data before a planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
This will be the fourth Starship flight of 2025 and the penultimate flight from Pad 1 in its current configuration. This flight would also be the first entirely successful Block 2 flight if Ship 37 splashes down intact in the Indian Ocean, as SpaceX is preparing Block 3 for its debut early next year.
(Lead image: Falcon 9 launches from SLC-40. Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF)
The post Launch Roundup: SpaceX, Chinese, and Russian missions make up busy week appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.
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