SpaceX leads the week’s launch manifest with three scheduled missions and, at the time of publishing, is the sole launch service provider behind the year’s first five launches. Alongside two Starlink flights, the company is launching 20 payloads on a rideshare mission carrying an exoplanet observation mission for NASA.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launches its first mission of 2026 in the early hours of next Monday morning, delivering an Indian Earth observation satellite alongside 18 other rideshare payloads.
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 6-96
This is the first of two Starlink missions this week, both for the Group 6 shell of the internet megaconstellation, and both launching from SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The four-hour launch window opens at 13:29 EST (18:29 UTC) on Thursday, Jan. 8.
Booster B1069 will be making its 29th flight on this mission, carrying another 29 Starlink v2-Mini satellites into low-Earth orbit. Following stage separation, this first stage will return to land on the deck of the droneship Just Read The Instructions, which will be waiting downrange.
Starlink currently serves over nine million subscribers across the globe. At the start of the week, SpaceX had launched 10,868 Starlink satellites, of which 1445 have deorbited, and 8170 have moved into their operational orbits.
Starlink satellites are released during the Starlink Group 15-5 mission (Credit: SpaceX)
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 6-97
The second Starlink mission of the week will launch on Saturday, Jan. 10, once again from the pad at SLC-40. This has become the only active pad for Falcon 9 launches since the Group 6-99 mission in mid-December, as the company focuses on using LC-39A for Falcon Heavy missions and prepares to launch Starship from the Cape.
Liftoff is scheduled at the top of a four-hour window, which opens at 13:34 EST (18:34 UTC). Another 29 Starlink satellites will be transported aboard a Falcon 9 to join the Group 6 shell at 559 km altitude.
Michael Nicholls, Vice President of Starlink Engineering at SpaceX, recently announced plans for a major constellation reconfiguration aimed at improving orbital safety. During 2026, roughly 4,400 Starlink satellites currently operating at an altitude of around 550 km will be lowered to 480 km in a process that will be coordinated with other satellite operators, regulators, and the US Space Command.
Operating at a lower altitude significantly reduces the time failed satellites remain in orbit, especially as solar minimum approaches and atmospheric drag weakens. At these lower altitudes, uncontrolled satellites would naturally deorbit in months rather than years, while also operating in a region with less orbital debris and fewer planned constellations, reducing the overall risk of collisions.
Booster B1078 will be making its 25th flight on this mission as it heads southeast from the launch site. This first stage will perform an entry burn around six minutes into the mission, after which it will return to land on the deck of the autonomous droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed downrange in the Atlantic Ocean.
Falcon 9 | Twilight (Pandora & Others)
A Falcon 9 will launch from pad SLC-4E at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Sunday, Jan. 11, at 05:09 PST (13:09 UTC). The mission will head south from the launch site and will place 20 payloads for different customers into a Sun-Synchronous Orbit.
NASA’s Pandora will observe at least 20 exoplanets and their host stars during its planned one-year mission. The satellite will observe them simultaneously in visible and near-infrared light during planetary transits. By repeatedly monitoring these worlds, Pandora aims to identify atmospheric components such as water vapor and hazes, helping scientists improve interpretations of data from larger observatories like NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and future missions searching for habitable planets.
Render of Pandora peering at an exoplanet transiting its star (Credit: NASA)
Also on board are the first ten satellites for Kepler Communications’ operational Tranche 1 constellation. These next-generation communication satellites will operate as a resilient mesh network, using laser links that offer high throughput and low latency between space, air, and ground-based assets. The network will be compatible with the US Space Development Agency’s communications standards, providing real-time connectivity, on-orbit compute, and payload hosting for both Government and commercial customers.
The mission will also carry Spire Global’s first-of-its-kind Hyperspectral Microwave Sounder, or HyMS. This UK-developed compact satellite demonstrator will measure atmospheric variables, including temperature, precipitation, and humidity, to inform better global weather forecasting. Spire will also deploy eight Lemur-2 satellites in their microwave-sounding navigation-signal, or MINAS, configuration for the Luxembourg Satellite System.
The booster supporting this mission has not been confirmed at the time of publishing, and will return to the launch site to land on the concrete pad at Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4).
PSLV-DL at the Satish Dhawan Space Center’s First Launch Pad ahead of the XPoSat launch in Jan. 2024 (Credit: ISRO)
India’s first launch of the year is also a rideshare mission, carrying 18 smaller payloads in addition to the primary EOS-N1 Earth-observation satellite. While unconfirmed, this is suspected to be the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation’s ‘Anvesha’ hyperspectral imaging satellite.
The mission will also deploy a diverse set of rideshare payloads, including Orbital Paradigm’s KID Capsule. This is a small experimental re-entry spacecraft designed to demonstrate autonomous atmospheric return, thermal protection technologies, and payload recovery – a key step toward low-cost orbital return capabilities in the future.
The launch is expected to occur shortly into a four-hour launch window at 10:17 IST (04:47 UTC) on Monday, Jan. 12, from the Satish Dhawan Space Center. A PSLV rocket will head south from the First Launch Pad in its DL (or Dual-Large) configuration, with two solid strap-on boosters. The previous launch of this configuration carried the XPoSat mission just over two years ago on Jan. 1, 2024. The vehicle will be expended after placing its payloads into a Sun-Synchronous Orbit.
(Lead image: Falcon 9 launches from Florida. Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF)
(Lead image: Long exposure of a Falcon 9 launch and landing – Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF)
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