Nine launches are scheduled this week, with rockets expected to liftoff from Florida, California, Russia, Kazakhstan, and China. Most notably, NASA’s long-awaited Artemis II mission is scheduled to launch the first humans to the Moon in over 50 years on Wednesday. SpaceX has four Starlink missions scheduled for the week, with Falcon 9 launching two from Florida and two from California. The United Launch Alliance is also expected to launch a new batch of Amazon Leo internet satellites on an Atlas V following a launch delay from last week.
Internationally, Russia is set to launch a Soyuz 2.1a from Plesetsk on Wednesday and the debut flight of the Soyuz 5 from Baikonur on Saturday. Chinese commercial launch companies CAS Space and Space Pioneer are also set to debut new rockets this week with their Kinetica 2 and Tianlong 3, respectively.
The first Kinetica-2 successfully lifts off from Jiuquan on March 30, 2025. (Credit: Wang Jiangbo/Xinhua)
Kinetica 2 | Qingzhou Demo Flight
China had issued a NOTAM for a launch from Jiuquan on Monday, March 30. This NOTAM was later found to be the debut flight of CAS Space’s Kinetica 2 rocket, though other speculation in the past days had centered on Space Pioneer’s Tianlong 3, also nearing readiness for its debut flight. The danger zones in the NOTAM, indicating a southerly polar trajectory, did not exactly match those of a Chang Zheng 2C or 2D, which have also been used to launch on polar trajectories from Jiuquan.
The Kinetica 2, also known as Lijian-2, launched successfully from Site 140 at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Monday, March 30, at 11:00 UTC, carrying three payloads into Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO).
The Kinetica 2 is a Chinese commercial launch vehicle with two stages and two fixed strap-on boosters attached to the core stage that do not separate. The first stage and boosters are designed to land as a unit and to be reused; the reuse capability is envisioned for 2027.
The Qingzhou demo spacecraft being prepared for flight. (Credit: CAS Space and China Daily)
This debut flight carried the Qingzhou space station cargo ship for the Innovation Academy for Microsatellites of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. A tech demonstration satellite and an educational satellite also flew onboard. CAS Space is a majority-owned commercial launch arm of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the company recently won a contract to supply the Tiangong space station.
Kinetica 2’s first stage features nine engines, using kerosene and liquid oxygen as propellants, with three engines on each booster and three on the core stage. The second stage engine also uses kerosene and liquid oxygen as its propellants. Kinetica 2 is capable of flying up to 12,000 kg to low-Earth orbit (LEO) or 7,800 kg to a 500 km altitude SSO.
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 10-44
SpaceX’s first scheduled Starlink launch of the week is set for Monday, March 30, at 5:15 PM EDT (21:15 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida. The launch window lasts until 9:15 PM EDT on March 30 (01:15 UTC on March 31).
B1067-34 will once again set the record for most flights by a booster, and it will take a northeast trajectory with a landing on Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic. The second stage will carry 29 Starlink v2 Mini satellites to an initial 252 km by 267 km LEO inclined 53.16 degrees to the equator.
There are 10,139 Starlink satellites currently in orbit, and 7,993 satellites are in their operational orbits as of March 27.
This flight will be the 40th Falcon 9 launch of 2026 and the last one of March if schedules hold. The weather for a March 30 launch is currently 70% favorable, with the cumulus cloud and surface electric rules being the primary concerns.
Soyuz 2.1a/Fregat-M | Meridian-M no. 21L
The Russian military is now planning to launch a Meridian-M communications satellite to fly aboard a Soyuz 2.1a rocket from Site 43/3 at Plesetsk on Wednesday, April 1, at 02:00 UTC. The Soyuz rocket, equipped with a Fregat-M upper stage, will launch the payload into an elliptical Molniya orbit; the orbit’s apogee will allow the satellite to spend an extended time over northern Russia, providing military and civilian communications to remote regions.
The Meridian-M satellite, though designated 21L, is the 11th Meridian-M satellite to fly. This satellite may be the last Meridian-M to fly, as the Sfera-V satellite is being developed as a replacement. This is the second Soyuz 2.1a flight of 2026.
From L to R: Backup crewmembers Andre Douglas, Jenni Gibbons, prime crewmembers Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Jeremy Hansen, and Christina Koch in front of SLS. (Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)
Humanity’s first crewed launch to the vicinity of the Moon since Dec. 7, 1972, is scheduled to fly from Launch Complex 39B (LC-39B) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on Wednesday, April 1, at 6:24 PM EDT (22:24 UTC). The launch window on April 1 lasts until 8:24 PM EDT (00:24 UTC April 2).
The SLS will launch on a trajectory that will take the Orion spacecraft Integrity to a parking orbit, after which the ICPS upper stage sends the craft into high-Earth orbit for 23 hours of systems testing before getting cleared to fly to the Moon. After injection into this high orbit, Integrity will jettison the ICPS, and the crew will conduct rendezvous and proximity operations tests before the stage conducts a burn to send it to deep space for disposal.
After spacecraft separation, the ICPS will also deploy four cubesats. The German space agency DLR’s TACHELES, Argentina’s ATENEA, South Korea’s K-RadCube, and Saudi Arabia’s Space Weather CubeSat-1 will be deployed into high-Earth orbit to conduct experiments on the space environment.
Artemis II’s crew members, commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch of NASA and the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen, will conduct numerous tests during the 10-day flight. This is the first-ever crewed flight of SLS and Orion, and if the systems tests in high-Earth orbit go well, the crew will get a go for the first of several trans-lunar injection burns using Integrity’s main engine on its European-built service module.
The spacecraft will reach the vicinity of the Moon on Flight Day 6, passing as close as 6,500 km to the far side of the Moon, taking a “free return” trajectory and using lunar gravity to slingshot it back to Earth. Integrity will take four days to return to Earth, conducting a high-speed reentry with a modified procedure to reduce the risk of heat shield damage seen on Artemis I, before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off of Southern California.
Jeremy Hansen will become the first non-American to fly beyond Earth orbit and to the Moon. In addition, Christina Koch will become the first woman to fly to the Moon, and Victor Glover will become the first person of color to do so. Artemis II will not land on the surface or even enter lunar orbit, but it is a critical step and milestone on the way to a human lunar landing, currently scheduled for Artemis IV in early 2028.
Tianlong-3 vertical on the launch pad. (Credit: Space Pioneer)
The Chinese commercial launch provider Space Pioneer, also known as Tianbing Technology, has scheduled the first flight of the Tianlong-3 partially reusable launch vehicle for Thursday, April 2, at 04:00 UTC from a commercial launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.
The Tianlong-3 will take a southerly trajectory, which would inject any payload it may be carrying into a polar orbit, though it is not known with certainty whether there is a payload. The rocket is designed to carry a batch of up to 36 satellites similar to Starlink, and its first stage is designed to land using legs similar to the Falcon 9 and to be reused up to 10 times. For this debut launch, however, the stage will be expended.
Although this is the first planned Tianlong-3 flight, a Tianlong-3 first stage accidentally launched during a static fire test on June 30, 2024. After a structural failure, the stage launched for a brief flight before crashing in the mountains near the city of Gongyi.
The 71 m tall rocket has two stages. The first stage is powered by nine Tianhuo-12 engines using liquid oxygen and RP-1 kerosene as propellants, and the second stage uses one Tianhuo-12 vacuum-optimized engine with the same propellants. The medium-lift rocket is capable of carrying up to 17,000 kg to LEO or 14,000 kg to SSO, similar to the SpaceX Falcon 9.
Starlink 10-40 launching from Cape Canaveral on March 4, 2026. (Credit: SpaceX)
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 10-58
SpaceX’s second Starlink launch of the week, Starlink Group 10-58, is scheduled for Thursday, April 2, at 7:52 AM EDT (11:42 UTC) from SLC-40 at CCSFS. The launch window lasts until 11:52 AM EDT (15:52 UTC).
Booster B1085-15 will take a northeast trajectory, with the mission flying 29 Starlink v2 Mini satellites. The booster will land on Just Read the Instructions out in the Atlantic, and the satellites will end up in a LEO inclined 53.16 degrees to the equator.
The booster started its career with the Starlink Group 10-5 mission, and later flew six additional Starlink flights along with Crew-9, GPS III SV07, the dual Blue Ghost Mission 1 and Hakuto-R M2 Resilience lunar mission, Fram2, SXM-10, MTG-S1/Sentinel-4A, and EchoStar XXV. All of the booster’s flights have been from either KSC or CCSFS.
This will be the 41st Falcon 9 launch of 2026 if schedules hold.
The Starlink 17-23 payload before deployment in orbit on March 1, 2026. (Credit: SpaceX)
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 17-35
SpaceX’s third Starlink mission of the week is also set to fly on Thursday, April 2, at 4:03 PM PDT (23:03 UTC) from Space Launch Complex-4E (SLC-4E) at the Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) in California. The launch window lasts until 8:03 PM PDT on April 2 (03:03 UTC on April 3).
Falcon booster B1103 will make its first flight and follow a southwesterly trajectory before landing on Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific. The mission will carry 25 Starlink v2 Mini satellites into a SSO inclined 97.29 degrees to the equator.
The vast majority of SpaceX Falcon 9 missions now involve reused boosters, and B1103 is the first new booster to fly since B1101 on Jan. 4, 2026, for the Starlink Group 6-88 mission. This flight will be the 42nd Falcon 9 launch of the year.
An Atlas V 551 stands at the launch pad for the Amazon Leo LA-05 mission. (Credit: United Launch Alliance)
Atlas V 551 | Amazon Leo LA-05
After an unfavorable weather forecast caused United Launch Alliance (ULA) to delay the Amazon Leo LA-05 mission from Sunday, March 29, a new launch date is now set for Saturday, April 4, at 1:45 AM EDT (05:45 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) at CCSFS. The launch window lasts until 2:14 AM EDT (06:14 UTC).
The Atlas V, flying in its most powerful configuration nicknamed “Bruiser,” will launch using the power of its RD-180 engine, with RP-1 and liquid oxygen as propellants, along with five GEM-63 solid rocket boosters. The rocket will take a northeast trajectory, and the Centaur upper stage will place 27 Amazon Leo (formerly known as Project Kuiper) satellites into a roughly 443 km by 448 km initial LEO, inclined 51.9 degrees to the equator.
As of March 27, 214 Amazon Leo satellites have been launched. This will be the first Atlas V launch of 2026, and it is possible that all remaining Atlas V 551 “Bruiser” configuration flights will be finished before the end of the year, as ULA works to get its Vulcan rocket back to flight after an SRB anomaly during a flight in February.
The Soyuz-5’s first stage RD-171MV engine ahead of flight. (Credit: Roscosmos)
Russia’s newest launch vehicle, designed as a replacement for the Ukrainian-built Soviet-era Zenit medium-lift rocket, is now scheduled to make its launch debut on Saturday, April 4, at 11:00 UTC from Site 45/1 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The rocket, also known as Irtysh, will take a northeast trajectory that will avoid Chinese territory. For its first flight, Soyuz 5 is carrying a mass simulator, and the objective is simply to validate the rocket’s performance and gather data.
The Soyuz 5 rocket, standing over 60 m tall, consists of two stages but can also use an optional Blok DM-SLB third stage for geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) missions. The first stage uses one RD-171MV engine, and the second stage uses one RD-0124MS; both engines, along with the optional third stage, use RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen as propellants. Soyuz 5 can launch up to 18,000 kg to LEO and 5,000 kg to GTO.
This is the first of four test flights for Soyuz 5 before development is complete, and the Soyuz 5 could, in time, be used as a booster for the Yenisei heavy-lift rocket, just as Zenit was used in a similar manner for the Energia rocket in the 1980s.
(The Amazon Leo LA-05 Atlas V 551 and SLS for Artemis II are both at their launch pads. Credit: Nathan Barker for NSF)
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