The Weekly Rocket Report #17

03/10/2025-03/16/2025

Ricky Whitmore

Space Writer 

Hello all and welcome back to the Weekly Rocket Report!  We had a busy week this week so lets break it down:

The week began in China on Tuesday afternoon.  A Long March 8 launched G60 Polar Group 5 to orbit.  This marks another addition one of China's low earth orbit communication satellite constellations. 

Tuesday night then saw a very exciting launch.  After a few delays Falcon 9 launched 2 NASA Science payloads to orbit.  The first of these was SPHEREx a space telescope designed to provide a spectral survey of hundreds of millions of galaxies.  The second was PUNCH, a series of 4 small satellites designed to study how the Sun's corona and solar wind.  Following stage separation the Falcon booster landed back on land at LZ-4.

Moving on to Wednesday night, Falcon 9 took Starlink 12-21 to orbit.  The 21 satellites were deployed in orbit, and the booster returned to Earth, landing on the drone ship "A Shortfall of Gravitas". 

Now let's talk about the whirlwind that was Friday night into Saturday morning.  All together there were 5 launches in just a tick over 12 hours.  That is a mind blowing statistic, and even better, there was supposed to be a 6th, but the Russian Angara flight got delayed.  

The first of these flights at 7:03PM was SpaceX Crew-10, riding a Falcon 9 topped with a Dragon Capsule.  Crew 10 included NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayes, JAXA's Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos Cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.  Following a successful ascent the rocket's booster returned to land at LZ-1.  The crew successfully docked to the ISS Sunday just after midnight. (More on Crew 10 HERE) 

Falcon 9 launches Crew 10 to the International Space Station. Photo Credit: SpaceX.

Only an hour later saw the launch of "The Lightning God Reigns".  The payload, a small SAR satellite, was launched by Electron, from Rocket Lab's facility on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. 

Electron launches “The Lightning God Reigns”. Photo Credit: Rocket Lab.

Saturday at 12:11AM a Long March 2D blasted off from China's Jiuquan launch center.  The rocket was carrying SuperviewNeo 3-02, a commercial Earth observation satellite.  

Next on the docket was another Falcon 9.  At 2:43AM Transporter 13 took off from the Vandenberg Space Force Base.  The mission's 74 payloads were deployed to various orbits and the rocket's first stage booster landed back on land at LZ-4.

Last up on the 12 hour launch fest was another Starlink mission.  Falcon 9 took the 23 satellites of Starlink Group 12-16 to orbit, and its first stage landed on the drone ship "Just Read The Instructions".

The final launch of the week is that Angara that was supposed to be part of the 12 hour extravaganza.  Launching instead Sunday morning, Angara took Cosmos 2585-2587 to orbit, these are communication satellites for the Russian Military.  

There we have it everyone, a busy week of launches.  Busy week long span on the ISS as well with Crew 10 arriving yesterday, Crew 9 returning home today, a Cygnus capsule being released this Friday, and the station boosting its orbit in advance of the Soyuz mission arriving in April.  We'll be back next week to cover the launches and events, see you then!

As always feel free to write to me at rickyew2112@gmail.com, or find me on X @Rickyew2112

Sic Itur Ad Astra

(Thus They Journey to the Stars)