The Weekly Rocket Report #15
02/24/2025-03/02/2025
Ricky Whitmore
Space Writer
Hello everyone and welcome back to another installment of the Weekly Rocket Report! We had a pretty busy week this week (though not as busy as it could have been) so let’s break it all down:
The week began Tuesday morning with a New Shepard launching NS-30. This mission marked New Shepard’s 10th human spaceflight as the vehicle carried 6 people into space to experience Zero-G and incredible views of the Earth. Both the booster, and the crew capsule landed safely in the West Texas desert to be re-used for a later mission.
New Shepard on the pad prior to the launch of NS-30. Photo Credit: Blue Origin.
The next launch, Wednesday evening, brought a wave of excitement through the space community, with Falcon 9 launching “Nova-C IM-2 & Others”. This mission contained 4 payloads: CHIMERA-GEO 1 is a transfer ship being sent to geostationary orbit. Odin, a small satellite built by the company AstroForge, is being sent to observe the Near-Earth Asteroid “2022 OB5” (gotta love asteroid naming schemes). This mission will serve as the beginning of the company’s eventual goals of asteroid mining. Payload 3, called SIMPLEx 5, is a NASA lunar orbiter designed to map locations of water on the surface of the moon. Last, but certainly not least is NOVA-C, the lunar lander built by Intuitive Machines. The lander, which itself is carrying 10 lunar science payloads of its own, is set to land at Mons Mouton on the moon later this week. Following the launch of all this payload the Falcon 9 booster proceeded back to Earth where it landed on the drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas”.
Falcon 9 second stage following the launch of Nova-C IM-2. Image Credit: SpaceX.
Moving from the exciting, to the seemingly mundane, let's talk about Starlink Group 12-13. The Falcon 9 lifted off from the Cape Wednesday night and carried its 21 satellites to orbit. Following separation, the first stage headed back to earth where it landed on its drone ship “Just Read The Instructions”.
From here we head on over to Asia for a while, and we begin with SuperView Neo1 3-4. The 2 commercial Earth observation satellites were launched by a Chinese Long March 2C early Thursday morning.
Later Thursday morning came a launch to the International Space Station. Firing out of Baikonur Cosmodrome was a Soyuz 2.1a carrying Progress MS-30. The Russian cargo capsule carried over 7,200KG (around 16,000 pounds) of cargo to the ISS.
Progress Capsule docking to the ISS following its launch by Soyuz 2.1a on Progress MS-30. Image Credit: NASA.
Bouncing back to China, early Friday morning saw the launch of a Kuaizhou 1A rocket from Jiuquan Satellite Center. As of now little to no information has been released regarding the payload, or success of this launch, more than 48 hours later. This makes me think the launch did not go well, though that is entirely speculation.
To Russia again, a Soyuz 2.1b Fregat blasted off from Plesetsk Cosmodrome Sunday afternoon. The rocket was carrying another addition to Russia’s Glonass satellite navigation system.
Back to the US for our final launch of the week, another Starlink mission. Falcon 9 lifted off Sunday night carrying the 21 satellites of Starlink Group 12-20. The payloads were deployed successfully and the booster returned to Earth, landing on the drone ship “Just Read The Instructions”. However, shortly after landing a fire in the booster damaged the landing leg, causing the booster to tip over and be destroyed.
There’s your recap of the week everyone. Pretty busy week, and we’re looking forward to another one next week. One other thing to note this week is the landing of the Blue Ghost lunar lander, built by Firefly Aerospace. The lander touched down at Mare Crisium on the lunar surface successfully. Starship is slated for tonight (I typically write these Monday morning), and there was supposed to be an Ariane 6 launch, but that has since been scrubbed. There is also set to be another lunar landing this week, with Intuitive Machine’s Athena lander touching down at Mons Mouton. We will be back here to cover it all next week, for the Weekly Rocket Report.
Shadow of the Blue Ghost lander from Mare Crisium on the moon. Photo Credit: Firefly Aerospace.
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)