Weekly Rocket Report (10/28/2024-11/04/2024)
Hello and welcome to the first edition of my weekly rocket report! We start out with a busy week so let’s jump into it.
Tuesday afternoon saw the launch of the Shenzhou 19 mission from the Jiuquan launch center in China. A Long March 2F/G carried 3 astronauts, Cai Xuzhe, Song Lingdong, and Wang Haozhe, to the Tiangong Space Station. With their arrival the 3 astronauts on the station returned home, landing safely in their capsule back in Northern China after a 6 month stay in orbit. (More on Shenzhou 19 here)
Long March 2F/G Launches Shenzhou 19 ImageCredit: CNSA
On Wednesday SpaceX performed a double Falcon 9 launch, with Starlink Group 9-9 launching from Vandenberg and Starlink Group 10-13 launching from Cape Canaveral. Together the launches put an additional 43 Starlink satellites in orbit. Both 1st stage Falcon boosters landed successfully on drone ships. Wednesday also marked a big milestone for SpaceX as it launched its 200th Starlink mission.
Falcon 9 Launches Starlink Group 10-13 Image Credit: SpaceX
The early morning hours of Halloween saw the launch of a Soyuz 2.1a from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia. The mission was officially titled “Cosmos 2579” and the payload is said to be a surveillance satellite.
Outside of launches we did have some orbital maneuvering at the International Space Station. The Crew Dragon, which launched Crew 9 recently had to be moved to a different docking port in order to make room for the upcoming Cargo Dragon, which is set to launch from the Cape this week.
That’s all on the launch front for this week folks. Looking forward to another exciting week hopefully featuring a CRS flight and an Electron launch, named after a Jimmy Buffett song! See you back here next week for the Weekly Rocket Report!
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)