The Weekly Rocket Report #22

Weekly Rocket Report

04/14/2025-04/20/2025

Ricky Whitmore

Space Writer

Welcome back everyone, to the Weekly Rocket Report!  Interesting week, filled with controversy, and a rare launch vehicle.  Let’s break it all down:

The week began, the same as last week, a Starlink Mission.  Starlink Group 6-73 launched on Falcon 9 in the wee hours of Monday morning.  The 27 satellites were deployed successfully, and the 1st stage booster landed down range on the drone ship “Just Read the Instructions”.  Also of note, the booster for this flight B1067, became the first booster to fly for a whopping 27th time.  Will it hit 30?

Falcon 9 launches Starlink Group 6-73. Photo Credit: SpaceX.

Later Monday morning we saw a launch of New Shepard on NS-31.  This was Blue Origin’s 11th human spaceflight, carrying Katy Perry, Gayle King, Lauren Sanchez, Kerianne Flynn, Amanda Nguyen, and Aisha Bowe above the Karman Line.  Both the Crew Capsule and the New Shepard Booster landed successfully in the West Texas Desert.  Following this flight there was a social media firestorm that I will not be getting into here.  If you have any interest in reading about said firestorm and my thoughts regarding the flight you can do so here (https://www.theweeklyspaceman.com/articles/the-inspiration-of-katy-perrys-trip-to-space-opinion).

One of the more interesting launches in recent weeks happened Wednesday afternoon with the launch of NROL-174.  The mission launched aboard a Minotaur IV, a rocket that last flew a mission in July of 2020.  For as rare an occurrence as a Minotaur launch is, a lot of people (myself included) were excited to watch it, but there was nothing.  No stream, no photos, no announcement from Northrop Grumman.  Sadly, the launch came and went without anything at all, though later a video was published of the launch.  You can tell Minotaur is based off an ICBM because it absolutely leaps off the launch pad.

Minotaur IV launches NROL-174. Photo Credit: NRO.

From the incredibly rare, back to the very common, we close out the week with a Long March and a Falcon 9.  Long March 6A launched 6 Shiyan satellites Friday evening, what the purpose of said satellites are, is of course, not known. 

Finally we close out the week with Falcon 9 launching NROL-145 Sunday morning.  This launch added another batch of satellites to the NRO imaging constellation built by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman.  Following stage separation, the rocket’s booster returned to Earth, landing on the drone shop “Of Course I Still Love You”. 

That is all the launches for this week everyone, it was super cool to see Minotaur get off the ground for the first time in almost half a decade.  Next week we have an ISS Re-supply mission to look forward to, as well as the launch of Firefly Alpha, and of course, more Starlink launches.  You know, I remember thinking at one point “I wonder what the launch world will look like by the time the Starlink constellation is complete, and they aren’t launching anymore, will there be not many launches to watch?”  Of course, now I figure by the time Starlink is finished there will be more companies watching more rockets, and Starship will likely be launching at a ridiculous cadence so us launch viewers won’t have anything to worry about.  With all that being said, one small announcement, I will be away next Monday, wrapping up a weekend kite festival, so the Weekly Rocket will be here out Tuesday evening as opposed to Monday evening, but it will be here!  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)