With Vulcan grounded due to the USSF-87 SRB anomaly, ULA announced that, as expected, their next launch will be an Atlas V 551 carrying the Amazon Leo LA-05 mission. LVOS for this mission has already happened, and the launch is scheduled for NET March 30th pending range approval.
BlackSky announced that their 4th Gen3 satellite is operational! This confirms that, as expected, they launched on Rocket Lab's "Insight At Speed Is A Friend Indeed" mission a few days ago. I still don't get why they're confidential, but luckily they're easy to identify.
During the deployment of the ViaSat-3 Americas (F1) antenna reflector, an anomaly occured that means that the satellite can only operate at ~10% of its designed 1 Tbps capacity. This led to 2 years of additional work on ViaSat-3 F2 to diagnose the issue and implement a fix.
ViaSat-3 F2 has arrived in GEO following its Atlas V launch! Now that the satellite is in GEO, Viasat & Boeing will begin the deployment of its huge antenna reflector. If this goes well, Viasat will move forward with the launch of ViaSat-3 F3 on Falcon Heavy in the coming months.
Encapsulated inside of the fairing is the ~6,800kg EchoStar XXV satellite for EchoStar's subsidiary Dish Network. The satellite was built by Lanteris (formerly Maxar) and will operate at 110° West from which it'll deliver television broadcasting services to the continental US.
Falcon 9 first stage B1085-14 is vertical at SLC-40 with the EchoStar XXV geostationary communications satellite for SpaceX' first customer launch after 12 consecutive Starlink missions since Crew-12 a month ago. Lift-off is scheduled for later tonight at 03:19 UTC.
A view from land of a ship coming through a narrow strait. The ship is large, mostly blue, and has the letters M and N on the side. The landscape looks tropical, with palm trees and blue skies, but also a little rugged, with grey rocks poking out from the ground and a hill in the distance, on the other side of the straight. A few people are standing on land in front of the ship, watching it arrive. A text insert on the upper left corner reads 'Two weeks later'. A comic book style speech bubble says 'Welcome to the tropics, Inspector!', while another responds with 'Whoop! Whoop!'.
A top-down view of a ship, docked to a jetty, surrounded by green-brown murky water. Some white froth surrounds the back of the ship. The ship's deck is bright green, with white structures. Yellow paint lines seem to indicate different zones on the deck. Overall, the image is quite artistic and provides an original view of a large container ship docked. A text insert reads 'Mission log: Ship docked. Sea delivery complete.'
A drone view of a ship docked to a jetty. The ship is mostly blue, with a green deck covered with white structures. The back of the ship is open, and a lorry is carrying a white shipping container out of the ship, onto dry land. The landscape in the background looks very lush and green, indicating that this is taking place in a tropical country. A speech bubble associated with a crew member reads 'Attention all units: Inspector Smile on the move!'.
In the foreground, we see a lorry carrying a white container. The lorry is driving along a road that appears to be the entrance to a site. In the background, we see a white rocket behind many flags on flagpoles. There is a small building on the right and several cars parked next to the road. A sound bubble reads 'Wee-ooo, wee-ooo!' above the special convoy. A speech bubble coming from the white rocket reads 'Mail day!'.
🚢 🚚 Following a two-week journey, Inspector Smile has arrived at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.
Smile travelled with another friend onboard: the Vega-C upper stage, which will stay attached to Smile until the last moment before dropping it off in a very precise orbit around Earth.
🔭 🧪 🌞
Synspective has announced that their next StriX satellite is scheduled to launch aboard Electron NET March 19th at 17:45 UTC! Rocket Lab has not yet announced the mission. Synspective is Rocket Lab's largest customer, with 7 missions already launched and another 18 on contract.
Yeah the fact that they didn't want to talk about Gateway says a lot. Should hopefully learn relatively soon what their plans are as they need to provide an update to Congress on their plans when the reauthorization act gets enacted
Yeah. NASA currently also hasn't ordered core stages past Artemis V yet. CS-5 is the last on order.
Personally I think retiring SLS after Artemis V might be a bit too early, as I don't think commercial options will be immediately able to take over (as it currently stands).
Nice view of ISRO's GISAT-1A/EOS-05 satellite. Earlier notices indicated it should have launched by now on GSLV-F17, but those were removed with no new ones released. It's unclear when the picture was taken, but it's missing its telescope extension (which might be for shipping).
NASA says they did consider New Glenn's upper stage, but determined too many modifications to the stage itself and the Exploration Ground Systems would be required. Modifications would include shortening the stage to satisfy height requirements.
Via the US' System for Award Management, NASA announced that they intent to sole-contract ULA to deliver 3 Centaur V upper stages (2 flight, 1 spare) for the "standardized" SLS Block 1 configuration for the Artemis IV & V missions, set to launch in early & late 2028 respectively.
Unfortunately the SDA & Northrop Grumman are still working the software issue on Northrop's satellites, which (including some other issues) have caused delays to the T1TL-A launch. As a result, the SDA might pull a launch from York or Lockheed Martin forward in its manifest. t.co/TJRzI5c0Hg
Just days after our most recent mission from Virginia, Electron is on the pad at LC-1 ready for launch today for a confidential commercial customer.
'Insight at Speed is a Friend Indeed' is scheduled for liftoff:
🚀 12:53 pm NZDT, March 6
🚀 6:53 pm ET, March 5
🚀 3:53 pm PT, March 5
Rocket Lab confirms on their launch safety page that they have a launch today! The mission is named "Insight At Speed Is A Friend Indeed", and T-0 is set for 22:45 UTC. It sounds like this is the next BlackSky Gen3 launch, as their previous launched have also been "speed" themed.
SES' latest O3b mPOWER satellites are now operational! One more launch, this time carrying 3 satellites, is scheduled for September. While this will be the final launch for O3b mPOWER, SES has already started work together with start-up K2 Space on their future MEO-network.
According to new hazard area's, the next launch attempt for Firefly's FLTA007 "Stairway To Seven" mission is now scheduled for NET March 10th at 00:20 UTC. This week was not available due to yesterday's planned Minuteman III GT255GM test taking priority on the range.
Additional hazard area's have appeared, and they indicate launch is now scheduled for NET March 5th (tomorrow) between 22:15 and 01:50 UTC. No word from Rocket Lab yet. With their launch cadence increasing, these very late announcements are occuring more often.
ULA's new rocket transport vessel, SpaceShip, is in the water and almost ready to enter service! It'll join RocketShip in transporting Atlas V & Vulcan rockets from the factory to the launchsites. SpaceShip is larger then RocketShip, allowing it to carry 2 full Vulcan rockets. t.co/i1YjLzJzXK
Start the week with a Smile 😊
In preparation for Vega-C flight #VV29 that will take Smile to orbit from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, we're building the rocket that will take her to space.
The P120C solid booster and the Zefiro-40 stage have already been transferred to the launch zone.
After a few delays and holds, Rocket Lab successfully launched Hypersonix' DART-AE last night aboard HASTE! Rocket Lab's next launch is scheduled for NET March 4th per hazard area's. The trajectory matches with those flown on launches for Synspective, iQPS, and BlackSky.
NASA announced updated plans for their Artemis program to increase flightrate and reduce risk:
- Standardize SLS to "near Block 1"
- Artemis III is now a LEO rendezvous with one or both HLS landers NET Mid-2027
- Artemis IV (and potentially Artemis V) are lunar landings in 2028
Only just noticed this now, but that's a nice view of Rocket Lab's VICTUS HAZE spacecraft named "Puma". VICTUS HAZE was scheduled for late last year, but the issues Firefly has had with Alpha (which will launch True Anomaly's "Jackal") have pushed the launches to mid this year.
CRS-33 safely splashed down following a 187-day mission! This was the longest Cargo Dragon mission to date, thanks to the boost-trunk. SpaceX' next launch to the ISS will be Cygnus NG-24, which is set for NET Apr. 1 at ~15:00 UTC. The next Cargo Dragon, CRS-34, is set to launch in May.
Rocket Lab & BlackSky have announced that they've contracted an additional 4 launches! This will bring the total number of Electron launches for BlackSky to 17. BlackSky also announced that the next Gen-3 satellite is at the launchsite and is set to launch in the coming weeks!
It looks like "Voyager", which was previously owned by Space Perspective, is working in the USSF-87 SRB splashdown area to recover the SRB's out of the ocean. This same vessel was used to recover USSF-106's SRB's.
Lanteris Space Systems has announced that the EchoStar XXV satellite for EchoStar's subsidiary Dish Network has arrived in Florida for launch! The satellite is currently undergoing final preparations ahead of its Falcon 9 launch that is scheduled for NET March 9th at ~03:00 UTC.
Blue Origin is making great progress on their 1st Blue Ring vehicle. It's set to launch on a NSSL-class launch vehicle towards GEO. It'll carry several payloads, including Scout Space's "Owl" SDA sensor and an internally developed navigation & imaging system known as "Paparazzi".
For the first time ever, Rocket Lab will livestream a HASTE launch! 6 HASTE launches have taken place so far with various levels of disclosure, ranging from the mission name and some payload details, to only acknowledging the launch on their website without any details at all.
