This week nearly saw two secret spaceplanes launched inside days of one another. After ground systems concerns after which weather delays, the US Department of Defense’s X-37B vehicle had its OTV-7 launch on the Falcon Heavy USSF-52 mission scrubbed from its initial planned attempt on Dec. 11. Starlink Group 6-34 was also scrubbed that very same day and again a day later resulting from high-level ground winds, during what turned out to be quite a volatile week for planned launches.
As we go to press, a double header looks to be back on, this time on the evening of Dec. 28 with each a Falcon Heavy and a distinct Falcon 9 launch scheduled inside five hours of one another. If the present schedule stays as-is, this Falcon 9 flight, Starlink Group 7-9, will probably be SpaceX’s three hundredth mission and poignantly its last of this yr.
China launched two of its tallest lively rockets this week inside a fraction over 24 hours of one another. The Chang Zheng 2F/T launched China’s own equally secretive CSSHQ spaceplane on Dec. 14 for its third flight. This was followed the subsequent day by the primary and only launch this yr of a Chang Zheng 5 carrying the Yaogan 41 reconnaissance satellite from the Wenchang space launch center right into a high elliptical orbit.
At 52 and 57 meters tall, respectively, these are beaten in height by the less incessantly flown Chang Zheng 2F/G at 58.3 meters. That is next slated to launch the crewed Shenzhou 18 mission to the Tianhe core module of the Tiangong space station in May next yr.
A 3rd Chinese mission launched one other experimental craft three days later when a Hyperbola 1 Y7 took a reusable cargo spacecraft on its first orbital test for AZSPACE’s DEAR-1 mission. Conical in shape, this craft is designed to take as much as 300 kilograms for as much as a yr in orbit. The Hyperbola rocket family has been a spotlight this last week following the discharge of video from the Hyperbola-2Y hop test, and pathfinding for the planned reusable Hyperbola 3 vehicle.
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SpaceX personnel at LC-39A prepare Falcon Heavy for rollback into the HIF – additional work is required before launch.
📸 – @NASASpaceflight pic.twitter.com/COicRHUsbY
— Max Evans (@_mgde_) December 13, 2023
With the delays to each the USSF-52 and Starlink 6-34 missions the SpaceX goal of 100 launches this yr has shifted from being tight to unobtainable. Nonetheless, its record variety of launches and overall achievement has been incredible, including its 2 hundredth successful droneship landing with Starlink Group 7-8 just a few weeks ago. As things currently stand, it can have achieved 98 Falcon missions this yr.
Its ambitious goal of 144 intended launches next yr implies an increased cadence that might average 12 per thirty days. Achieving this also requires a rise in return-to-launch site (RTLS) missions, including Starlink missions with an optional RTLS profile.
The delayed Starlink Group 6-34 finally launched on Dec. 17 at 11:01 PM EST (04:01 UTC on Dec. 18), lifting one other 23 Starlink V2 Mini satellites into low-Earth orbit.
Elsewhere, Rocket Lab’s Electron launched “The Moon God Awakens” mission on Dec. 15, the third in a planned series of 36 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites for iQPS, and Rocket Lab’s first for this customer. The satellite will use radar to map the Earth every 10 minutes, in all weather conditions, including through clouds. This was Rocket Lab’s tenth and final launch of the yr following a brief pause in flights after the unexpected anomaly through the “We Will Never Desert You” mission in September.
A Soyuz-2.1b rocket launched the second of ten planned satellites within the Arktika-M meteorological constellation on Dec. 16. It will utilize a highly elliptical Molniya orbit to maximise its time monitoring the upper latitudes of the Arctic region, while also providing emergency rescue communications capability.
This busy week in space also saw three days of delay within the undocking of Cargo Dragon CRS-29 resulting from weather. It finally left the Harmony module of the ISS on Dec. 15, following a one-month stay, after which it splashed down off the coast of Florida.
On Dec. 18, Blue Origin’s uncrewed NS-24 mission launched at 10:43 AM CST (16:43 UTC) from Launch Site One at its West Texas spaceport. This was the primary launch of Recent Shepard in over 15 months because the failure of an engine nozzle on the uncrewed NS-23 mission triggered an auto-abort on Sept. 12, 2022.
The vehicle was subsequently grounded until the FAA concluded its investigations this September citing 21 corrective actions. 33 science and research payloads and other cargo are also on board, including 38,000 postcards sent to Blue Origin’s “Club For The Future” which will probably be returned to their senders, stamped “Flown to Space,” as keepsakes.
LAUNCH! Recent Shepard Return To Flight (uncrewed).
Overview:https://t.co/EMspknqAYE
Livestream:https://t.co/yZ3QqTD5Ij pic.twitter.com/1xoS6cNIsB
— Chris Bergin – NSF (@NASASpaceflight) December 19, 2023
On Dec. 20 at 9:18 AM PST (17:18 UTC), Firefly will launch its Alpha vehicle on the “Fly the Lightning” mission from SLC-2W at Vandenberg Space Force Base, in California. This mission will place Lockheed Martin’s recent wideband electronically steerable antenna (ESA) integrated onto the Terran orbital nebula satellite bus.
Massing within the tons of of kilograms, this payload will probably be used to exhibit ESA’s fast on-orbit sensor calibration and deliver these rapid capabilities to america warfighters. It is predicted that this payload is calibrated in a fraction of the period of time that traditional payloads take, but little info has been given to date.
Soyuz 2.1a | Cosmos (Unknown Payload)
On Dec. 21, at 08:00 UTC, Russia will launch an unknown payload from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, in Russia. The payload will probably be placed right into a Sun-synchronous orbit.
Falcon 9 Block 5 | SARah 2 & 3
Squeezing into the schedule just before the weekend, and is resulting from lift off from SLC-4E at Vandenberg on Dec. 22 at 4:56 AM PST (12:56 UTC).
The booster has not yet been declared but will probably be landing back at LZ-4. Details of the mission are scarce as this can be a secretive government project.
The pair of distant sensing satellites have been built by Airbus for the German military and use synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology. They will probably be placed right into a sun-synchronous orbit where they’re intended to fly in formation with their predecessor SARah 1, constructing out the SAR-Lupe constellation.
Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-32
On Friday, Dec. 22 at 11:00 PM EST (04:00 UTC on Dec. 23), SpaceX will launch yet one more 23 Starlink v2 Mini satellites into low-Earth orbit from SLC-40. As usual for these group six missions, the second stage will conduct two burns to achieve the planned 285 by 293-kilometer initial low-Earth orbit. Over the approaching weeks, the satellites will undergo checkouts, and lift their orbit to the 530-kilometer circular orbit at 43.00 degrees.
Soyuz 2.1v/Volga | Cosmos (Unknown Payload)
On Dec. 26 at 18:00 UTC, Russia will launch an unknown payload atop a Soyuz 2.1v/Volga rocket. This mission will lift off from Site 43/4 on the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, in Russia.
Also due in the ultimate days of 2023 are the XPoSat mission to be launched on a PSLV-DL from the First Launch Pad on the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India.
That is its first dedicated X-Ray Polarimeter mission to review various vivid astronomical sources in extreme conditions and consists of two payloads massing 480 kilograms, which will probably be deployed into low-Earth Orbit to perform spectroscopy and polarimetry.
The mission is scheduled to launch on Dec. 27 at 9:00 PM EST (02:00 UTC on Dec. 28).
![](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/GBEnA9VaUAAvsyi.jpg)
XPoSat ahead of launch. (Credit: ISRO)
At the moment the revised launch date for this mission carrying the X-37B is Dec. 28 7:00 PM EST (00:00 UTC on Dec. 29) giving us, once more, the prospect of a double header launch with a Falcon 9 also lifting off two hours later from the West coast.
This will probably be the fifth and final Falcon Heavy launch of the yr, and the primary time it has flown this secret spaceplane. It’s the fourth flight for the X-37B Vehicle 2 itself, which previously flew on the OTV-2, OTV-4, and OTV-5 missions.
Its sibling Vehicle 1 is the craft that spent the record 908 days in orbit on OTV-6 but Vehicle 2 spent a powerful 779 days on OTV-5 and, up to now, every mission has exceeded the length of its predecessor.
While details of its goal destination are classified, we are able to surmise from the shortage of a gray thermal protection stripe on the second stage that the mission is won’t be inserting its payload right into a geosynchronous orbit (which might require extra flight time and this stripe to assist maintain propellant temperature), neither is it heading due east. One possibility is that it may very well be destined for a highly inclined, highly elliptical orbit.
Side boosters B1064-5 and B1065-5 will probably be supporting this mission and can each return for a landing at LZ-1 and LZ-2, while the middle core B1084 will probably be expended. These side boosters are resulting from be expended on its next Falcon Heavy mission, Europa Clipper, next October.
![](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/F2ULxY1aIAA_MSE.jpg)
Falcon Heavy launching on the Psyche mission. (Credit: SpaceX)
Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 7-9
Delayed from a planned Dec. 15 launch, this mission will now fly within the evening on Dec. 28 at 9:09 PM PST (05:09 UTC on Dec. 29) from SLC-4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base. This flight will carry only 21 Starlink V2 Mini satellites into low-Earth orbit.
The booster for this mission will probably be B1082 on its inaugural flight; it is predicted to land on the droneship .
As with all missions for this particular shell of the constellation (“Group 7”), this mission will send the satellites on a southeastern trajectory into an initial orbit of 286 x 295 kilometers at a 54-degree inclination, raising later to a circular 530 kilometers.
With no further schedule adjustments, this flight could be SpaceX’s three hundredth overall mission and its 96th of 2023.
After some schedule reshuffling following scrubs earlier within the week, this communications satellite massing 1,500 kilograms for the privately funded Swedish/US Ovzon company is resulting from launch now on Dec. 22 at 4:46 PM EST (21:46 UTC) from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The satellite is said to be essentially the most powerful satellite to be placed into geostationary orbit (GEO), taking three to 4 months to transition to an orbit inclined by 59.7 degrees east and with an apogee of 36,000 kilometers.
It has been in development since late 2018 in response to increased demand in under-served regions for mobile broadband connectivity. Using a mixture of patented high-power beams and smart software, Ovzon-3 will give you the chance to cover a 3rd of the Earth from that vantage point with its steerable spot beams.
The booster for this mission has not yet been declared but is planned to return to the landing site for an early morning touchdown at LZ-1. This is rare as there’s not normally sufficient propellant to land anywhere apart from a drone ship for transfers to GEO, so we anticipate SpaceX has been streamlining, with the mission possibly seeing a tweaked burn profile like on Crew-7 and Starlink 6-24 recently.