As July turns into August, launch activity will pick up after Falcon 9’s return to flight. Besides the Falcon 9, ULA’s Atlas V and Rocket Lab’s Electron were also being prepared to fly missions to orbit. The USSF-51 flight from Florida was followed by a Chang Zheng-3B/E from China and the Starlink 10-6 flight. CRS NG-21 launched aboard a Falcon 9 from Florida, while Starlink 11-1 has flown from Vandenberg, and the “Owl for One, One for Owl” flight from New Zealand has flown before those missions.
After just six flights in July due to the Starlink 9-3 failure, SpaceX hopes to return to its industry-leading flight cadence with two flights in the first three days of August. Although its goal of 148 flights in 2024 might be out of reach, requiring 15 launches per month for the rest of the year, the company still expects to beat 2023’s record of flights handily, while Electron is approaching double-digit flights this year itself.
A ULA Atlas V 551, AV-101, successfully lifted off from Pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) on Tuesday, July 30 carrying the USSF-51 payload for the US Space Force. Launch occurred at the start of the five-hour launch window, which lasted from 6:45 AM EDT (10:45 UTC) to 11:45 AM EDT (15:45 UTC), and mission success was declared seven hours later.
The USSF-51 payload had been scheduled to fly aboard a Vulcan Centaur rocket but had been changed to the Atlas V as per ULA’s request. Although the Vulcan started 2024 with a successful first flight, another flight is needed to certify that system to fly national security payloads. This flight used an eastbound trajectory, which is typically used by satellites bound for geosynchronous orbit.
The ULA Launch Readiness Review is GO to continue preps for Tuesday's launch of #AtlasV with the #USSF51 mission for @SpaceForceDOD. The sunrise launch time is 6:45amEDT (1045 UTC). Early weather forecast is 80% favorable.
Live updates and webcast: https://t.co/HvvsExVAKR pic.twitter.com/6YDZxY2Nvh
— ULA (@ulalaunch) July 26, 2024
This flight was only the second Atlas V 551 launch of 2024 and the fourth launch for ULA, which is also planning a certification flight for Vulcan later this year. The USSF-51 flight marks the 100th national security mission flown by ULA during its 18-year existence, using Delta II, Delta IV, and Atlas V family rockets. This flight was the last-ever national security launch for the Atlas family.
The 551 model of the Atlas V, the most powerful of the Atlas V family, features a five-meter fairing, five solid rocket boosters, and the single-engine Centaur upper stage. After USSF-51, there are just nine remaining 551 model flights, all but one of which are to launch Project Kuiper satellites for Amazon. The remainder of the Atlas V flight manifest is to fly six operational Starliner missions to the International Space Station.
CZ-3B/E at the pad. Credit: CASC
A Chang Zheng-3B/E launched successfully from LC-2 at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China on Thursday, Aug. 1 at 13:14 UTC. This flight took the WHG-2 broadband communications satellite to geostationary transfer orbit.
WHG-2 is the second satellite of its type to fly, after the WHG-1 satellite on Feb. 29, 2024. This was the fourth flight of the CZ-3B/E this year, as the Chinese program continues to build up its cadence and capabilities.
Starlink v2 Mini satellites prior to encapsulation. (Credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink 10-6
Starlink 10-6 launched on Friday, Aug. 2 at 1:01 AM EDT (05:01 UTC) from LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A batch of 23 Starlink v2 Mini satellites was flown on a northeast trajectory, as has been the usual practice with many Starlink flights from Florida this year.
B1078-12 , which supported the Crew-6, O3b mPOWER 3&4, USSF-124, and now nine Starlink missions, launched on this flight. The booster landed safely on A Shortfall of Gravitas, which was stationed in the Atlantic off of the Carolinas for this flight.
Starlink 10-6 was the 73rd Falcon 9 and 74th Falcon family launch of 2024. This flight was the first launch of August for SpaceX as the company prepares to convert Pad 39A to support the Crew-9 flight set to fly as early as Aug. 18. Because 39A will need to support Crew-9 and Polaris Dawn, SLC-40 at CCSFS and SLC-4E in California will be supporting most of the Falcon 9 manifest this month.
The “Owl for One, One for Owl” mission patch. (Credit: Rocket Lab)
Rocket Lab Electron | Owl for One, One for Owl
On Friday, Aug. 2 at 16:39 UTC, Rocket Lab successfully launched the “Owl for One, One for Owl” mission from its private launch pad and range on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand, with a Synspective satellite on board. The flight had been delayed from Tuesday, July 30 due to bad weather moving into Mahia.
The flight launched from LC-1B at Mahia and launched its fifth StriX satellite for the Japanese earth observation company. No recovery attempt was made for this vehicle, though some Electron flights have tested recovery capability for the first stage. During stage separation, some nozzle movement was noted.
A little bit of tip off during separation, we’ll take a look at it. We have very wide bounds on this but we like them cleaner than that.
— Peter Beck (@Peter_J_Beck) August 2, 2024
The Electron rocket carried the StriX constellation satellite into a mid-inclination low-Earth orbit, and the kick stage conducted a maneuver during the mid-mission phase to protect the satellite from solar radiation. The StriX satellites use synthetic aperture radar to observe the Earth’s surface even through clouds and under day and night conditions, and these satellites are designed to detect millimeter-level changes to the Earth’s surface.
This is the first of two planned StriX launches for Synspective, and Rocket Lab has now flown six Synspective satellites into orbit. This flight is the 51st overall launch for Rocket Lab and the ninth of 2024 for the company, which had stated an objective of launching up to two dozen flights this year. A flight for Capella Space was supposed to be Electron’s ninth flight of 2024 but the customer requested a delay so the Synspective flight became the ninth one for Rocket Lab.
A Falcon 9 stands at SLC-4E at the Vandenberg Space Force Base. (Credit: Jack Beyer for NSF)
Another Falcon 9 launch has started a new group of Starlink satellites. This Falcon 9 flying Starlink 11-1 lifted off on Sunday, Aug. 4 at 12:24 AM PDT (07:24 UTC) from SLC-4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) in California.
This mission flew 23 Starlink satellites, which is more than what is usually flown on a single mission out of VSFB. B1082-6 was handling this mission and landed on Of Course I Still Love You out in the Pacific. The booster has flown USSF-62 and four Starlink missions before Starlink 11-1.
This mission sent the 23 Starlink satellites on board to an initial 269 by 279-km orbit inclined 53 degrees to the Equator. These satellites will move themselves to their final orbits in the coming months. Meanwhile, out at sea, the tug Lindsay C and the support ship GO Beyond supported the mission to recover the first stage and the fairing halves of the rocket.
Starlink 11-1 featured the 345th recovery attempt for SpaceX, instead of NG-21 which is awaiting launch from Florida later in the day. This flight was the 74th Falcon 9 and 75th Falcon family flight of 2024. It was also the 360th Falcon 9 mission overall.
Cygnus NG-21 mission patch. (Credit: Northrop Grumman)
The second Falcon 9 flight that launched this week is a cargo mission to the ISS, only not involving SpaceX’s own Cargo Dragon spacecraft. Northrop Grumman has purchased three launches from SpaceX to support its Cygnus cargo operations while the Antares 330 is in development.
The Cygnus cargo ship S.S. Francis R. “Dick” Scobee, named after the commander of the ill-fated STS-51L Space Shuttle mission in 1986, flew on the second of the three launches that Northrop Grumman has purchased from SpaceX.
The launch had been set for Saturday, Aug. 3 at 11:28 AM EDT (15:28 UTC) from SLC-40 at CCSFS, but the weather was only 50 percent favorable for launch and did not cooperate, so a delay was called. The backup window for Sunday, Aug. 4 at 11:02 AM EDT (15:02 UTC) had only a 10 percent chance of favorable launch weather due to a tropical depression – now Tropical Storm Debby – in the Gulf of Mexico. However, against those odds the weather got better and NG-21 actually launched as conditions were “go” at launch time.
The Falcon 9 launched on a northeast trajectory inclined at 51.64 degrees to the Equator to match the Station’s orbit around Earth. B1080-10 conducted a return-to-launch site maneuver for a landing at the LZ-1 pad at CCSFS, for the 345th Falcon 9 recovery attempt, and the landing was successful. This booster has flown the Axiom-2, Axiom-3, Euclid, CRS-30, Astra 1P/SES-24, and four Starlink missions, and now NG-21.
Photo of STS-41C pilot and STS-51L commander Dick Scobee. (Credit: NASA)
The NG-21 spacecraft, loaded with 3,750 kilograms of supplies and experiments for the Expedition 71 crew aboard ISS, was placed into a 245 by 245-kilometer low-Earth orbit. The spacecraft completed its rendezvous with the Station on Tuesday, Aug. 6 at 07:11 UTC. The NG-21 Cygnus was captured by the Canadarm2 robotic arm and was berthed to the ISS. Completion of the installation came at 10:33 UTC. After leak checks, the hatches will be opened and the cargo unloaded. During its stay aboard ISS, the Cygnus will be capable of conducting reboost maneuvers.
Using the Canadarm2 robotic arm, NASA astronaut @dominickmatthew captured the Cygnus spacecraft at 3:11am ET. Mission controllers will begin guiding the spacecraft in for installation to the Earth-facing port of the Unity module at 4:30am. More… https://t.co/FYZk0H5vEs pic.twitter.com/mbrgzF5hwf
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) August 6, 2024
S.S. Francis R. “Dick” Scobee has been loaded with a selection of experiments for the crew to perform. Among these is an experiment to study colloidal gels, which are used in many products, stem cell investigations, vascular tissue, high-speed transmission of ultra-high resolution image data, an ultra-high-resolution sphere camera, and mycelium fungus growth in microgravity.
NG-21 was the 361st mission of a Falcon 9 as well as the 75th Falcon 9 flight – and 76th Falcon family flight – of 2024. SpaceX had aimed to fly 148 Falcon 9 missions this year but will need 15 flights per month from here on out to accomplish this. Regardless of whether they get to this target, SpaceX is poised to fly more than 100 flights this year for the same type of orbital rocket, which has not been done in a single year before.
(Lead image: Falcon 9 lifting off from Space Launch Complex 40. Credit: SpaceX)