This week Landspace debuted the enhanced version of its ZhuQue-2 rocket and the Chang Zheng 12 rocket has also taken its maiden flight. Roscosmos has launched one of two planned Soyuz missions – the highly classified mission from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome has now been delayed until next week. In contrast, four Falcon 9 missions are expected this week from all three of SpaceX’s active pads in the United States.
The first of these four Falcon 9 missions, Starlink Group 12-1, launched in the early hours of Monday morning and became the 400th orbital mission flown by Falcon 9 to date. Furthermore, Group 12-1’s launch also set a new record for the fastest booster turnaround time, with Falcon booster B1080 beating the previous record (21 days, set by B1062 two years ago) with a turnaround of 13 days and 12 hours. Booster B1088 also made its debut this week on the NROL-126 mission.
ZhuQue-2E | Guangchuan 01 & 02
The enhanced ZhuQue-2E (ZQ-2E) variant of Landspace’s medium-sized ZhuQue-2 (ZQ-2) rocket took its maiden flight this week. Utilizing liquid methane and liquid oxygen as propellants, ZQ-2 became the first methane-burning rocket to reach orbit almost two years ago, in December 2022. Despite an issue with the upper stage on its demo flight, two successful launches followed last year, placing four payloads into a Sun-synchronous orbit.
ZQ-2E launched on Wednesday, Nov. 27, at 02:00 UTC from Site 96 at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China, at the start of a launch window lasting a little over an hour. The two payloads onboard were a pair of Guangchuan satellites that will demonstrate and test laser links for communication between satellites in low-Earth orbit – the Guangchuan name translates to ‘light transmission.’ Previously, two 50 kg Honghu satellites had been lofted by a ZQ-2 in December to test different Hall-effect and ion thrusters. The payloads were deployed approximately eight and a half minutes into the mission, targeting a 300 by 500 km low-Earth orbit inclined 50 degrees.
ZhuQue-2E ascends on its maiden launch. (Credit: Landspace)
The 47.3 m tall vehicle was rolled horizontally to the pad on Nov. 22 following successful static fire tests of its second stage a month prior. These also tested and verified the subsystems and propellant loading processes for the rocket. ZQ-2E uses the same 3.35 m diameter first stage with four Tianque 12 (TQ-12) engines as the ZQ-2 with an upgraded second stage that adopts a common bulkhead and a change of engines. This upgraded second stage now features one TQ-15A vacuum-optimized engine in place of the TQ-12 and four TQ-11 vernier thrusters of the ZQ-2. The TQ-15A engine will also be used on the forthcoming ZhuQue-3 rocket and is designed to be reignited in orbit, widening the scope of missions for the ZQ rocket family.
Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-76
A Falcon 9 was expected to lift off from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, Nov. 25, but had been rescheduled after standing down. The launch took place instead on Tuesday, Nov. 26, at 11:41 PM EST (04:41 UTC on Nov 27) – over an hour and a half into the launch window. Onboard was another batch of 24 Starlink v2 Mini satellites for the sixth and largest shell of the internet satellite constellation.
Booster B1078 supported this mission on its 15th flight and successfully landed on the autonomous droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which was stationed approximately 600 km southeast of the Cape in the Atlantic Ocean. This booster has been active since March 2023, when it took its maiden flight carrying Crew 9 to the International Space Station. It has since supported ten other Starlink missions, USSF-124, 03b mPOWER 3 & 4, and the first five satellites in AST Mobile’s BlueBird Block 1 in September. As of the recent Starlink Group 12-1 mission, SpaceX has launched over 7,400 Starlink satellites into orbit, of which 668 have deorbited.
Soyuz 2.1a is transported to the pad at Vostochny for the Kondor-FKA No.2 mission. (Credit: Roscosmos)
Soyuz 2.1a/Fregat-M | Kondor-FKA No 2
A Soyuz 2.1a carrier with a Fregat upper stage has launched the second civilian Earth observation satellite in the Kondor-FKA series to a sun-synchronous orbit. The satellite uses synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to conduct both 10 km wide swath surveys and spotlight observations with a resolution between one and two meters. It was delivered to the Cosmodrome in September for integration.
The Soyuz vehicle launched from Site 1S at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the far East of Russia on Friday, Nov. 29, at 21:50 UTC. This was the 18th flight from this pad, which has previously launched the first Kondor-FKA satellite in addition to various batches of Meteor-M and OneWeb satellites.
Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-65
This was SpaceX’s 120th Falcon mission of the year and the 50th since the last launch failure. Liftoff took place on Saturday, Nov. 30, at 12:00 AM EST (05:00 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, lofting another batch of 24 Starlink v2 Mini satellites to low-Earth orbit. This was the 67th mission to populate Starlink’s Group 6 shell, following the Group 6-76 mission earlier in the week.
Booster B1083 supported the mission and landed on the autonomous droneship Just Read The Instructions, which was waiting approximately 600 km downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. This first stage has been active since March this year when it carried Crew-8 to the International Space Station on its maiden launch, returning in November on the CRS-31 mission. It was also the booster supporting the Polaris Dawn mission and two other Starlink flights for this same Group 6 shell.
B1088 after its first landing on the deck of the droneship Of Course I Still Love You (Credit: SpaceX)
This classified mission for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) was likely a fifth batch of 20 Starshield satellites built by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman. Liftoff took place on schedule at 12:10 AM PST (08:10 UTC) on Saturday, Nov. 30, from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at the start of a four-hour launch window. Following launch, Falcon 9 flew on a southeasterly trajectory out of California.
Booster B1088 made its debut on this mission and performed Falcon’s 112th landing of 2024 on SpaceX’s autonomous droneship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean. The NRO are planning up to three more missions before the end of 2024 with NROL-149, NROL-153, and NROL-192, building out its proliferated architecture. These flights will close a busy 18-month period in which more than 100 payloads will have been deployed to orbit across approximately 12 missions.
Chang Zheng 12 on the Commercial LC-2 pad. (Credit: Hainan Commercial Development Center)
This flight was not only the maiden launch of the Chang Zheng 12 but also the first from the Hainan International Commercial Aerospace Launch Center, situated adjacent to the Wenchang Space Launch Site in the Hainan Province. Liftoff took place from commercial launch pad LC-2 on Saturday, Nov. 30, at 14:25 UTC.
The launch was also the first flight of the new YF-100K engines which burn liquid kerosene and oxygen, four of which power the vehicle’s first stage. The second stage is powered by two YF-115 engines, which run on the same propellants. Seven of the YF-100K engines are also planned to power the first stage of the forthcoming Chang Zheng 10 vehicle.
Developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, the CZ-12 has a diameter of 3.8 m and stands 59 m tall. This expendable carrier has been undergoing preparation and fit testing at the site since late July. It will be capable of carrying 10,000 kg to low-Earth orbit or 6,000 kg to Sun-synchronous orbit with fairing options in both 4.2 and 5.2-meter variants. A reusable CZ-12R resuable version is also now proposed later on the roadmap.
Chang Zheng 6A on the pad LC-9A at Taiyuan. (Credit: CCTV)
Chang Zheng 6A | Unknown Payload
While unconfirmed, this mission is anticipated to be a third batch of 18 Qianfan (‘Thousand Sails’) flat panel satellites being launched into the planned G60 mega constellation in low-Earth orbit. Launch was originally scheduled for Monday, Dec. 2 within a 21-minute window at approximately 04:55 UTC but this attempt has been scrubbed – a new date is not currently known.
The Chang Zheng 6A vehicle has previously launched two previous batches in August and October this year, the first of which subsequently caused hundreds of tracked items of debris when the upper stage broke apart after deployment. Other vehicles, such as the Chang Zheng 8 are also anticipated to carry satellites for this constellation in the future.
Operated by Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST), it is planned that 108 of these communication satellites will be launched by the end of this year. 1296 are planned to complete the first phase by 2027.
Soyuz 2.1b prepares to launch Cosmos 2576 from Site 43/4 at Plesetsk in May 2024. (Credit: Russian Ministry of Defence)
Soyuz 2.1b | Cosmos 2580 (Unknown Payload)
A Soyuz 2.1b rocket was expected to launch the Cosmos 2580 mission, featuring another Lotos-S satellite, into orbit this week but the launch has since been rescheduled to next Tuesday, Dec. 3. A Soyuz 2.1b is expected to launch from an unconfirmed pad at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia during a three-hour launch window, carrying the payload to an orbit inclined by 67 degrees. Additional launch opportunities extend through early December.
The Lotos reconnaissance satellites form part of a wider, classified, orbital electronic intelligence system known as Liana. This Electronic Signals Intelligence, or ELINT, system intercepts radar and electromagnetic radiation signals for the location and characterization of sites, ships, and aircraft of military interest. Four were procured by the Russian Ministry of Defense back in 2017, one of which has yet to be launched and could, therefore, be this payload. A further batch was subsequently ordered in August 2022 and is assumed to still be in production. Previous Lotos launches have been accompanied by a secondary payload, which has been deployed shortly after the primary satellite is released.
Falcon 9’s SXM-9 mission will launch the replacement for the SXM-7 high-power digital audio broadcasting satellite, which was launched four years ago in December 2020. SXM-7, itself a replacement for the XM 3 satellite, experienced unresolvable issues during its commissioning phase once in orbit.
The SXM-7 satellite, almost identical to the SXM-9 satellite replacing it, before it was integrated for launch. (Credit: Space Systems/Loral (SSL)/Maxar Technologies)
Operated by SiriusXM, SXM-9 is the first in a series of nearly identical third-generation satellites that will update the fleet. Subsequent launches are planned once per year up to SXM-12 in 2027. Built on Maxar’s 1300-class platform and massing around 7,000 kg, SXM-9 will support both Sirius and XM services’ broadcasting of sports, music, news, and entertainment content via satellite radio. The satellite includes a large mesh reflector, which measures almost 10 m in length when unfurled and has an expected 15-year lifespan.
Launch was originally expected on Monday, Dec. 2, at 11:09 AM EST (16:09 UTC) from LC-39A in Florida, lofting the satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit. This launch has now been pushed further back into next week.
(Lead image: Falcon 9 launches into the twilight skies of Florida. Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF)
