Launch Roundup: New Glenn and Starship headline a week dominated by SpaceX missions

by John Sharp

SpaceX dominated this week’s launch manifest with two Falcon 9 missions and the seventh flight of its Starship rocket. The two Falcon 9 missions will see the launches of a Transporter rideshare mission, and two Moon landers.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn achieved orbit on Thursday morning following the scrub of its maiden flight attempt on Monday. Blue Origin confirmed that the scrub was caused by ice forming in a purge line on an auxiliary power unit that powers some of New Glenn’s hydraulic systems.

China launched an Earth observation satellite for Pakistan aboard a Chang Zheng 2D on Friday, and launched a Ceres 1 mission on Monday morning.

Falcon 9 | Transporter 12

The first of SpaceX’s regular Transporter rideshare missions for 2025 launched on Tuesday, Jan. 14, at 11:09 AM PST (19:09 UTC), at the start of a 57-minute launch window.

Lifting off from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) in California, Falcon 9 flew on a southern trajectory to place the payloads into a Sun-synchronous orbit. Two separate deployments of multiple payloads will be made at altitudes of 520 km and 590 km.

A wide array of payloads are carried aboard this mission, further details will be found in a dedicated article written by Danny Lentz for NSF.

Booster B1088 is supporting this mission, flying for only the second time,  and performed a return-to-launch-site landing just south of SLC-4E at Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4). Previously, B1088 has flown NROL-126, launching on Nov. 24, 2024.

Falcon 9 is a 3.9 m diameter, 70 m high high two-stage rocket. Nine Merlin 1D engines power the first stage booster, while the second stage utilizes a single vacuum-optimized Merlin engine. Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are the first and only reusable orbital rockets in service today, with one Falcon booster (B1067) having flown 25 flights. The two payload fairings are also recovered and reused after flight.

Falcon 9 | Blue Ghost Mission 1 and HAKUTO-R M2

On Wednesday, Jan. 15, at 1:11:39 AM EST (06:11:39 UTC), a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with the Blue Ghost and HAKUTO-R M2 lunar landers. Launch took place just five minutes into a 39-minute launch window. The booster supporting this flight was B1085, flying for the fifth time. The booster landed successfully on the east coast droneship Just Read The Instructions. Fairing recovery for this mission is being supported by the vessel Bob.

Booster B1085 is a relatively new booster, having first flown on Aug. 20, 2024. It has previously supported two Starlink missions, Crew-9, and GPS-III 7. This was SpaceX’s 100th launch from the historic 39A launch pad.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander is being flown as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. This initiative, which is a key part of NASA’s Artemis program, involves securing the services of commercial partners to land science and technology payloads on the lunar surface quickly. Firefly Aerospace will be responsible for end-to-end delivery services, including payload integration, launch from Earth, landing on the Moon, and mission operations. This is the sixth award for lunar surface delivery under the CLPS initiative.

Blue Ghost will be the first of the two landers to deploy from Falcon 9, staying in Earth orbit for 16 days before continuing its journey to the Moon. Once at the Moon, Blue Ghost will enter lunar orbit for a further 16 days before descending to the surface and landing at Mare Crisium, a low-lying basin on the Moon’s near side.

Blue Ghost is expected to operate for a full lunar day (14 Earth days), though teams hope that some systems may survive the extreme cold of the lunar night.

The second payload aboard Falcon 9 is ispace’s HAKUTO-R M2 Resilience lander, which is also carrying the Tenacious micro rover. This will be the second HAKUTO-R mission, the first of which crashed on the Moon in 2023 during a landing attempt.

After deploying Blue Ghost, the Falcon 9 second stage will perform a further burn, providing HAKUTO-R with an additional impulse to propel it toward the Moon. Following deployment, the spacecraft will be commissioned and perform a short burn while remaining in Earth orbit. The burn will confirm that the thrusters operate correctly and provide any required course correction.

HAKUTO-R Resilience will use the Moon’s gravity to perform a low-energy transfer into a 100 km circular lunar orbit. This flight path will take longer to reach the Moon but requires less fuel and allows for additional payloads to be carried. Adopting this strategy means that it will be some months before the spacecraft attempts a landing on the lunar surface in the Mare Frigoris region in the Moon’s northern hemisphere.

Once landed on the lunar surface, Resilience will deploy Tenacious using an armThe rover will then perform a series of operations, including collecting a lunar regolith sample to fulfill part of ispace’s contract with NASA.

New Glenn | Blue Ring Pathfinder

Blue Origin successfully launched its New Glenn rocket from Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 2:03 AM EST (07:03 UTC) on Thursday, Jan. 16, with the second stage (GS2) achieving orbit as planned. Blue Origin confirmed that the GS1 first-stage booster was lost during descent towards the droneship. Blue Origin had stressed throughout that achieving orbit was the primary aim, and that booster recovery would be a bonus. The GS2 later relit its engines for a short burn to place the payload into its final orbit, completing the launch phase of the mission.

The FAA have since confirmed that a Mishap Investigation will be required into the loss of GS1.

New Glenn carried the DarkSky-1 Blue Ring Pathfinder, a prototype of Blue Origin’s Blue Ring platform. The Blue Ring platform is designed to refuel satellites, transport them to different orbits, and host payloads. It can also act as a satellite bus or a “space tug” and is launch vehicle agnostic, though New Glenn is expected to fly Blue Ring missions in the future.

The 57 m tall booster stage, Glenn Stage 1 (GS1), known as So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance,” or GS1-SN001, will attempt to land on Blue Origin’s Landing Platform Vessel 1 (LPV1) named Jacklyn after Jeff Bezos’ mother. The GS1 stage, equipped with seven BE-4 engines using methane and liquid oxygen as propellants, will use all seven engines during launch. During landing, the booster will perform a “one-three-one” burn, beginning with igniting a single engine and then igniting two additional engines. Then, the booster will perform the landing with one engine firing. The booster will also use fins and thrusters to guide its path to Jacklyn, which will be out in the Atlantic off the Florida coast.

The 23 m tall Glenn Stage 2 (GS2), equipped with two BE-3U engines using liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen as propellants, will send the Blue Ring prototype into a medium-Earth orbit (MEO). GS2 is not reusable, though Blue Origin has worked on a project called “Jarvis” in the past that was a concept to enable full reuse of both stages of the vehicle.

This flight was originally scheduled for October 2024 with NASA’s ESCAPADE Mars payload, but New Glenn was not expected to be ready for its maiden flight by October. The ESCAPADE flight has since been moved to a later date, and the results of this flight will determine the cadence Blue Origin achieves with New Glenn in 2025.

New Glenn, capable of launching up to 45,000 kg to low-Earth orbit (LEO), has contracts for Kuiper, Telesat, and OneWeb constellation launches and several geostationary communication satellites from various customers. Blue Origin hopes to use New Glenn to launch national security payloads and this flight will serve as a certification flight for this purpose.

Blue Origin plans to use New Glenn to launch its Orbital Reef space station and Blue Moon lander while being able to reuse individual GS1 stages up to 25 times, and later, 100 times, to lower launch costs. The company hopes to be competitive with SpaceX in the worldwide launch market while working toward a future where millions of people live and work in space.

Starship | Flight 7

The Starship program, fresh off four flights in 2024, has undertaken its first flight of 2025. Starship Flight 7, another suborbital flight at a nearly orbital velocity, launched from Pad A at Starbase, Texas, on Thursday, Jan. 16, at 4:37PM CST (22:37 UTC). The 98-minute launch window started at 4:00 CST (23:00 UTC), the original target for T-0, and ends at 5:38 PM CST (23:38 UTC).

Flight 7, using Booster 14 and Ship 33, saw Starship fly eastward over the Gulf of Mexico out of Starbase. Booster 14 succeeded in returning to the launch site to be caught at Pad A, flying a precise trajectory that allowed it to be captured by the Mechazilla “chopstick” arms on the launch tower. A booster catch attempt succeeded on Flight 5 but was waved off during Flight 6 due to issues with ground equipment.

Ship 33 suffered a technical issue, with data being lost shortly after the booster was caught, eight minutes and thirty seconds into the flight. SpaceX have now confirmed that the vehicle suffered a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD) during ascent. An investigation into root cause will now take place. SpaceX said that “Initial data indicates a fire developed in the aft section of the ship, leading to a rapid unscheduled disassembly with debris falling into the Atlantic Ocean within the predefined hazard areas.”

A statement from the FAA included “The FAA briefly slowed and diverted aircraft around the area where space vehicle debris was falling. Normal operations have resumed. A Debris Response Area is activated only if the space vehicle experiences an anomaly with debris falling outside of the identified closed aircraft hazard areas. It allows the FAA to direct aircraft to exit the area and prevent others from entering.”

Had Ship 33 reaches its intended suborbital trajectory, its tasks would have included another in-space restart of a Raptor engine and a deployment of ten simulated Starlink v3 satellites from its payload bay. The deployment would use a “PEZ dispenser” to jettison the dummy satellites in succession, and these payloads would have entered the atmosphere using the same suborbital trajectory as Ship 33.

Ship 33 was expected to reenter similarly to earlier flights before splashing down in the Indian Ocean. Liftoff was timed to enable a daylight reentry and ocean landing of Ship 33, and many additional cameras and sensors will be installed on the launch vehicle to provide additional views and data. Ship 33 is the first Block 2 Starship, with modifications to the fins, heat shield, and more.

Flight 7 was SpaceX’s eighth launch of the year. The company plans to fly up to 25 Starship missions this year. As Starship is a new system, and the second launch pad at Starbase is still some time away from completion, SpaceX’s cadence goal for Starship in 2025 is very ambitious. However, the Starship program will likely exceed last year’s totals and achievements.

Chang Zheng 2D | PAK-E01

Site 9401 (SLS-2), at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China, is the launch venue for this launch on Friday, Jan. 17, at 04:07 UTC. The booster was a two-stage, 40.77-metre-high Chang Zheng 2D (also known as Long March 2D).

The payload was the first Pakistani Earth observation satellite named the PAK-EO1. Built for the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), and carrying cutting edge multi-spectral electro-optical equipment providing very high-resolution images of the Earth in near real-time. Two other satellites were also carried — Galaxy-Space’s DAO-1 and GeeSpace’s Blue Carbon 1.

Ceres 1 | On Your Shoulders

Another successful mission was launched from Site 95A at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China – on Monday, Jan. 20, at 10:35:13 UTC.

The Ceres-1 vehicle lifted payloads Yunyao-1 37~40 and Jitianxing A-05 to Sun-synchronous orbit. This mission, dubbed On Your Shoulders, is the 17th flight of the Ceres-1 rocket.

(Lead image: Ship 33 sits stop Booster 14 before launch. Credit: Jack Beyer for NSF)

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