SpaceX launches Starship’s eighth flight test, Â Arianespace’s Ariane 6 launches from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana, and China sends another Chang Zheng 3B/E to space.Â
Ariane 6 kicks off the week by launching high-resolution reconnaissance satellites for the French Space Agency, followed by Starship’s eighth flight test. Then, Chang Zheng 3B/E takes another classified satellite to a geostationary transfer orbit.
Arianespace launched Ariane 6 to a Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) on March 6 at 16:24 UTC after the initial launch attempt on March 3 was scrubbed due to “further operations needed on a ground means interfacing with the launcher.” Ariane 62 carried the CSO-3 high-resolution reconnaissance satellite into an 800 km SSO from pad ELA-4 at the Guiana Space Center.
(1/2) Flight VA263: Postponement of the launch
Due to further operations needed on a ground means interfacing with the launcher, the launch is postponed.
The new launch date will be announced following the completion of these operations.
— Arianespace (@Arianespace) March 3, 2025
CSO-3 was deployed around 66 minutes into flight and completed the CSO constellation for the MUSIS program. These satellites were planned to be flown on Soyuz but changed providers due to geopolitical challenges. This mission was Arianespace’s 300th mission of all time and the first of an expected five in 2025.
The Ariane 6 flying this mission is of the “62” variant, meaning two strap-on solid rocket boosters will be attached to the core stage. Ariane 6’s liquid stages utilize liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, which are burned through the first stage Vulcain 2.1 engine and the second stage Vinci engine. The rocket flew for the first time on July 9, 2024. This was its second mission.
The eighth flight test of Starship launched on March 6 at 5:30 PM CST (23:30 UTC) from SpaceX’s launch site in Starbase, Texas, after an attempt on March 3 was scrubbed due to subpar pressure in the Raptor engines. This flight was expected to achieve many of the same goals set for the precluded seventh flight, with some minor differences, although that was not to come.
Flight 8 began with a successful launch off of Orbital Launch Pad A at Starbase, during which Super Heavy ignited all 33 Raptor engines. Then, at T+ 2:40 minutes, Booster 15 and Ship 34 separated via hotstaging successfully, and Super Heavy returned to Starbase and was caught by the catch tower for the third time. Ship 34 continued on its suborbital trajectory, but at just over eight minutes into the flight, Ship 34 experienced an anomaly in the engine bay. This resulted in a loss of control of the vehicle, and Ship 34 reentered the atmosphere without activating the flight termination system.
Ship 34 was planed to release four Starlink simulators while coasting in space, relight a single Raptor engine for reentry, and attempt to splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The anomaly cut these expected mission goals short.
Chang Zheng 3B/E launched on March 10 at 1:17 AM CST (17:17 UTC on March 9) from LC-3 at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China. This mission, titled Tongxin Jishu Shiyan Weixing 15 (TJSW-15), launched one classified satellite to a geostationary transfer orbit. This satellite was said to be for communication technology testing, but anything more about the mission is unknown. This was Chang Zheng’s fourth mission of 2025.
(Lead Image: Falcon 9 launches from Florida. Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF)
