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.