Moving into the second half of 2024, the first week of July began with the third launch of the Japanese H3 rocket in the early hours of Monday morning UTC—covered in our previous launch roundup.
The week ahead continued with one Starlink mission from SpaceX, pushing the number of Starlink satellites launched to over 6,700. The fifth flight of Firefly’s Alpha launch vehicle took place on the night of Wednesday, July 3 from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
Two more launches were expected to follow from China with another mission successfully launched on Thursday aboard a Chang Zheng 6A. The anticipated first flight of the year for i-Space’s Hyperbola-1, initially delayed to Friday, has since been removed from the schedule until a future date. SpaceX also launched the first communication satellite built in Turkey on Monday, July 8.