In another busy week of launches, China launched three taikonauts to the Tiangong Space Station aboard a Chang Zheng rocket this week as part of the Shenzhou 19 mission. Additionally, both Russia and Japan will launch military payloads.
As usual, SpaceX continues to fly Starlink missions throughout the week. SpaceX’s CRS-31 mission, a Cargo Resupply Services (CRS) mission to the International Space Station, was initially expected to launch this week but has since been postponed until no earlier than Nov. 5. To support the arrival of CRS-31, Crew-9’s Dragon will relocate from the forward port of the Harmony module (PMA-2) on ISS to the zenith port (PMA-3) on Saturday, Nov. 3, at 11:35 UTC.
This week has seen the 200th orbital launch attempt of 2024 for all vehicles, worldwide. An achievement made all the more noteworthy in that there are still two full months of the year remaining.