Spaceflight Now

SpaceX launched its latest batch of Starlink satellites for its internet megaconstellation shortly after midnight on Tuesday. However, there may have been additional satellites onboard as well.

The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 12:24 a.m. EST (0524 UTC) to begin the Starlink 13-1 mission.

Peculiarly, the SpaceX webcast didn’t begin on time and picked up a couple minutes into the flight. When it did get underway, it lacked the normal telemetry data and didn’t show any views of the Falcon 9 upper stage as it normally does during a Starlink mission.

The Falcon 9 first stage booster, tail number B1083, was used to launch the mission. It’s previous missions included the launches of Crew-8, Polaris Dawn and CRS-31.

After launching for an eighth time, B1083 landed on the SpaceX droneship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravias,’ which was positioned out in the Atlantic Ocean. This marked the 95 landing for ASOG and the 399th booster landing to date.

The Starlink 13-1 mission will be SpaceX’s fifth dedicated Starlink launch of the year and its ninth orbital launch in 2025. The flight included 21 Starlink satellites onboard.

Notably, most recent flights for the Starlink constellation that have just 21 satellites on board also include 13 that have Direct to Cell capabilities, but none of those were mentioned by SpaceX in the lead up to launch.

When DTC Starlink satellites are absent, SpaceX has been launching batches of 24 Starlink satellites from Florida. Currently, it is poised to launch a batch of 27 satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base no earlier than late Tuesday morning on the Starlink 11-8 mission. This is likely to be the first time SpaceX launches its so-called Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites, which are considerably lighter than their predecessors.

Given that there were only 21 Starlink satellites listed on the Starlink 13-1 mission with no DTCs to speak of, that may suggest that other satellites, perhaps Starshield, were also flying on board. Starshield are the government variant of Starlink and have most recently been flown on behalf of the National Reconnaissance Office.

Neither the NRO nor SpaceX has made any comment confirming that Starshield satellites were scheduled to launch as part of the Starlink 13-1 mission, but if it does bear out, it wouldn’t be the first combo mission. The NROL-126 mission, which launched on Nov. 30, 2024, included 20 Starlink satellites and an undisclosed number of Starshield satellites.

Update 11:44 a.m. EST (1644 UTC): SpaceX landed the first stage booster on the droneship.

SpaceX launched its latest batch of Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The Tuesday afternoon mission carried 27 second-generation Starlinks, a new record for this type of satellite.

Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) happened at 7:45 a.m. PST (10:45 p.m. EST, 1545 UTC). SpaceX had to stand down from a launch attempt on Sunday when a plane entered the keep out zone 11 seconds before the planned liftoff. It did not give a reason for the Monday scrub.

The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, tail number B1082, launched for a 10th time. SpaceX previously used it to fly USSF-62, OneWeb 4 and seven previous batches of Starlink satellites.

It is one of four boosters still in use that has only launched from the West Coast.

A little more than eight minutes into the mission, B1082 landed on the SpaceX droneship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You,’ marking the 117th booster landing on OCISLY and the 400th booster landing to date.

The Starlink 11-8 mission sent more second-generation satellites into orbit in one batch than previously possible. According to SpaceX’s 2024 Progress Report, the company said it created Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites. The company said they not only have new capabilities, but they are also lighter, and therefore, more can be launched at one time. SpaceX said that its newest version of the V2 Mini are 22 percent lighter than the original V2 Mini.

“These satellites have a new backhaul antenna powered by a SpaceX-designed and built dual band chip, called Doppio,” SpaceX wrote. “The satellites have upgraded avionics, propulsion, and power systems and are optimized for Falcon 9 to allow up to 29 satellites to launch on each mission – six more satellites per launch than the original V2 Mini design.”

From connecting astronauts in space, to providing high-speed internet to more than 4.6M active customers here on Earth, the @Starlink team is laser focused on expanding coverage, increasing speeds and lowering latency so we can connect as many as possible around the world pic.twitter.com/twBoSToUsK

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 16, 2025

It’s unclear if SpaceX launched any of these new satellites prior to the Starlink 11-8 mission. Starting at the beginning of 2024, SpaceX was typically launching 23 Starlink satellites from Florida and 22 from Vandenberg, that is when the satellites with Direct to Cell capabilities weren’t onboard.

The Starlink 6-39 mission, which launched on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Feb. 25, 2024, was the first to feature 24 Starlink V2 Mini satellites, but there was no mention of any of them being optimized.

It wan’t until Nov. 11, 2024, when another batch of 24 satellites launched, which once again, took place at Cape Canaveral. Since then, there were six more missions that featured 24 Starlink V2 Mini satellites each.

SpaceX’s seventh flight of its Starship rocket was a combination of great success and catastrophic loss, with a catch of its Super Heavy booster at the launch tower and the failure of the Starship upper stage as it climbed to space.

Beginning around seven minutes and 40 seconds into the flight, SpaceX’s on-screen telemetry data began to show one Raptor engine after another turn off on the Ship until the telemetry froze at eight minutes and 27 seconds.

In a post to his social media site, X, SpaceX founder Elon Musk described what engineers believe at this early stage to be the issue.

“Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was large enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity,” Musk said. “Apart from obviously double-checking for leaks, we will add fire suppression to that volume and probably increase vent area. Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month.”

The launch began nominally, with the more than 400-foot-tall rocket lumbering off of the pad at 4:37 p.m. CST (5:37 p.m. EST (2237 UTC). The mission featured the first flight of the Block 2 variant of the upper stage.

The 33 Raptor engines on the booster powered it down range as expected and beginning about two minutes and 30 seconds into the mission, most of them cut off and the six Raptor engines on the Ship sprang to life to begin carrying it towards space.

The booster performed a flip maneuver and another burn to put it on a course towards the launch tower. The Super Heavy booster, B14, performed a final landing burn about 6 minutes and 30 seconds after liftoff and before seven minutes were up, it was caught by the tower.

The elation of the crowds and the commentators didn’t last long before it became apparent that something was amiss on the upper stage.

The engines began shutting off out of sequence and more than a minute prior to the planed engine cutoff, which was scheduled to happen nearly nine minutes into the flight.

Multiple videos posted to social media appeared to show the breakup of the vehicle. The Federal Aviation Administration issued directives to multiple airports to delay or divert traffic to avoid falling debris.

First night in Turks and Caicos and we’re on the beach and see this.

pic.twitter.com/CDPlLd70Yn

— KingDomRedux (@KingDomRedux) January 16, 2025

Airpots impacted included Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport. Shortly before 8 p.m. EST (0100 UTC), the agency issued an all clear.

“The FAA briefly slowed and diverted aircraft around the area where space vehicle debris was falling. Normal operations have resumed,” the agency wrote.

The FAA has the purview to activate what’s called a Debris Response Area if there’s a case, like with Flight 7, where there is an anomaly with a space vehicle outside of the previously identified closed hazard areas.

Asked whether the agency will require a mishap investigation into the breakup, the FAA said it was “aware an anomaly occurred,” adding that it was still “assessing the operation and will issue and updated statement.”

The anomaly prevented SpaceX from executing a number of milestone it planned for S33, including deploying 10 Starlink simulators along a suborbital trajectory and performing and in-space relight of one of the Raptor engines.

Starship’s continued development is key not only for its own corporate ambitions, but also for its role as the lander that NASA will use during the Artemis 3 and 4 Moon landing missions. The first is schedule to take place by mid-2027.

“Congratulations to @SpaceX on Starship’s seventh test flight and the second successful booster catch,” said Bill Nelson, the outgoing NASA administrator in a post on X. “Spaceflight is not easy. It’s anything but routine. That’s why these tests are so important—each one bringing us closer on our path to the Moon and onward to Mars through #Artemis.”

SpaceX is preparing to kick off the new year of suborbital flights around the world with a launch of its nearly 40-story-tall Starship rocket from southern Texas Thursday afternoon.

The company is nearing the point at which it can transition to orbital flights with the two-stage launch vehicle, but is still in the process of iterating on the vehicle, from its height and flap design, to avionics and launch support systems.

Liftoff of the Starship Flight 7 mission from the Starbase facilities in Boca Chica, Texas, is set for 4 p.m. CST (5 p.m. EST, 2200 UTC), the opening of a 60-minute launch window.

Weather played spoiler for much of the week for not only SpaceX, but launch competitor Blue Origin, the latter of which was finally able to launch its inaugural New Glenn rocket from Cape Canaveral earlier on Thursday.

The two companies exchanged support for each other as they both ended up with marquee mission on the same day. The happenstance of these rockets targeting the same launch dayreating a fervor among spaceflight fans dubbed ‘Star Glenn,’ as an homage to the so-called Barbenheimer craze that swept moviegoers when ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ released into theaters simultaneously.

“Congratulations to the Blue Origin team for reaching orbit!” said SpaceX President and CEO Gwynne Shotwell in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

 “Thanks on behalf of the whole team,” Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp replied. “Rooting for a good flight for you today!”

“Good luck today @elonmusk and the whole SpaceX team!!” Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos wrote in a separate post. Musk congratulate Bezos in a previous post on X.

The Catch (Take 3)

SpaceX is currently batting .500 when it comes to being able to catch the Super Heavy booster with its launch tower named ‘Mechazilla.’ The ability is an important part of the company’s plan for making the launch vehicle rapidly reusable.

After a successful catch on their first attempt during the Starship Flight 5 mission in October, SpaceX was hoping for a repeat performance the following month.

.@SpaceX successfully caught its Super Heavy Booster for the first time on the Flight 5 mission. The Starship upper stage continues to cruise towards making a planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

Watch live: https://t.co/lwbw2yl6i8

: @w_robinsonsmith for Spaceflight Now pic.twitter.com/WSH8Ng0SqP

— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) October 13, 2024

In a statement to its website, SpaceX noted that some of the sensors on the launch tower were damaged during the liftoff of Flight 6, ultimately preventing a catch attempt. The booster was diverted to a propulsive descent and splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Several radar sensors will be tested on the tower chopsticks with the goal of increasing the accuracy when measuring distances between the chopsticks and a returning vehicle during catch,” SpaceX wrote.

For Flight 7, SpaceX upgraded hardware on the tower to protect the sensors. That said, if there’s another issue, either on the tower or the booster, SpaceX may once again divert to the aquatic ending for the Super Heavy booster, tail number B14.

“Distinct vehicle and pad criteria must be met prior to a return and catch of the Super Heavy booster, requiring healthy systems on the booster and tower and a final manual command from the mission’s Flight Director,” SpaceX said. “If this command is not sent prior to the completion of the boostback burn, or if automated health checks show unacceptable conditions with Super Heavy or the tower, the booster will default to a trajectory that takes it to a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Taking a key step towards reusability, B14 will fly a refurbished engine that was used during Flight 5. Comments from SpaceX founder Elon Musk on X suggest it is Raptor number 314, which features a decal around the number in the shape of a slice of pie (enter joke rimshot here).

SpaceX said it also plans to catch the Ship upper stage at some point during 2025. Musk indicated that it might happen as soon as Flight 8, but that’s not a guarantee.

“This new year will be transformational for Starship, with the goal of bringing reuse of the entire system online and flying increasingly ambitious missions as we iterate towards being able to send humans and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars,” SpaceX said.

Ode to Starlink

Flight 7 won’t be the first mission to go to orbit and therefore won’t be putting the Version 3 edition of Starlink satellites into low Earth obit. However, it does play a key role in reaching that future.

Onboard the Ship upper stage, tail number S33, are 10 of what SpaceX called “Starlink simulators,” which it said are “similar in size and weight to next-generation Starlink satellites as the first exercise of a satellite deploy mission.

“The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and are expected to demise upon entry,” SpaceX said. “A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned.”

The resignation of a Raptor vacuum engine will be key not only for future missions to low Earth orbit and to execute a de-orbit burn following a mission’s conclusion, but also for NASA’s Artemis program.

Starship will serve as the lander that takes astronauts down the lunar surface and back up again during both the Artemis 3 and Artemis 4 missions. Prior to the human-supporting missions, SpaceX will perform an uncrewed landing and ascent demonstration.

On Monday, prior to the launch of 10 NASA payloads onboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar landing, Spaceflight Now spoke with Joel Kearns, the Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. He said beyond the execution of the landing demo from SpaceX, there is a possibility that science instruments may fly to the Moon with it.

“NASA overall is looking at that, having discussions with SpaceX for if is there a particular NASA cargo, which isn’t just having SpaceX, through Starship, demonstrate their vehicle capability that would be valued,” Kearns said. “Those discussions are ongoing.”

Like the Blue Ghost lander serves as Firefly’s method of executing missions for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) Program, Starship serves the same function for SpaceX. At this point though, SpaceX hasn’t been awarded a CLPS contract mission.

“SpaceX is one of the 14 companies in CLPS, but you know, SpaceX is very focused on Starship for both providing the Starship version for the Human Landing System and also for their own corporate goals with Starship,” Kearns said.

“I’m sure once it’s better understood what the real technical capabilities and the costs are of Starship, I really wouldn’t be surprised if SpaceX had some ideas on how to bring CLPS, like cargo, to the Moon once they have all that proved out.”

Ship Block 2

The upper stage of the Starship Flight 7 vehicle, S33, will be the first of the Block 2 variant for SpaceX. It stands at 52-meters-tall (171 ft) with a diameter of 9 m (29.5 ft). That’s nearly two meters taller than the Block 1 variant.

This new version of the fully integrated Starship rocket now stands 123-meters-tall (403 ft). In addition to the height increase, SpaceX also executed on some key structural design changes both internally and externally on the rocket.

“The vehicle’s forward flaps have been reduced in size and shifted towards the vehicle tip and away from the heat shield, significantly reducing their exposure to reentry heating while simplifying the underlying mechanisms and protective tiling,” SpaceX said.

“Redesigns to the propulsion system, including a 25 percent increase in propellant volume, the vacuum jacketing of feedlines, a new fuel feedline system for the vehicle’s Raptor vacuum engines, and an improved propulsion avionics module controlling vehicle valves and reading sensors, all add additional vehicle performance and the ability to fly longer missions.”

SpaceX is also testing upgrades to the upper stage’s heat shield, which will include a backup layer “to protect from missing or damaged tiles.”

Internally, the company said the Ship’s avionics got a massive overhaul, “adding additional capability and redundancy for increasingly complex missions like propellant transfer and ship return to launch site.”

“Avionics upgrades include a more powerful flight computer, integrated antennas which combine Starlink, [Global Navigation Satellite System], and backup [radio frequency] communication functions into each unit, redesigned inertial navigation and star tracking sensors, integrated smart batteries and power units that distribute data and 2.7MW of power across the ship to 24 high-voltage actuators, and an increase to more than 30 vehicle cameras giving engineers insight into hardware performance across the vehicle during flight,” SpaceX said.

Blue Origin entered into the history books in the predawn hours of Thursday. The company, founded by Jeff Bezos, became the first to successfully reach orbit on their first launch with a new orbital-class rocket in the new era of commercial spaceflight that dawned in the last two decades.

After dealing with an unplanned hold to chill its engines and a wayward boat entering the keep out zone, the New Glenn rocket, standing as tall as a 32-story building lumbered off the pad under the power of 3.9 million pounds of thrust.

The seven BE-4 engines on the first stage booster roared to life at 2:03 a.m. EST (0703 UTC) shining a brilliant orange that turned to blue as the liquified natural gas (LNG) fueled rocket began its journey from pad 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Blue Origin dealt with multiple weather-related delays to get to launch day and even during the countdown, faced uncertain skies that threatened to potentially delay the mission yet again.

It also ran into technical issues on its way to launch. Blue Origin said an issue that prevented Monday’s launch was “ice forming in a purge line on an auxiliary power unit that powers some of [New Glenn’s] hydraulic systems.” Teams worked to clear that issue during the three-hour window, but weren’t able to do so in time.

They were further stymied from launching on Tuesday due to poor weather.

One of the goals of the NG-1 mission was to attempt to land the first stage booster, named ‘So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance,’ on Blue Origin’s landing vessel, named ‘Jacklyn,’ which was positioned out in the Atlantic Ocean.

Following a successful stage separation, Blue Origin confirmed that it was able to reignite three out of the seven BE-4 engines, as intended, to perform a nearly 30-second entry burn. But soon after, the telemetry data displayed on the screen for the booster was frozen and the launch commentator said they weren’t receiving data.

Ultimately, it was determined that the touchdown on the 380-foot-long (116 m) landing vessel, named ‘Jacklyn,’ was unsuccessful. That said, going into the launch, Blue Origin said repeatedly that landing the booster was an aspirational goal and not their main objective.

They even went as far as naming the booster, ‘So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance.’ Prior to the launch, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp spoke with Aviation Week and acknowledged that it was as a stretch goal to be sure.

“It’s very hard to simulate the environments, the hypersonic environment as it’s coming back and so, there’s a number events that happen to make that landing successful that we just have to fly to test,” Limp said. “And that’s why it would be icing on the cake if we landed it, but we will learn so much.”

In addition to gathering data about the rocket and the launch flow, the primary goal for Blue Origin was to reach orbit with its second stage and also learn more about its orbital space tug, the Blue Ring. While it wasn’t hosting or deploying any satellites on this mission, it was designed to “validate space to ground communications capabilities by sending commands, receiving telemetry, receiving store and compute mission data, and performing radiometric tracking (for navigation).”

The Blue Ring powered on roughly 14 minutes into the flight and Blue Origin confirmed that the second burn was successful. Blue Origin confirmed that New Glenn’s upper stage, known as Glenn Stage 2 (GS2), reached its target, highly elliptical orbit in the range of the medium Earth orbit, with an apogee of 19,300 km and a perigee of 2,400 km at a 30 degree inclination, which was achieved about an hour and 20 minutes into the mission.

Accolades came from around the space community, welcoming Bezos and his company into the club of those who’ve successfully flown to orbit.

“Congratulations on reaching orbit on the first attempt!” SpaceX founder Elon Musk said in a post on X, tagging Bezos.

“Congratulations @JeffBezos and to the entire @blueorigin team for making the first rocket to achieve orbit on the first launch attempt. 25 years of persistence paid off tonight!” tweeted Astra founder and CEO, Chris Kemp.

“A big week for space! Huge congrats to team @blueorigin,” posted Rocket Lab. The company deployed its second Pioneer spacecraft for Varda Space as part of the Transporter-12 rideshare mission that launched on Tuesday and also contributed the solar panels to Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander, which launched on Wednesday morning.

What’s next for Blue Origin?

Following the elation of successfully reaching orbit, Blue Origin will return to a steady workflow in order to complete work on its second New Glenn rocket.

In a post-launch statement on X, Limp said they are hoping to achieve even more with this next go around.

“We did it! Orbital. Great night for Team Blue,” Limp said. “On to spring and trying again on the landing.”

Bezos told Aviation Week that the company has about seven or eight upper stages in flow at their manufacturing facility, which lies just outside of the gates to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. He said there are also two boosters in work.

This mission was the first on the path to certify the New Glenn rocket to earn contracts as part of the U.S. Space Force’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program. It will compete against SpaceX and its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets as well as United Launch Alliance and its Vulcan rocket.

For the first time in lunar exploration, two robotic landers, from two different nations launched to the Moon on one rocket.

But despite Texas-based Firefly Aerospace and Tokyo-based ispace sharing one SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the two missions are taking very different paths and timelines to reach the lunar surface.

Liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center happened Jan. 15 at 1:11 a.m. EST (0611 UTC). The flight was the 100th orbital launch for SpaceX from the historic pad formerly used by Apollo and the Space Shuttle.

Minutes after deployment, Firefly confirmed acquisition of signal from its lander, officially allowing 45-day trek to the Moon to proceed.

Launch weather officers at the 45th Weather Squadron put the odds of favorable conditions for liftoff at 90 percent, stating that winds could be an issue at launch time.

“Rain showers and overcast conditions will clear the Space Coast by early this afternoon. Wind speeds will decrease throughout the day today,” meteorologists wrote. “By early Wednesday morning and the primary launch window, winds will be at 15-20mph with occasional gusts to 25mph. This will cause a small chance for liftoff winds and a Cumulus Cloud Rule violation.”

SpaceX used the Falcon 9 first stage booster designated B1085 on this mission, which launched for a fifth time. Its previous launches were Crew-9, GPS 3 SV07, Starlink 10-5 and Starlink 6-77.

Nearly 8.5 minutes in to the flight, B1085 landed on the droneship, ‘Just Read the Instructions,’ marking the 107th landing for JRTI and the 398th booster landing to date.

‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’

The Wednesday morning launch marked the first Moon-bound mission for Firefly Aerospace. It’s Blue Ghost lunar lander was conceived following the company’s selection as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) Program.

The objective of CLPS is to get NASA science to the surface of the Moon without the agency having to build the landers or procure launches. NASA has multiple contracts with a variety of CLPS providers, with Astrobotic’s Peregrine Mission 1 and Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 flights occurring in early 2024.

Blue Ghost has a dry mass of 469 kg (1,034 lbs) and weighs roughly 1,500 kg (3,300 lbs) when fueled. It uses a combination of MMH hypergolic propellant and MON-3 oxidizer to power the main engine and thrusters during its journey.

It’s designed to carry ten NASA science payloads to the surface of the Moon, which so far is the most manifested on a single lander as part of CLPS.

Joel Kearns, the Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said once the 10 instruments were small enough that they could fly on one lander, the agency looked for a company that could execute on all the science operations over 14 days (one lunar daylight period).

“Firefly and several other bidders took up that challenge. They’ve come up with a really credible mission plan to conduct all the experiments we want on our instruments,” Kearns said.

In a prelaunch interview with Spaceflight Now, Brigette Oakes, the vice president of Engineering for Firefly, said the company incorporated learnings from previous lunar missions.

“We really also took a lot of lessons learned from previous missions. I mean, we did a full, thorough review of every lunar mission that went up, whether it was commercial or NASA and took a lot of lessons learned from that and then essentially just kind of fine tuned and adapted for Firefly’s model with the additional product lines and then took the best of what previous companies have done before us.”

Firefly also took learnings and hardware from its Alpha rocket and folded those into Blue Ghost as well.

“There’s a lot of great wisdom and experience and lessons learned at this company. We have rockets and satellites at our company. So, there’s a lot of commonality between the two different parts of our company and there’s a lot of lessons learned that get shared,” said Firefly CEO Jason Kim.

“As we go to cadence on our Alpha rocket, a lot of those lessons learned, even the reaction control propulsion, that’s stuff that’s lessons learned for our Blue Ghost lander because we have ACS and RCS thrusters on our Blue Ghost lander that have heritage from the Alpha rocket. So, there’s a lot of crosstalk within our company. So that really helps programs, like Blue Ghost have confidence.”

As Firefly goes in for its first landing attempt, set to take place on March 2, Kim said one of the key tools on this lander is a quartet of cup-shaped ends on the landing legs.

“Those landing pads are designed carefully with crumple zones,” he said. “If you think of honeycomb and how crunchy it is, it’s got that built into the actual structure. And so, when it lands, it’s going to – kind of like you’re car when you get into an accident – it crumples deliberately. That’s what that design entails.”

The mission, called ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky,’ will take slightly longer to reach the surface of the Moon, compared to the last CLPS mission from Houston-based Intuitive Machines. The IM-1 flight took about seven days from liftoff to landing, while the Blue Ghost lander is taking roughly 45 days to make its journey.

Once on the surface, it will operate for about two weeks with instruments including a sample collection tool called the Lunar PlanetVac (LPV) from Honeybee Robotics; a navigational demonstration called the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) from the Italian Space Agency and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; and the Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC) from Aegis Aerospace, which will study how lunar regolith sticks to a variety of materials.

The lander is also designed to survive for a few hours in the lunar night to capture sunset and other data in lunar darkness.

‘Never Quit the Lunar Quest’

Beneath the Blue Ghost lunar lander, inside a specially designed payload canister, was ispace’s lander called Resilience. This was the second time the Japan-based part of the company launches a lander to the Moon.

Its first launch attempt, Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) launched as a dedicated flight on a Falcon 9 in December 2022 and made a failed landing attempt in April 2023.

In a prelaunch interview with Spaceflight Now, former NASA Astronaut and current CEO of ispace-US, Ron Garan, said it was a software glitch that prevented the first landing. He said the radar altimeter saw a big jump in altitude as they approached the crater they were aiming for, which caused the lander to misinterpret where it was in the mission profile.

It then made what it thought was a soft landing, but was actually about 5,000 meters above the bottom of the crater and hovered there until it ran out of fuel and crashed.

“We’ve obviously fixed all that software, we’re not landing in the bottom of a deep crater this time and so, our confidence level is a lot higher on this one,” Garan said.

For Hakuto-R Mission 2, with the mission name ‘Never Quit the Lunar Quest,’ the Resilience lander will target a touchdown in a region called Mare Frigoris – the ‘Sea of Cold’ – which lies in the northern part of the Moon.

The mission will take considerably longer to reach the Moon than Firefly’s Blue Ghost. While Firefly’s lander will be dropped off in a highly elliptical Earth orbit and take 25 days for a phased orbital approach before performing a translunar injection burn, Resilience will take a slower path to the Moon using the upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket to put it on a path for a low-energy transfer to the Moon.

Essentially, it will do a flyby of the Moon, go out about a million miles into deep space and then synch up with the Moon again for its landing.

“What the low-energy transfer allows is us to trade fuel for payload capacity margin,” Garan explained. “It just leads to more capacity for us to bring to the lunar surface.”

The lander carries with it several science instrument, including an a food production experiment and one designed to demonstrate electrolysis.

“The electrolysis is really exciting because of the implications. If we’re able to really do electrolysis on the Moon, then we’re able to produce rocket fuel on the Moon,” Garan said.

The mission will also take a small rover, called Tenacity, which will be deployed to operate on its own after landing. It features an HD camera that will be used to capture, among other things, imagery of an art installation called the ‘Moon House,’ which is a replica of a Swedish home that will be placed on the surface.

Garan said the rover comes from the European division of ispace.

“The rover itself is really critical to the future of our company. That the rover is efficient and the data that’s going to come off the rover is going to be really valuable to us as we continue to hone our design on the surface mobility aspect of the business,” Garan said. “And so, that’s really exciting too.”

Both the rover and the lander will operate on the surface of the Moon for about two weeks when the Moon slips into lunar nighttime. Garan said they are looking at a variety of methods for how to potentially achieve this, from orbiting solar concepts to nuclear options and beyond.

“To start a cislunar economy, you have to be able to survive the night. There’s millions and millions and millions of dollars that are put into these missions and if they only operate for two weeks, that’s not a very good return on investment,” Garan said. “So we want to be able to do surface operations for moths or years at a time and in order to do that, you have to be able to survive the night.”

SpaceX launched 131 payloads Tuesday onboard the company’s 12th smallsat rideshare mission to date.

The Transporter-12 mission flew onboard a Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 11:09 a.m. PST (2:09 p.m. EST, 1909 UTC).

The Falcon 9 booster used on Tuesday’s flight, tail number B1088 in the SpaceX fleet, was launching for a second time. It previously launched the NROL-126 mission, which was a combination of 20 Starlink V2 Mini satellites and an undisclosed number of Starshield satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office.

About 7.5 minutes after liftoff, B1088 touched down at Landing Zone 4, located near the launch pad. It marked the 23rd booster landing at LZ-4 and the 397th booster landing to date.

The dozens of payloads flying were from a myriad of customers from around the world, from research institutes and aerospace companies to other governments’ space agencies, like the United Arab Emirates’ Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre.

The MBRSC’s MBZ-SAT, an Earth-observation satellite, is named after the country’s president, H.H. Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The agency said the satellite is designed to process and transmit images within two hours to “provide insights for applications such as environmental monitoring, disaster relief, and infrastructure management, enabling decision-makers to act swiftly and effectively.”

Other Earth-observing satellites include Planet Labs PBC’s high-resolution Pelican-2 satellite along with 36 of its SuperDoves.

“This Pelican satellite is designed to provide up to 40 cm class resolution imagery across 6 multispectral bands optimized for cross-sensor analysis,” Planet wrote in a pre-launch statement. “Additionally, Planet has collaborated with NVIDIA to equip Pelican-2 with the NVIDIA Jetson platform to power on-orbit computing—with the aim of vastly reducing the time between data capture and value for customers.”

Also hitching a ride to space are Spire Global’s two Low Earth Multi-Use Receiver (LEMUR) 3 satellites along with four other satellites. The LEMUR 3 CubeSats are designed to help improve weather forecasting, maritime monitoring and augment Internet-of-Things connectivity, according to the company.

“Two LEMUR 3 satellites, developed in collaboration with Myriota, will expand global IoT coverage with cutting-edge direct-to-orbit communications, enabling Myriota’s IoT solutions to operate seamlessly and more effectively,” Spire said in a pre-launch statement. “This network will enhance connectivity for critical sectors such as agriculture, defense, and logistics across regions like the US, Europe, and Latin America, promoting sustainability and efficient resource management.”

Spire’s satellites are among the 35 satellites being flown by satellite deployment and hosting company, Exolaunch.

“Transporter-11 was a landmark mission for us, and as we look ahead to Transporter-12, we’re excited to keep the momentum going,” said Robert Sproles, Exolaunch CEO, in a pre-launch statement. “We deeply appreciate the trust our customers place in us and extend our thanks to SpaceX for their outstanding support.

“Our long-standing partnership with SpaceX has been a cornerstone of Exolaunch’s growth, and it’s an honor to be part of every Transporter mission.”

Satellite deployment began about 54 minutes after liftoff with the deployment of the GESat and GEN1 satellites by Exolaunch and concluded more than two hours and 22 minutes after liftoff with the deployment of Firefly-2 by Pixxel, also via Exolaunch.

The countdown is on!

We’re excited to launch & deploy multiple satellites on the upcoming @SpaceX Transporter-12 mission – including this one pictured, “TROLL,” for our customer @TRLspace. pic.twitter.com/fwC5jEnotB

— Exolaunch (@Exolaunch) January 6, 2025

Update 2:37 p.m. EST (1937 UTC): SpaceX confirmed deployment of the Starlink satellites.

SpaceX kicked off a busy launch week that features flights from all four of its launch pads between California, Florida and Texas. Assuming no launch slips, it will launch three Falcon 9 rockets and the seventh flight test of its Starship-Super Heavy rocket.

First up was the Starlink 12-4 mission, which launched from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Liftoff happened at 11:47 a.m. EST (1647 UTC).

The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting the mission, tail number B1080 in the SpaceX fleet, launched for a 15th time. It previously supported the launches of the European Space Agency’s Euclid spacecraft, four missions to the International Space Station and eight Starlink flights.

A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, B1080 landed on the droneship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas,’ marking the 94th booster landing on ASOG and the 396th booster landing to date.

A day after launching the Starlink 12-4 mission, SpaceX is scheduled to launch the Transporter-12 rideshare mission with dozens of satellites on board. That mission will launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Next up, back in Florida, a dual-lunar landing mission is scheduled to launch no earlier than 1:11 a.m. EST (0611 UTC) on Wednesday, Jan. 15, from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Later that day, SpaceX is scheduled to launch the Starship Flight 7 mission, where it will attempt to once again catch the Super Heavy booster at the launch tower.

Update 3:20 a.m. EST (0820 UTC): Blue Origin scrubbed the launch.

Blue Origin is preparing to step into a new chapter of rocketry, by debuting its first orbital class rocket, New Glenn. It will also attempt to recover the first stage booster on landing platform the Atlantic Ocean.

The company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was targeting the inaugural launch of New Glenn during a three-hour window on Monday, Jan. 13. However, launch teams ran into what they described as a “vehicle subsystem issue” that took longer to potentially resolve than they had time available in the window.

A new launch date was still being determined as of 3:09 a.m. EST (0809 UTC). When it launches, the rocket will liftoff from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and fly in a slightly southeasterly trajectory.

During an interview with Aviation Week prior to the start of fueling Sunday night, Bezos reflected on the enormity of the moment calling it “a very big night.”

“We’re ready. We don’t know for sure what’s going to happen. I think trying to land the booster on the first mission is a little crazy of us and it may not work. It’ll certainly be icing on the cake,” Bezos said.

“If it does, I do hope, I think we all hope, that we successfully deploy the Blue Ring Pathfinder into the correct orbit. So you know, that would be success, but we’re also prepared for anything to go wrong,” he added. “If there is an anomaly of any kind, at any stage of the mission, we’ll pick ourselves up and keep going.”

Poor weather conditions in the area of the Atlantic Ocean where the booster, named ‘So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance,’ prevented launch attempts previously scheduled for Friday and then Sunday morning. However, conditions were markedly calmer heading into the launch attempt on Monday, according to the 45th Weather Squadron.

“High pressure will build across the area today, then a disturbance approaching the region Monday may increase mid-level clouds across the Spaceport as early as Monday morning,” launch weather officers wrote. “This disturbance will generate showers, breezy winds and widespread clouds across the Spaceport late Monday into early Tuesday.”

If Blue Origin is unable to launch on Monday, but hasn’t begun loading propellant onto the rocket, a backup window on Tuesday has a much worse outlook at liftoff. The forecast goes from a 90 percent chance of favorable weather on Monday to just 40 percent favorable on Tuesday, impacted by both cloud coverage and stronger winds at the launch pad.

Meteorologists also expressed additional confidence in the booster recovery area for both the primary and 24-hour backup launch windows.

“For recovery, significant sea heights will lower to around 5-6 feet for the primary window, and lower even more to around 4-5 ft for the backup window,” the forecast stated. “Winds should remain light, making a low risk for offshore landing weather on both primary and backup periods.”

The New Glenn-1 launch may be visible to those throughout the regions below, weather permitting. Here’s when and where to look to the skies! pic.twitter.com/du8wehNiRE

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) January 11, 2025

“The riskiest part of the mission is the landing”

While not the primary goal for the NG-1 mission, one of the riskiest parts of the mission will undoubtedly be Blue Origin’s attempt to land its first stage booster, named ‘So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance,’ on the landing platform, named ‘Jacklyn,’ after Bezos’ mother.

The operation is one that will look reminiscent of SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rockets, which land on either droneships or landing platforms at both Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Space Force Base.

Speaking with Aviation Week, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said the challenge of attempting a landing on the first outing is exacerbated by the known unknowns of a first flight that they can’t test on the ground.

“It’s very hard to simulate the environments, the hypersonic environment as it’s coming back and so, there’s a number events that happen to make that landing successful that we just have to fly to test,” Limp said. “And that’s why it would be icing on the cake if we landed it, but we will learn so much.”

The roughly 57-meter-tall (188 ft) booster was designed to be usable for a minimum of 25 launches, according to Blue Origin. The booster, also referred to as Glenn Stage 1 (GS1) is powered by seven of the company’s BE-4 engines.

GS1 is fueled by liquified natural gas and liquid oxygen. The combination of all seven engines at liftoff is about 3.9 million pounds of thrust.

A little more than three minutes into flight, the booster will aim to separate from the upper stage and use a combination of the forward module fins and the reaction control system to reorient the vehicle to aim for the landing vessel.

A little more than seven minutes into the mission, three of the seven BE-4 engines will reignite to conduct a nearly 30-second reentry burn to slow the booster down. A final landing burn will begin just before the nine-minute mark with a touchdown scheduled for about 9.5 minutes after liftoff.

The aft module of the booster contains six hydraulically-actuated legs, which deploy seconds before a planned landing. Following touchdown, a robot called the Recovery Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) is deployed to attach to the booster.

Limp said in a post on X that it “provides power, communication and pneumatic links between the booster and the platform.” He added that the ROV is about 4.3-meters-tall (14 ft) and takes up the footprint of a Ford F-150 truck.

The landing timeline will only come to pass if everything is nominal with the flight. The booster will divert from the landing vessel, if it senses an anomaly.

Bezos told Aviation Week on Sunday that while he considered the booster landing to be “the riskiest part of the mission,” even if the booster is lost, Blue Origin is already in a good work flow at their manufacturing campus on Merritt Island, just outside of the gates of the Kennedy Space Center.

“We have two boosters right here in workflow, two more boosters. We’ve got, I don’t know, seven or eight second stages right here in workflow,” Bezos explained. “So, we’ll be ready to fly again in the spring, regardless of what happens.”

Setting the table

Besides the landing attempt, the primary goal for Blue Origin is get the New Glenn rocket safely off the pad at LC-36 and have a nominal flight of its second stage, GS2, which is fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.

Tucked inside the 7-meter-diameter (23 ft) payload fairings is the company’s Blue Ring Pathfinder. During the NG-1 mission, it will remain fixed to the upper stage and work to “validate space to ground communications capabilities by sending commands, receiving telemetry, receiving store and compute mission data, and performing radiometric tracking (for navigation).”

The GS2 with the Blue Ring Pathfinder will launch into a highly elliptical orbit in the range of the medium Earth orbit, with an apogee of 19,300 km and a perigee of 2,400 km at a 30 degree inclination.

The NG-1 mission serves as a way for Blue Origin to learn much more about it upper stage. Bezos described second stage ignition as just one of the big hurdles during this inaugural flight.

“Because you’re in vacuum, it’s not easy for an engine the size of BE-3U to do vacuum testing at full power, so ignition is a real issue,” Bezos said. “Even fairing separation has caught people up. Even stage separation has caught people up. Stage separation is another thing that you can’t really test on Earth. You can do certain subsystem tests and so on, but of all the things we’re doing today, relighting the BE-4s in that reentry environment, that’s probably the hardest thing to test.”

Bezos said the path to profitability will depend partly on the flight tonight and partly on how quickly they’re able to get back to the launch pad.

“I think we can fly six to eight times this year and hopefully ramp up very quickly in 2026 after that,” Bezos said. “But I don’t want to speculate on when that would actually become profitable.”

Update 2:37 p.m. (1937 UTC): SpaceX safely landed the first stage booster on the droneship.

SpaceX maintained its rapid pace of launching an orbital mission on average every two days with its Falcon 9 flight from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Friday afternoon. It also completed a record-breaking 25th landing of an orbital class rocket.

Liftoff of the Starlink 12-12 mission from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) happened at 2:11 p.m. EST (1911 UTC). This will be SpaceX’s 5th Falcon 9 launch in 2025.

In a forecast issued on Thursday, the 45th Weather Squadron reported a greater than 95 percent chance of favorable weather at liftoff, citing no weather constraints.

The Falcon 9 first stage booster for this mission, tail number B1067 in the SpaceX fleet, made a record-setting 25th launch and landing attempt. It entered service in 2021, previously launching four flights to the International Space Station, the Galileo L13 mission for the European Commission and 13 previous batches of Starlink satellites.

A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, B1067 landed on the SpaceX droneship, ‘Just Read the Instructions,’ marked the 106th booster landing on JRTI and the 395th booster landing to date.

Among the 21 Starlink satellites onboard the Falcon 9 rocket are 13 that feature Direct to Cell capabilities. While the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hasn’t granted full implementation of the DTC service, on Thursday, it once again authorized emergency use for those impacted by the fires in the greater Los Angeles area.

Earlier in the day, SpaceX announced it would be providing a month of free Starlink service to those impacted by the fires. It also sent free kits to agencies, organizations and shelters helping to respond to the deadly and destructive fires.

For those in the Los Angeles area, the @Starlink team and @TMobile have enabled basic texting (SMS) through our Direct to Cell satellites. You can now text loved ones, text 911 and receive emergency alerts.

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 10, 2025