A private Moon mission with a lunar lander and two rovers was scheduled to launch last week. Although it was postponed, the mission appears to still be scheduled for this Wednesday. Other than that, there have been a few further satellite launches from numerous nations worldwide.
Tuesday, November 5
- A SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying 40 OneWeb satellites will launch this week’s first satellite. OneWeb, which competes with SpaceX’s Starlink network, has been exploring for alternative ways to launch its satellites into orbit since it no longer has access to Russian rockets. The mission will take off from Florida at 10:37 UTC. There’s a chance SpaceX’s website will transmit it live.
Wednesday, November 7
There are two launches on Wednesday.
- The Xingyun satellites 4 and 5 are carried on the first launch by the Kuaizhou KZ-11 rocket from the private Chinese company ExPace. These satellites will form a “constellation for Internet-of-Things communications” and orbit the Earth at a low altitude. It is unlikely that this mission, which will take off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 1:15 a.m. UTC, will be webcast, but footage will be made available thereafter.
- The Hakuto-R M1 mission to the Moon is being launched in the second rocket, a Falcon 9. From last week, this was postponed. Commercial and governmental payloads, including two rovers that will explore the Moon’s surface, will be carried by a lunar lander tech demonstration. It is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral at 8:04 a.m. UTC and is already being live on YouTube.
On Friday, December 9
delivering a few tiny radio frequency monitoring satellites for Hawkeye 360 into orbit. Virginia is for Launch Lovers is the launch’s intriguing moniker, which is typical of Rocket Lab. The launch is slated to take place from Wallops Island between 11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. UTC, and it might be broadcast on Rocket Lab’s website.
11 December Sunday
Chinese Long March 11 rocket will be launched from Xichang Satellite Launch Center as the week’s final mission. At 7:20 a.m. UTC, it will launch the Shenjian 2013 satellite into orbit, but it is unknown what it will do. For video of the launch, see the recap for the next week.
Recap
A Long March 2F transporting three taikonauts to the Chinese Space Station was the first launch we witnessed last week. Lu Zhang, Qingming Deng, and Junlong Fei made up the crew of three. From the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, they lifted off.
