Two big launches scheduled for this week

SpaceX completed a wet dress rehearsal of its fully stacked Starship rocket Friday, clearing the way for launch this Monday. This mission will set the new record for the largest rocket ever launched, thanks to the slightly taller Block 2 Ship 33 second stage. Thursday and Friday were full days of work for SpaceX’s employees down in Starbase, Texas. The teams rolled Ship 33 from the manufacturing facility down to the launch site and then stacked it on Booster 14, which was already on the launch mount.

Then SpaceX conducted a wet dress rehearsal for Starship Flight 7, filling both the ship and booster with 11 million pounds of propellant. This is always the final test before SpaceX gives the go-ahead to finish launch preparations. Saturday morning, SpaceX had already destacked Ship 33 to finish any work needed on it before Monday afternoon’s launch.

For Friday, Flight 7’s Starship was briefly the largest rocket ever assembled, beating its own record by a few meters. This is thanks to the added height of the Block 2 ship, which has larger propellant tanks and redesigned forward flaps. SpaceX is actually testing a lot on Starship Flight 7; find the ten coolest aspects here.

Monday’s launch [since delayed] will be another big moment for SpaceX as it hopes to incrementally build its Starship program over the year. Flight 7 will feature not just the debut of its Block 2 hardware but also a flight-proven Raptor engine on the booster and ten Starlink satellite simulators in the payload bay. Starship Flight 7 is currently set for Monday at 4:00 P.M. CT, and you’ll find live coverage on SpaceX’s X account starting approximately 35 minutes before liftoff. There is always a good chance SpaceX will delay the mission deeper into its launch window, which lasts several hours. 

https://spaceexplored.com/2025/01/11/starship-flight-7-spacex-completes-pre-launch-rehearsal/

COCOA BEACH, Fla.—As it so often does in the final days before the debut of a new rocket, it all comes down to weather. Accordingly, Blue Origin is only awaiting clear skies and fair seas for its massive New Glenn vehicle to lift off from Florida. After the company completed integration of the rocket this week, and rolled the super heavy lift rocket to its launch site at Cape Canaveral, the focus turned toward the weather. Conditions at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base have been favorable during the early morning launch windows available to the rocket, but there have been complications offshore. That’s because Blue Origin aims to recover the first stage of the New Glenn rocket, and sea states in the Atlantic Ocean have been unsuitable for an initial attempt to catch the first stage booster on a drone ship. The company has already waived one launch attempt set for 1 am ET (06:00 UTC) on Friday, January 10.

Conditions have improved a bit since then, but on Saturday evening the company’s launch officials canceled a second attempt planned for 1 am ET on Sunday. The new launch time is now 1 am ET on Monday, January 13, when better sea states are expected. There is a three-hour launch window. The company will provide a webcast of proceedings at this link beginning one hour before liftoff.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/new-glenn-rocket-is-at-the-launch-pad-waiting-for-calm-seas-to-land

Comment: For a while, it looked like both Starship 7 and New Glenn 1 would both launch on Monday. But Musk has since announce that the Starship launch has been pushed back to at least 15 January. The New Glenn launch is still scheduled for tomorrow.

The New Glenn is not meant to challenge the place of Starship in the future of space exploration and development. But it will challenge the place of the Falcon Heavy. It’s designed to carry larger and heavier payloads to both LEO and geosynchronous orbit cheaper than the Falcon Heavy. We’ll see how that develops. Being that Musk is fully focused on the Starship, he may not mind the competition from the New Glenn.

TTG

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5 Responses to Two big launches scheduled for this week

  1. Keith Harbaugh says:

    I want to protest the proliferation of satellites in orbit.
    For the most insane, and unnecessary, example of this, see
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink

    Why is this a problem?
    See

    “What is ‘Kessler Syndrome’ —
    and why do some scientists think
    the space disaster scenario has already started?”
    https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/27/science/space-junk-earth-kessler-syndrome

    The number of objects in space … has increased exponentially.

    That this is leading inevitably to the Kessler disaster should be obvious.
    Way past time to stop putting unnecessary things in orbit.
    Earth orbit is a finite resource, and exploitation of it should be limited.0

  2. Lars says:

    The New Glenn did not make it, which is not all that surprising with a new system. Starlink went up. I did not see it, due to clouds, but I heard it.

    Space junk is a problem already, but there are discussions about how to clean it up. No doubt it would require the most expensive vacuum cleaner ever. Hopefully, it will be done before any disasters. We have plenty of them as it is.

    • English Outsider says:

      Lars – on the question of Starlink “menz”, on “b’s” site, directs us to an article in Asia Times.

      “China plans to blow Starlink out of the sky in a Taiwan war.

      “China touts new AI-powered disruption techniques that would mimic hunting whales to seek and destroy SpaceX satellites in war time”

      https://asiatimes.com/2025/01/china-plans-to-blow-starlink-out-of-the-sky-in-a-taiwan-war/

      Though if the conflict got that serious it’d likely go nuclear anyway.

      On the question of space rubbish, won’t that solve itself? The more that gets put up there the more likely it is that one of them will knock into another and start the chain reaction of destruction. The tiny meteorites that are constantly coming in will also find a target or two eventually as the number of such targets increases.

  3. Lars says:

    The problem is that most satellites are in certain orbits, depending on their mission. Thus, that highway is getting crowded and the risk of collision has risen. At times, the ISS had had to move to avoid being struck.

    To take out all the Starlink satellites is probably very hard. I also think China has more problems much closer to home. Both economically and demographic.

  4. TTG says:

    Blue Origin had a successful launch of the New Glenn this morning. The second stage reached orbit, but the booster did not stick the landing. It managed to reignite the three engines as planned, but I don’t know what happened after that. The liftoff was slow and elegant. Don’t know if that was intended or not.

    SpaceX is scheduled to launch Starship 7 sometime around 1600 hrs today. They made a lot of changes on the Starship including the size and location of the forward flaps. Should be interesting.

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