Capping off a rare week without launches and full of stumbling blocks, the space industry appears to be returning to its planned course of action with four launches from around the world. This week is expected to mark Electron’s 50th launch, and SpaceX and CASC continue to dominate the launch calendar.
SpaceX begins the week preparing to catch up with two Falcon 9 missions launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Vandenberg, California. Later in the week, Rocket Lab is expected to launch the No Time Toulouse mission with Electron from New Zealand. At the same time, China is targeting another launch of its workhorse rocket, the Chang Zheng 2C, to launch a joint Chinese-French telescope.
Valk 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 9-1
Now that the first Group 9 Starlink satellites are in orbit, four different types of Starlink groups are being actively added to space at an incredible pace. After being postponed from June 13 to June 14 and now to June 18, this launch officially launched on June 18 at 8:40 PM PDT (03:40 UTC on June 19).
Falcon 9 carried twenty Starlink v2 Mini satellites with Direct-to-Cell capabilities to a 53-degree inclined orbit on a southeasterly trajectory. B1082, launched from Space Launch Complex-4E in Vandenberg, California, carried these satellites on its fifth flight to an initial orbit of 286 by 295 km, where they were placed into orbit and deployed by the second stage. They then flew to just over 500km altitude using the Starlink satellite’s Hall effect thrusters to provide even more support to the more than 6,000 active Starlink satellites already in orbit .
View of a stack of 21 Starlink v2 Mini satellites before they are locked in their fairings. (Credit: SpaceX)
This booster completed the 246th consecutive landing on the autonomous droneship Of course I still love you, which was parked 642 km away at an identical landing position to the Starlink Group 8-7 and 8-8 missions. This was Falcon 9’s 62nd flight in 2024, putting SpaceX 43% of the way toward its goal of 144 launches in one year, although the year is 46% advanced, leaving SpaceX only a small margin behind schedule.
Valk 9 Block 5 | Astra 1P/SES-24
After a week of weather delays and an unusual T-0 abort after Falcon 9 had already fired up its engines, SpaceX appears to be getting back on its feet with the launch of Astra 1P/SES-24. This mission has already been postponed by a day due to bad weather at Space Launch Complex 40 on the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Now scheduled for launch no earlier than June 19 at 5:35 PM EDT (9:35 PM UTC) after a scrub on June 18, SpaceX will use B1080 for its ninth flight. This booster will launch the Astra 1P/SES-24 television satellite into an inclined geostationary orbit of 19.2 degrees on an eastern trajectory from the same launch pad. It will then land about 400 miles (648 km) away on SpaceX’s autonomous drone ship Just read the instructions.
SES-24/Astra 1P was built in Europe by Thales Alenia Space for the European television market and will provide updated reliability and image quality capabilities to Germany, Spain and France. SES-24/Astra 1P is a wide beam satellite with 80 transponders. This gives it the ability to broadcast up to 500 HDTV channels.
Clean room photo of Astra 1P/SES-24 before shipment to Cape Canaveral. (Credit: Thales Alenia Space)
This will be the first time that SpaceX has launched an Astra satellite, with previous launches carried out by Atlas V, Proton M and Ariane 5. Once in orbit, this satellite will deploy its 45-meter-wide solar array and provide 20 kW of power produce. it is one of the most powerful satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
Elektron/Curie | No time Toulouse
Electron is vertical for its 50th launch to complete the No Time Toulouse mission with the very first batch of five Kinéis 1-5 nanosatellites. After a two-day weather delay, Electron will lift off in an immediate launch window from LC-1B on the Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand, on June 21 at 6:13 a.m. NZT (June 20, 6:13 UTC). Electron will launch at an angle of 98 degrees to the equator, where it will deliver the payload into low Earth orbit (LEO).
After Electron reaches LEO, Rocket Lab’s Curie kick stage will circle the orbit to an orbit of 635 km in an eight-second orbit. The satellites are then released into their specific order, where they will move to the final 650 km orbit under their own power. After Curie successfully releases the five satellites, it will perform a lower burn to help the spacecraft disappear safely into the Pacific Ocean.
Delivery of Kinéis nanosatellites to Rocket Lab for final testing before integration. (Credit: Kinéis)
Kinéis is a French Internet of Things satellite operatorr and connectivity provider operating from Toulouse, France. These satellites are the first Kinéis internal satellites to be launched on Electron, and four missions are already planned for the future to launch another twenty nanosatellites. Kinéis has been using the Argos system of satellites that have been in orbit around the Earth since 1978. Using these satellites and the new Kinéis nanosatellites, they will be able to create a constellation that can significantly reduce the time between satellite revisits.
Chang Zheng 2C | SVOM
A brand new telescope prepares for its flight to LEO on the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) Chang Zheng 2C rocket. Chang Zheng 2C will launch on June 22 at 3:00 PM CST (07:00 UTC) from the LC-3 of the This payload will enter a circular orbit of 625 km with an orbital period of 96 minutes. This will be Chang Zheng 2C’s fourth mission this year and its 78th mission of all time.
The SVOM mission is the first astronomical joint mission of the French Space Agency and the Chinese National Space Administration. This partnership follows a 2014 Memorandum of Understanding, which aimed to promote the exchange of research on common issues of interest to both countries. SVOM is the result of this collaboration.
Final preparation of SVOM launch before integration into Chang Zheng 2C. (Credit: CASC)
The SVOM X-ray telescope will be used to detect and locate gamma-ray bursts in the X-ray band using the ECLAIR instrument, observe gamma-ray bursts in the soft X-ray range using the MXT instrument, measure the spectrum of high-energy bursts using the Gamma Ray Burst Monitor, and operate in the visible range to detect and observe the visible emission produced immediately after a gamma ray burst using the VT telescope. The goal of SVOM is to study the gamma-ray bursts of exploding stars to learn about the unknowns of the universe, such as the death of massive stars, the birth of black holes and much more.
(Main image: Electron on LC-1B in New Zealand before launch No time Toulouse mission. (Credit: Rocket Lab)