This Week in Launch: Electron returns to flight and final Falcon Heavy of the year

Another packed week between SpaceX and China launching almost every day this week. The expected Falcon Heavy launch from this weekend is now today (Monday) but that’s not the only RTLS mission this week. This Friday a Falcon 9 will fly and have its booster return to LZ-1 as well.

Hidden in the bunch will be the return to flight of Rocket Lab‘s Electron rocket!

This week launches:

• Monday (Dec. 11)
  • SpaceX Falcon Heavy USSF-52, 8:14 P.M. ET
    • LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, FL
  • SpaceX Falcon 9 Starlink Group 6-34, 11:05 P.M. ET
    • SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, FL
• Tuesday (Dec. 12)
  • Rocket Lab Electron The Moon God Awakens, 11:00 P.M. ET
    • LC-1B, Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand
• Wednesday (Dec. 13)
  • SpaceX Falcon 9 Starlink Group 7-9, 8:59 P.M. PT
    • SLC-4E, Vandenberg Space Force Base, California
• Thursday (Dec. 14)
  • CASC Long March 2F/T Experimental Spaceplane?, 9:10 A.M. ET
    • Site 901, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China
• Friday (Dec. 15)
  • CASC Long March 5 Unknown Payload, 8:45 A.M. ET
    • LC-101, Wenchang Space Launch Site, China
  • SpaceX Falcon 9 Ozone-3, 3:46 P.M. ET
    • SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
• Saturday (Dec. 16)
  • i-Space Hyperbola-1 Unknown Payload, 1:00 A.M. ET
    • Site 95A, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China

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US and China launching spaceplanes

After a delay of a couple of days, SpaceX’s next, and most likely final, Falcon Heavy flight of 2023 is set to lift off later tonight. Designated USSF-52, usually these missions are much more unknown than what we have today.

Inside the Falcon Heavy’s payload fairings will be the Air Force‘s X-37B spaceplane, one of the few items the branch kept after the creation of the Space Force. Operated by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office and collaboration with the Space Force, how it’s used and what is on it is normally kept classified.

What we do know is it’s a test vehicle for future technologies the government might use in space. This is used in its mission designations, OTV or Orbital Test Vehicle. This mission, OTV-7, will be the X-37B’s seventh flight into space.

Not sure if this is a coincidence or not but China is also expected to launch its super secret spaceplane this week as well.

RTLS coming to East Coast Friday

At the end of the week we’ll see a Falcon 9 rocket lift a rare non-Starlink mission fro SLC-40. On top will be the Ovzon-3 satellite from Ovzon AB, a Swedish telecommunications company.

This payload was originally intended for a direct to geostationary launch on the Falcon Heavy rocket. However, it canceled that agreement to launch on the Ariane 5 instead in 2019 but delays to the satellite’s manufacturing brought it back to SpaceX, this time on a Falcon 9.

After launching its second stage and payload out of the atmosphere, the booster will do a flip and return to Florida’s Space Coast. It will then come to a soft touchdown at LZ-1, just a few days after the last booster, from USSF-52, landed there as well.

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