The Weekly Rocket Report #28
05/26/2025-06/01/2025
Ricky Whitmore
Space Writer
Hello and welcome back to The Weekly Rocket Report! Let’s jump right in to the action, as there is a lot of action to cover.
The week begins with the SpaceX launch everyone has been waiting for! Starlink Group 17-1! No..? Well then.. Anyway, Falcon 9 lifted off carrying the 24 satellites of Starlink Group 17-1 Tuesday afternoon. Following stage separation the Falcon first stage came back down to Earth, landing on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You.”
Now, on to the SpaceX launch everyone was actually waiting for! The 9th flight of Starship took place Tuesday evening, launching from Starbase Texas. Following a nominal ascent, and stage separation the Super Heavy Booster (which was not planned to be caught) exploded almost immediately after re-firing its engines for a landing burn. The ship, made it past SECO (the first Mk II ship to do so), however at some point control of the ship was lost, and it began spinning out of control, eventually losing contact during re-entry. For a more detailed article on Starship Flight 9 please read this article by another great writer, here at TWS https://www.theweeklyspaceman.com/articles/starship-ninth-flight-test-recap
Starship launching on its 9th test flight. Photo Credit: SpaceX.
Back to Florida, where, Wednesday morning, Falcon 9 launched Starlink Group 10-32. The 27 satellites were deployed successfully to orbit, and the first stage booster successfully returned to Earth, landing on the drone ship “Just Read The Instructions”.
Wednesday afternoon we had a launch from Long March 3B, carrying Tianwen 2. Tianwen 2 is a mission to return asteroid samples from the asteroid “2016 HO3” (Kamoʻoalewa). Following the sample return to Earth, the Chinese craft will use Earth’s gravity to swing back out and study the comet “311P/PANSTArRS”.
Long March 3B launches Tianwen 2. Photo Credit: https://x.com/CNSpaceflight.
Just after midnight Thursday there was another Long March launch, this time a Long March 4B. The payload was Shijian 26, claimed by the Chinese to be for “Earth observation and environment management”.
To Florida again, we have another Falcon 9 launch, however this time, not for Starlink. Falcon 9 blasted off carrying GPS III SV08 (USA-545) on behalf of the US Air Force. Following stage separation the booster returned to Earth, landing down range on the drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas”.
Falcon 9 launches GPS III. Photo Credit: SpaceX.
Saturday morning saw another launch out of Texas, however this one was from Blue Origin. New Shepard lifted off from the West Texas Desert, carrying the crew of NS-32 to space. The crew consisted of Amy Medina Jorge, Dr. Gretchen Green, Jaime Aleman, Jesse Williams, Mark Rocket, and Paul Jeris. Following stage separation the booster landed successfully back in the Texas desert, and the crew capsule landed safely a few minutes later.
The final launch of the week came with Falcon 9 lifted off carrying the 27 satellites of Starlink Group 11-18. Following stage separation the rocket's 1st stage returned to Earth and landed on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You”.
And there you go my friends, the launches for the week. Looking ahead to next week we have an Electron and *Checks notes* a lot of Falcon launches. No matter what happens I’ll see you back here to re-cap it all on The Weekly Rocket Report.
As always feel free to write to me at rickyew2112@gmail.com, or find me on X @Rickyew2112
Sic Itur Ad Astra
(Thus They Journey to the Stars)