The Weekly Rocket Report #30

06/09/2025-06/15/2025

Ricky Whitmore

Space Writer

Hello my friends, welcome back to The Weekly Rocket Report! Let’s skip the formalities and jump right into the action.

We begin in Florida with a launch of Falcon 9 on Tuesday. Falcon carried the 23 payloads of Starlink Group 12-24 to orbit. Following the separation of the 2 rocket stages, the booster landed back on the drone ship “Just Read The Instructions”.

Falcon 9 launches Starlink Group 12-24. Image Credit: SpaceX.

Moving on to Wednesday we got a launch from Electron out of New Zealand. The mission, officially called “The Mountain God Guards”, is another SAR satellite for IQPS. The final plan is to have 36 of these high powered satellites in orbit.

Electron prior to the launch of “The Mountain God Guards”. Image Credit: Rocket Lab.

To the coast of California now where Falcon 9 launched Starlink Group 15-6 from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The 26 satellites were deployed successfully and the first stage booster landed successfully down range on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You”.

Once again we have a Starlink Mission, this time Starlink Group 12-26. Falcon 9 successfully carried its 23 satellites to orbit, and the first stage landed down range on the drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas”.

The final launch of the week took place in China, where a Long March 2D launched Zhangheng-1-02. The payload was built in partnership with Italy, and will study seismic events on Earth, from space.

Long March 2D launches Zhangheng-1-02. Image Credit: https://x.com/CNSpaceflight

And that is it for the week everyone. Looking ahead to next week we have more Falcons, including a postponed Axiom 4, another Electron, and launches from Angara and Atlas V. I’ll see you back here next week to break it all down.

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)