The Weekly Rocket Report #39
08/18/2025-08/24/2025
Ricky Whitmore
Space Writer
Hello all, thanks for coming back to The Weekly Rocket Report! We have quite a week to get through so as usual, we will get right into the action.
The first launch of the week was from Falcon 9. The rocket successfully blasted the 24 satellites of Starlink 17-5 into orbit, and the rocket’s first stage returned to Earth, landing on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You”.
Next to go was Kinetica 1 carrying 7 satellites for various customers, most of which were either Earth observation, or tech demo satellites. The satellites launched were ThumbSat 1-2, Tianyan 26, AIRSAT-5, and Duogongneng Shiyan-2 1-3.
To Russia now for two launches, the first coming Wednesday afternoon. Soyuz 2.1b launched Bion-M 2, an uncrewed space capsule based around the Vostok spacecraft which has been upgraded and modernized.
Soyuz 2.1b prior to the launch of Bion-M 2. Photo Credit: Roscosmos.
The second launch which happened Thursday was a polar orbit shot from Plesetsk Cosmodrome. Angara 2.1 launched Cosmos 2590-2593, secret satellites for the Russian military.
Later Thursday night saw the launch of the secretive X-37B spaceplane. Falcon 9 carried the Boeing craft to orbit on the mission officially called USSF-36 (OTV-8). After staging the rocket’s first stage flew back to the launch site, touching down safely at LZ-2.
Falcon 9 prior to the launch of USSF-36 (OTV-8). Photo Credit: SpaceX.
The next launch was from Falcon 9, which launched 24 satellites on Starlink Group 17-6 from Vandenberg. Following stage separation, the booster returned to Earth, landing down range on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You”.
Saturday we were treated to an Electron launch, this time with the mission “Live, Laugh, Launch”. The customer or payloads were not announced by Rocket Lab, something they seem to be doing a lot more of recently.
Electron launches Live, Laugh, Launch. Photo Credit: Rocket Lab.
The final launch of the week came from Falcon 9, which launched CRS SpX-33 from the Cape early Sunday morning. Dragon successfully arrived with its cargo to the International Space Station, and the rocket’s booster returned successfully to Earth, landing on the drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas”.
There we have it everyone, a busy week indeed. Sorry again for getting last week’s report out as late as I did, this past week was something of a whirlwind. Speaking of whirlwinds, next week is shaping up to be interesting, with a launch from New Shepard, a secret suborbital Electron flight from Wallops Island, and of course Starship Flight 10. I’ll be back to discuss it all again next week 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)