The Weekly Rocket Report #41

09/01/2025-09/07/2025

Ricky Whitmore

Space Writer

Hello Space Fans, welcome back to The Weekly Rocket Report!  Eight launches this week and we are going to break them all down. 

The first launch of the week was a bit of a surprise.  Tuesday afternoon the Israel Defense Forces launched Ofek-19 to orbit.  The payload a synthetic aperture radar satellite rode to orbit aboard a Shavit 2 rocket, its first launch of 2025. 

Shavit 2 launches Ofek-19. Image Credit: IDF.

Now we jump back to the US where Falcon 9 lofted Starlink Group 17-8 to orbit.  The rocket successfully deployed its 24 payloads and its booster returned to Earth, landing on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You”. 

Next up was another Starlink mission Wednesday morning, this time Starlink Group 10-22.  Following stage separation Falcon 9 carried the 28 satellites to orbit and its first stage flew down and landed on the drone ship “A Shortfall Of Gravitas”. 

Thursday night we had a launch from Long March 3C.  The rocket carried Shiyan 29, which is claimed by the Chinese Government to “space environment detection”. 

Another from China on Friday, this time a launch from Ceres 1, carrying 3 payloads.  The Galactic Energy rocket was carrying Kaiyun-1, Yuxing-3-08, and Yunyao-27. 

Ceres-1 launches 3 Satellites. Image Credit: https://x.com/CNSpaceflight.

A little later Friday morning came another Falcon 9 launch, this time carrying Starlink Group 10-57.  The 28 satellites were successfully placed in orbit, and the rocket’s booster flew back down to Earth to land on the drone ship “Just Read The Instructions”. 

One more launch from China for the week as Long March 6A took to the skies Saturday afternoon.  The rocket was carrying Yaogan 40 Group 03, 3 reconnaissance satellites designed for “Electromagnetic Environment Probing”. 

The last launch of the week was once again from Falcon 9.  Starlink Group 17-9 blasted off from Vandenberg carrying 24 satellites to orbit.  Following stage separation the booster flew back to the ocean where it landed on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You”.

Falcon 9 launches Starlink Group 17-9. Image Credit: SpaceX.

There we have the launches for the week my friends.  The Shavit launch was quite the surprise, though the IDF is known for not publishing their launches until after the fact.  Looking ahead to next week we have two cargo launches to the ISS scheduled, one from Falcon 9, one from Soyuz, which are always neat to watch.  I’ll be back to talk about it all next week on The Weekly Rocket Report, see you then!

 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)