The Weekly Rocket Report #54
12/01/2025-12/07/2025
Ricky Whitmore
Space Writer
Hello my friends and welcome back to The Weekly Rocket Report! We had a busy week once again, lots of launches from China, unsurprisingly lots of launches from Falcon. Let’s break it down shall we?
The week begins with a launch from the aforementioned Falcon 9. The rocket roared off the pad at LC-39A from the Cape carrying the 29 satellites of Starlink Group 6-86. Following the separation of the stages the rocket’s booster returned to Earth, landing down range on the drone ship “Just Read The Instructions”.
Next up was a launch from our friends at Arianespace, with Vega C taking to the skies Monday afternoon. The payload was KOMPSAT-7, a Korean built Earth observation satellite designed as a replacement to the existing KOMPSAT-3A.
Vega C launches KOMPSAT-7. Photo Credit: ESA.
Moving back to Falcon 9, which launched twice on Tuesday, the first of these was just after midnight carrying Starlink Group 15-10. The 27 payloads were successfully vaulted to orbit, and the first stage successfully returned for a landing on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You”.
The second Falcon 9 launch Tuesday took place from the Cape, carrying Starlink Group 6-95 and its batch of 29 satellites. Following stage separation the booster returned and landed on the drone ship “A Shortfall Of Gravitas”.
Continuing the busy day Tuesday, the Chinese company Landspace set off on quite the adventure. From the Jiuquan launch center came the Demo Flight of Zhuque-3. The partially re-useable rocket blasted towards the sky carrying a dummy payload designed to test the rocket’s capability. The rocket did successfully make it to orbit, and its payload tests were successful. However, the booster landing was a different story, ultimately failing. The booster came screaming back to the launch pad, however shortly after engine ignition for landing burn the booster appeared to lose control, and it slammed into the ground near the pad in a fiery explosion.
ZhuQue-3 launches Demo Flight. Photo Credit: LandSpace.
Moving to Thursday Falcon 9 was back in the skies, this time from Vandenberg. This time the rocket carried the 28 satellites that made up Starlink Group 11-25. Following staging the booster returned to Earth, landing downrange on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You”.
Back to China, for launches on back to back days, beginning Friday with a launch from Kuaizhou 1A. The CASIC rocket was carrying Traffic VDES A & B, two satellites designed to monitor maritime shipping.
Kuaizhou 1A launches Traffic VDES A & B. Photo Credit: https://x.com/CNSpaceflight.
Saturday saw a launch from Long March 8A, lifting off from Wenchang launch center. The rocket’s payload was SatNet LEO Group 14, a batch of 9 communication satellites as part of the growing SatNet constellation.
The last launch of the week was Starlink Group 11-15, which saw Falcon 9 add another 28 satellites to the Starlink constellation. The rocket’s first stage landed successfully following staging, touching down on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You”.
Falcon 9 launches Starlink Group 11-15. Photo Credit: SpaceX.
And there we have it everyone, the week of launches. Interesting to see the results of the first ZhuQue 3 flight, I fully assume they will be on the launch pad again by the middle of next year. Next week looks its going to be a whirlwind of launches, provided nothing is delayed we are looking at 3 launches Monday, 3 launches Tuesday, 4 Thursday, and 3 more Sunday, with a total of 15 launches through the week, with appearances from Falcon 9, Soyuz, and a host of Chinese rockets. Should be an exciting week, I will of course be back to break it all down 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)