The Weekly Rocket Report #59

12/29/2025-01/04/2026

Ricky Whitmore

Space Writer

Hello All, welcome to the first full Weekly Rocket Report of 2026.  A very slow week for launches this week, the first launch wasn’t until Friday, but we did get some major space news from NASA that is worth touching on as well.  Lets explore it shall we?

The first launch of the week took place from the Cape where Falcon 9 blasted off carrying 29 satellites on the mission Starlink Group 6-96.  The satellites were deployed successfully and the rocket’s booster flew back to land on the drone ship “A Shortfall Of Gravitas”.

Launch number two was also performed by Falcon 9, this time launching from Vandenberg.  The main payload was NASA’s Pandora mission, a small satellite designed to study the atmospheres of distant exoplanets.  Falcon 9 was also carrying 39 payloads as part of SpaceX’s Twilight program.  This program, similar to Bandwagon and Transporter, launches satellites to a specific orbit, following Earth’s terminator line, meaning the satellites are always in direct sunlight.  All payload deployments were successful, as was the booster’s landing after it returned to Vandenberg and landed at LZ-4. For more on this mission see here: (https://www.theweeklyspaceman.com/articles/spacex-launched-nasas-pandora-observatory-in-rideshare-mission)

Falcon 9 launches Twilight (Pandora & Others). Photo Credit: SpaceX.

The final launch of the week took place from India late Sunday night, and unfortunately ended in failure.  The ISRO rocket PSLV-DL was carrying an Earth observation satellite, and a host of small rideshare payloads.  However, the 3rd stage engine failed during its burn, and the 4th stage engine was unable to correct for the difference. 

That’s all we have for launches this week, as I said a very slow week.  However, we did get some exciting news from NASA last week, the rollout of the Artemis II SLS rocket is coming soon!  This rollout will see SLS brought to LC-39B for a wet dress rehearsal and other pre-launch testing.  As of now the mighty rocket is still being prepped for its first launch window in early February, with NASA posting a schedule of launch windows going all the way through the end of April. 

Something else of note from NASA last week was the decision to return the astronauts of SpaceX Crew 11 early.  This decision follows a cancellation of a spacewalk recently due to “Astronaut health”.  Apparently this issue has become significant enough that the crew is being returned home after roughly 5 months on Station.  NASA has not addressed which astronaut is having an issue, nor what the issue is, but has stressed that the entire crew is “stable” and prepared for a safe return home.  SpaceX Crew 11 launched to the station on August 1st 2025, and was supposed to return shortly following the arrival of SpaceX Crew 12, set to launch on February 15th 2026.  With the return of Crew 11, Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke, Kimiya Yui, and Oleg Platanov, it will leave a 3-person crew Chris Williams, Sergei Kud-Sverchkov, and Sergei Mikayev to operate the station until Crew 12 arrives.  There have been discussions to potentially move the launch of Crew 12 up.

That’s all for now everyone, until next week!  

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)