Launch Roundup: Falcon 9 set to fly 500th orbital mission during quiet week

Date:
Mon, 07 Jul 2025 21:31:15 +0000

Description:
In a quiet week for rocket launches worldwide, SpaceX is set to launch the 500th The post Launch Roundup: Falcon 9 set to fly 500th orbital mission during quiet week appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .

FULL STORY ======================================================================

In a quiet week for rocket launches worldwide, SpaceX is set to launch the 500th orbital flight of a Falcon 9 during its first of possibly two launches this week. Outside of the U.S., Gilmour Space is expected to attempt to
launch the first flight of its Eris launch vehicle from Australia.

As many as 10 orbital launches have typically taken place from sites across the world in recent weeks. Of these, the Starlink Group 15-7 mission was the last orbital launch to take flight during the first half of 2025, and marked the 500th launch of a Falcon 9, when including 2020s suborbital Crew Dragon in-flight abort test. It also set a new milestone when booster B1067 became the first in the fleet to fly 29 times.





The company set new records in the last days of June with back-to-back launches from Florida and California of the Starlink Group 10-34 and Group 15-7 missions. These were SpaceXs 80th and 81st Falcon missions of the year and set a new pad turnaround record of 56 hours, 31 minutes, and 10 seconds
at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) in the process. Three launches had taken place from the pad in less than five days. On the west coast, SpaceX also achieved a new five-day record in Vandenberg, turning booster B1088 around from its arrival via barge to its subsequent launch, on the second of these two missions.

The first half of the year drew to a close with 142 orbital launches worldwide, lofting over 2,130 payloads and 15 humans into orbit. This cadence represents a 16% increase on 2024s midway count of 122 orbital launches. Starlink satellites are released during Starlink Group 15-5 the 125th
mission from Pad 4E (Credit: SpaceX)

Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 10-28

As noted above, this mission will mark the 500th orbital launch of a Falcon
9, the first of which flew just over 15 years ago on June 4, 2010, from the same pad. Launch is scheduled for the start of the typical four-hour window, which opens on Tuesday, July 8, at 1:48 AM EDT (05:48 UTC) from SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Onboard will be a batch of 28 Starlink v2-Mini high-speed internet communications satellites headed into low-Earth orbit at an altitude of 279 km, inclined 53.16 degrees. This will be the 19th mission into this shell, which saw its first launch just over a year ago, the vast majority of which have launched from this pad.

The booster supporting this flight has not yet been confirmed, but is
expected to land approximately eight minutes into the mission on the deck of the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas . Four recent missions building the Group 10 shell have carried 27 satellites. The Starlink Group 10-18 mission was the last time a batch of 28 satellites was lofted, launching from this same pad on June 18.

Falcon 9 | Unconfirmed Payload

Based on NOTAMs, an additional launch is currently anticipated from SLC-40 on Friday, June 11, when a nearly five-hour launch window will open at 11:52 PM EDT (03:52 UTC on July 12). This mission is heading to a geostationary transfer orbit and is suspected to be for the Israeli Dror 1 communications satellite.

Little is known about the satellite beyond a launch mass of around 4,000 kg and that it has been constructed on the Israel Aerospace Industries AMOS-HP bus with an approximate 14-year lifespan. Intelsat is understood to be providing launch and early orbit phase (LEOP) services for the craft. View of the Eris rocket and the launch pad at the spaceport in Bowen, Australia. (Credit: Gilmour Space)

Eris | TestFlight 1

Gilmour Space will make a second attempt at the maiden launch of its Eris small satellite rocket on Wednesday, July 15, at 7:30 AM AEST (21:30 UTC on Tuesday, July 15). The company stood down from its previous attempt , which was scheduled for May 16, after the fairings were prematurely triggered by
the separation system during overnight launch preparations. An unexpected power surge from other devices downstream had caused the vehicle to shut
down, causing the issue, which has since been mitigated.

The launch will take place from the Bowen Orbital Spaceport at Abbot Point, north of the coastal town of Bowen. As the emblem on the rocket body proudly declares, the three-stage launcher is Australian-made. TestFlight1 is poised to become the first orbital launch from Australian soil performed by a sovereign-built vehicle.

Comparable to Rocket Labs Electron, Eris stands a little taller at 25 m in height. The vehicle also has a slightly larger 1.5 m fairing and boasts a payload mass of up to 215 kg to a 500 km Sun-synchronous orbit, or 305 kg to 500 km equatorial orbits. The first stage is propelled by four Sirius engines
a proprietary hybrid engine that uses a 3D-printed solid fuel grain and hydrogen peroxide as the oxidizer. A single Sirius engine powers the second stage. A successful orbital launch would also be the first for a hybrid
rocket design.

(Lead image: Falcon 9 launches from Florida. Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF)



The post Launch Roundup: Falcon 9 set to fly 500th orbital mission during quiet week appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .



======================================================================
Link to news story: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2025/07/launch-roundup-070725/


--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 (Linux/64)
* Origin: tqwNet Science News (1337:1/100)