Flying for the first time: Will Space One's KAIROS rocket launch successfully? - TWIRL #154

We have plenty of missions coming up this week but the one you want to watch out for is Space One’s KAIROS launching for the first time. Not only do we get to see a brand new rocket take off for the first time but it’s also taking off from a private space port which is a bit unusual.

Sunday, 3 March

• Who: SpaceX
• What: Falcon 9
• When: 4:16 a.m. UTC
• Where: Florida, US
• Why: SpaceX will be launching a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Crew Dragon spacecraft with several astronauts aboard as part of NASA’s commercial crew programme. The crew includes NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps and cosmonaut Aleksandr Grebyonkin. You may remember this mission mentioned last week but it got delayed.

Monday, 4 March

• Who: SpaceX
• What: Falcon 9
• When: 12:19 - 4:50 a.m. UTC
• Where: Florida, US
• Why: SpaceX will use a Falcon 9 to launch 24 Starlink satellites into a low Earth orbit. This group is known as Starlink Group 6-41 just in case you want to try spotting them in the night sky with the assistance of apps like ISS Detector. These Starlink satellites will beam internet connectivity to customers on Earth.

• Who: SpaceX
• What: Falcon 9
• When: 9:04 p.m. UTC
• Where: California, US
• Why: SpaceX will launch yet another Falcon 9 rocket as part of its Transporter-10 rideshare mission. It will go into a Sun-synchronous orbit where it will deploys several payloads include the MethaneSat mission for Bezos Earth Fund and Environmental Defense Fund, the Launcher Orbiter SN5 tug, ten CubeSats for NASA’s ELaNa 43 mission, and more.

Saturday, 9 March

• Who: Space One
• What: KAIROS rocket
• When: 2:00 - 3:00 a.m. UTC
• Where: Wakayama, Japan
• Why: This will be the first flight of Space One’s KAIROS rocket. It will be taking off from the new Kii private space port in Japan. It will be carrying a prototype quick response satellite for the government’s Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center which operates the IGS spysats. This mission will be interesting to look out for in next week’s recap as its the first launch of this rocket.

• Who: Rocket Lab
• What: Electron
• When: 2:00 p.m. UTC
• Where: Mahia, New Zealand
• Why: Rocket Lab will be launching the StriX 2 satellite for Synspective. It is a Japanese synthetic aperture radar satellite and will be part of a planned 25 satellite constellation. It is capable of snapping pictures with a ground resolution of one to three metres. The mission is whimsically called “Owl Night Long”.

Recap

• The first launch we got last week was a Falcon 9 from SpaceX carrying 24 Starlink satellites to a low Earth orbit where they will provide internet for subscribers on Earth.

• The next launch saw a Soyuz-2.1b rocket take off carrying the Meteor-M No. 2-4 hydrometeorological satellite and 18 small satellites.

• The third mission that we got of the week was a SpaceX Falcon 9 launching 23 Starlink satellites.

• Finally, China launched a Long March 3B rocket from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province. It was carrying the WHG-01 satellite which provides internet services also.

That’s all for this week, check in next week!