Right here’s what’s launching from 8/24-8/30: After a decade of growth, NASA’s next-generation area telescope is slated to launch on Aug. 30, heading to orbit forward of schedule and beneath price range. Routine Starlink launches and a European climate satellite tv for pc spherical out the week.
The Nancy Grace Roman Area Telescope , crusing via area with its sunshield deployed on this illustration, on its approach to the second Lagrange level. Roman, NASA’s next-generation observatory, is about to launch Aug. 30 on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. Credit score: NASA
Rocket launches this week
On Monday, Aug. 24, state-owned agency, China Aerospace Science and Know-how Company (CASC), is concentrating on 11:20 p.m. EDT for a Lengthy March 6C launch from the Taiyuan Satellite tv for pc Launch Middle in northeastern China, in response to monitoring from Next Spaceflight. The Lengthy March 6C is a two-stage, medium-lift car launching for less than the second time and might be carrying an undisclosed payload.
On Tuesday, Aug. 25, SpaceX targets 5:33 a.m. EDT for the Starlink Group 10-49 mission from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Area Drive Station, with the booster set to land on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas within the Atlantic. Watch it here.
On Wednesday, Aug. 26, SpaceX returns to the pad with Starlink Group 15-22 from Vandenberg Area Drive Base at 5:27 a.m. EDT, concentrating on a booster touchdown on the droneship Of Course I Nonetheless Love You within the Pacific. Watch it here.
On Thursday, Aug. 27, the European Area Company (ESA) is concentrating on 4:10 p.m. EDT for the launch of the MTG-I2 weather satellite on an Ariane 62 rocket from the Guiana Area Centre in French Guiana. MTG-I2 is the third satellite tv for pc in ESA’s Meteosat Third Technology constellation, designed to ship detailed climate forecasting for Europe and northern Africa. The flight marks Ariane 6’s first-ever mission to geostationary switch orbit, and the ninth flight for ESA’s heavy raise car.
Lastly, on Sunday, Aug. 30, NASA is planning to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope at 7:26 a.m. EDT on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Launch Complicated 39A at Florida’s Kennedy Area Middle, certain for the second Solar-Earth Lagrange level (or L2) roughly 1 million miles from Earth. The 18,000-pound (8,165 kg) observatory is the lone payload. NASA’s launch page has countdown particulars and a livestream hyperlink because the date approaches.
Roman is NASA’s next-generation area telescope. It is going to have a subject of view 100 instances bigger than the Hubble Area Telescope’s, letting it seize a a lot wider patch of sky. The place Hubble and the James Webb Area Telescope are constructed to stare deeply at particular person targets, Roman is designed to survey huge swaths of sky at pace. The observatory carries two devices: the Huge Subject Instrument, a virtually 300-megapixel digital camera that captures these broad, high-resolution photographs, and the Coronagraph Instrument, which blocks out starlight to straight picture faint objects like planets and particles disks round close by stars. Roman will conduct plenty of surveys throughout the sphere of astronomy, serving to scientists uncover the character of darkish vitality, be taught extra in regards to the inhabitants of planets throughout the galaxy via gravitational microlensing, and observe transient occasions like supernovae over time.
Rocket launches final week
On Aug. 18, Chinese language industrial launch firm LandSpace flew their Zhuque-3 rocket from the Gobi Desert for the second time, and efficiently landed its first stage at a restoration pad — the primary booster touchdown by a Chinese language non-public firm, following classes realized from a failed try on the rocket’s December 2025 debut.
In a sequence of posts to X, LandSpace stated the booster is now being transported again to its meeting facility for inspection and refurbishment as the corporate works towards reflying it. Some observers on social media have reported that the booster could have tipped over after a fireplace broken one in every of its touchdown legs, although LandSpace itself has not confirmed any such incident. The touchdown stands as a milestone: Zhuque-3 joins Falcon 9, New Glenn, and China’s state-run Lengthy March 10B as the one rockets to have recovered a primary stage.
SpaceX added three extra Starlink missions to the week — Group 17-50 from Vandenberg on Aug. 19, Group 10-39 from Cape Canaveral on Aug. 21, and Group 15-20 from Vandenberg on Aug. 22.
Rocket Lab additionally flew its 93rd Electron mission, “The Lightning God Defends,” from Mahia, New Zealand, on Aug. 20, deploying the ninth satellite tv for pc for Japanese tech firm iQPS’s artificial aperture radar constellation.
The week closed with Russia’s launch of a navigation satellite tv for pc on a Soyuz 2.1b rocket from northwestern Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome on Aug. 23, including to GLONASS (International Navigation Satellite tv for pc System), Russia’s GPS-equivalent constellation.
Upcoming rocket launches
On Monday, Aug. 31, Rocket Lab is concentrating on an Electron launch from Mahia for “Owl Round The World,” deploying the eleventh StriX artificial aperture radar satellite tv for pc for Japan’s Synspective. SpaceX additionally has two extra Starlink missions on the board for early September: Group 15-23 from Vandenberg on Sept. 1, and Group 15-24 from Vandenberg on Sept. 4.
Brooks Mendenhall is a employees author for Astronomy and is predicated in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
