Upcoming Spaceflight Launches

Atlas V 551 | STP-3

United Launch Alliance | USA
Cape Canaveral, FL, USA
Dec. 7, 2021, 9:04 a.m.

Status: Go for Launch

Mission: Dedicated Rideshare

Rideshare mission with the STPSat-6 satellite and six secondary payloads for the US Air Force. STPSat-6 carries the NNSA's Space and Atmospheric Burst Reporting System-3 (SABRS-3) payload and NASA's Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) experiment.

Geostationary Orbit

Soyuz 2.1a | Soyuz MS-20

Progress Rocket Space Center | RUS
Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of Kazakhstan
Dec. 8, 2021, 7:38 a.m.

Status: Go for Launch

Mission: Human Exploration

Soyuz MS-20 will carry Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Misurkin as well as two tourists, a Japanese billionere Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano, to the International Space Station.

Low Earth Orbit

Falcon 9 Block 5 | X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE)

SpaceX | USA
Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA
Dec. 9, 2021, 6 a.m.

Status: Go for Launch

Mission:

Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) is a space observatory tasked with measuring the polarization of cosmic X-rays. This data will help to learn more about objects that emit these X-rays, such as black holes and neutron stars.

Low Earth Orbit B1061 - Flight Proven ( ) Just Read the Instructions

New Shepard | NS-19

Blue Origin | USA
Corn Ranch, USA
Dec. 9, 2021, 3 p.m.

Status: Go for Launch

Mission: Suborbital

NS-19 is the third crewed New Shepard flight, carrying two honorary guests and four paying customers.

Suborbital NS-4 - Flight Proven ( ) Corn Ranch Landing Pad, West Texas

Proton-M/Briz-M | Ekspress-AMU3 & AMU7

Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center | RUS
Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of Kazakhstan
Dec. 12, 2021, 12:09 p.m.

Status: Go for Launch

Mission:

The Ekspress-AMU 3 and Ekspress-AMU 7 are two communications satellite for russian domestic communication services. While the spacecraft themselves are built by russian RSCC (Kosmicheskiya Svyaz), the communication payloads are built by Thales Alenia Space. Both satellites are based on the Ekspress-1000 bus and feature 16 Ku-, 1 L- and 20 C-band transponders. They will be located at 96.5° and 145° East respectively.

Geostationary Orbit

Falcon 9 Block 5 | Türksat 5B

SpaceX | USA
Cape Canaveral, FL, USA
Dec. 19, 2021, 3:58 a.m.

Status: To Be Confirmed

Mission:

Türksat 5B is a geostationary communications satellite. It is tasked with providing broadband telecommunication services to customers across Turkey, the Middle East and large regions of Africa.

Geostationary Transfer Orbit

Falcon 9 Block 5 | Dragon CRS-2 SpX-24

SpaceX | USA
Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA
Dec. 21, 2021, 10:06 a.m.

Status: To Be Confirmed

Mission: Resupply

24th commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station operated by SpaceX. The flight will be conducted under the second Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. Cargo Dragon 2 brings supplies and payloads, including critical materials to directly support science and research investigations that occur onboard the orbiting laboratory.

Low Earth Orbit

H-IIA 204 | Inmarsat-6 F1

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries | JPN
Tanegashima, Japan
Dec. 21, 2021, 2:33 p.m.

Status: To Be Confirmed

Mission:

Inmarsat-6 is the sixth generation of satellites for the London-based global mobile satellite communications operator Inmarsat. They will have a dual mission to will augment both L-band and Ka-band Global Xpress services. Airbus Defence and Space has been awarded a contract by Inmarsat to design and develop the first two Inmarsat-6 (I-6) mobile communications satellites, creating the most versatile mobile services satellites in its fleet. The two I-6 satellites will be based on Airbus Defence and Space's Eurostar platform in its E3000e variant, which exclusively uses electric propulsion for orbit raising. The satellites will take advantage of the reduction in mass that this electric propulsion technology enables for a dual payload mission, with an exceptionally large next generation digitally processed payload. I-6 F1 and F2 will carry a large 9 m aperture L-band antenna and nine multibeam Ka-band antennas, and feature a high level of flexibility and connectivity. A new generation modular digital processor will provide full routing flexibility over up to 8000 channels and dynamic power allocation to over 200 spot beams in L-band. Ka-band spot beams will be steerable over the full Earth disk, with flexible channel to beam allocation.

Geostationary Transfer Orbit

Angara A5/Persey | Dummy payload

Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center | RUS
Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation
Dec. 22, 2021, midnight

Status: To Be Determined

Unknown Mission

There are no mission or payload details available for this launch.

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