This Launch Roundup has been extended to include the launch of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 9 on Tuesday/Wednesday.
SpaceX was expected to begin building a new shell for its Starlink constellation last week, launching from Vandenberg to a polar orbit. This mission was postponed until Tuesday and now falls into the scope of this Roundup. Two other Starlink launches did launch as planned this week.
Elsewhere, several Chinese missions took place, and a Russian Soyuz mission carried a classified payload into orbit.
The first of several Chinese launches expected this week launched from Launch Complex 201 (LC-201) at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in China on Tuesday, May 20, at 11:50 UTC. The launch window extended from 11:42 UTC until 13:11 UTC.
The mission’s payload was the Zhongxing-3B, or ChinaSat-3B, communications satellite. As indicated by the hazard warning notices, the Chang Zheng 7A (CZ-7A) flew due east from the launch site.
Standing 58 m tall, the CZ-7A has three stages, with the first stage featuring four strap-on boosters. The first two stages and the four boosters all use liquid oxygen and RP-1 propellants, while the third stage burns liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.
This was the second CZ-7A flight of 2025, and the 10th of the CZ-7A variant since its debut in 2020.
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 12-15
The second launch attempt for Starlink Group 12-15 succeeded on Tuesday, May 20, at 11:18:10 PM EDT (Wednesday, May 21, at 03:18:10 UTC). The brand new SpaceX Falcon 9, booster B1095, launched Starlink Group 12-15 to low-Earth orbit (LEO) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Flight Station in Florida.
The first attempt was scrubbed at T-2:28 while targeting launch on Monday, May 19, at 11:58 PM EDT (Tuesday, May 20, at 03:58 UTC. No explanation of the scrub has been provided. However, the fuelling process for a Falcon 9 is such that any hold after fuelling begins results in a scrub because the highly chilled fuel warms up very quickly and has to be unloaded and rechilled before any launch.
Falcon 9 launched a batch of 23 Starlink satellites, comprised of ten v2 Mini and 13 Direct-to-Cell variants, on a southeasterly trajectory out of the Cape.
Booster B1095 landed successfully on autonomous droneship Just Read The Instructions, stationed downrange in the Atlantic Ocean to provide a landing pad, while Bob was supporting the fairing recovery.
This was the 60th Falcon 9 and SpaceX mission of 2025.
Falcon 9 is a 3.9 m diameter, 70 m tall two-stage rocket. Nine Merlin 1D engines power the first stage booster, while the second stage features a single vacuum-optimized Merlin engine. The Merlins utilize densified liquid oxygen and RP-1 kerosene as propellants. Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are the first and only reusable orbital rockets in service today, with one Falcon booster having now flown 28 flights. The two payload fairings are also recovered and reused after flight.
Another Chinese launch occurred on Wednesday, May 21, at 04:05 UTC. During a launch window extending from 03:54 until 04:15 UTC, a Kinetica 1 lifted off from Site 130 at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China. The payload of six satellites included two Earth-observation satellites – Taijing-3-04 and Taijing-4-02A.
Published hazard notices indicated a southwesterly trajectory for the flight. This mission served as the first Kinetica 1 mission of 2025, and the seventh overall.
Kinetica 1 is a 31 m tall, 2.65 m diameter, four-stage rocket that first flew in July 2022. All four stages utilize solid fuel and solid rocket motors.
A Russian Soyuz 2.1b with a Fregat-M fourth stage launched a classified military payload, Cosmos 2588, on Friday, May 23 at 08:36 UTC, from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northwestern Russia.
Hazard notices indicate a northeasterly trajectory to an orbit inclined at 67 degrees.
The Soyuz 2.1b is powered by four RD-107A engines on the first stage (arranged around the second, core stage), a single RD-108A engine on the core stage, and an RD-0124 engine on the third stage. Each stage uses liquid oxygen and RP-1 kerosene as propellants. The Fregat-M fourth stage uses a liquid-propellant engine burning unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) fuel and dinitrogen tetroxide (N2O4) oxidizer, a pair of hypergolic propellants that ignite on contact.
This was the second launch for a Soyuz 2.1b in 2025 and the 112th orbital launch attempt worldwide this year.
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 11-16
The second Falcon 9 launch of the week occurred on Friday, May 23, at 3:32 PM PDT (22:32 UTC), approximately halfway through the four-hour launch window. Starlink Group 11-16 launched from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at the Vandenberg Space Force Base (SFB) in California, the first of two Starlink launches scheduled from Vandenberg this week.
Falcon 9 launched a batch of 27 Starlink v2 Mini satellites on a southeasterly trajectory to LEO. After stage separation and reentry, the booster, B1075, flying on its 18th mission, landed on the autonomous droneship Of Course I Still Love You, stationed approximately 640 km downrange of the launch site in the Pacific Ocean.
B1075 has previously supported Starlink Group 2-4, Transport and Tracking Tranche 0 1, Starlink Group 2-9, Starlink Group 5-7, Starlink Group 6-20, Starlink Group 7-3, Starlink Group 7-6, Sarah 2 & 3, Starlink Group 7-12, Starlink Group 7-16 & USA 350/351, Starlink Group 9-2, Transporter 11, Starlink Group 9-17, Starlink Group 9-9, Starlink Group 9-13, and Starlink Group 11-4. Its first flight was on January 19, 2023, and this was only its second flight of 2025, following a 111-day turnaround.
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 12-22
SLC-40 hosted a second Starlink mission this week, with Starlink Group 12-22 launching on Saturday, May 24, at 1:19 PM EDT (17:19 UTC).
The Falcon 9 booster, B1069, lifted a mixture of ten Starlink v2 Mini and 13 Starlink Direct-to-Cell satellites to LEO, flying on a southeasterly trajectory.
Following launch the booster landed successfully on A Shortfall of Gravitas, one of the two SpaceX autonomous droneships stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
Booster B1069 was flying for the 24th time, having previously flown CRS-24, Starlink Group 4-23, Hotbird 13F, OneWeb #15, Starlink Group 5-3, SES-18 & SES-19, Starlink Group 5-6, Starlink Group 5-12, Starlink Group 6-9, Starlink Group 6-19, Starlink Group 6-28, Starlink Group 6-36, Starlink Group 6-39, Starlink Group 6-47, Starlink Group 6-57, Starlink Group 10-1, Starlink Group 10-9, Starlink Group 10-8, Starlink Group 6-66, Starlink Group 12-3, Starlink Group 12-21, and Starlink Group 6-74. Its first flight was on December 21, 2021.
LAUNCH: SpaceX Falcon 9 B1082-13 launches Starlink Group 17-1 from SLC-4E. https://t.co/EaLhkw74S2 pic.twitter.com/AGoLxfSSzW
— NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) May 27, 2025
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 17-1
The construction of a new Starlink shell began on Tuesday, May 27, at 9:57 AM PDT (16:57 UTC), when a Falcon 9 launched from SLC-4E at Vandenberg with the Starlink Group 17-1 mission. Falcon 9 followed a southerly trajectory to place the satellites into a Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) at a 97-degree inclination. This was the first Starlink Group to be placed into Polar orbit since Group 3, which utilized the older v1.5 satellites.
The booster, B1082, flying for the thirteenth time, landed successfully on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You. This droneship is capable of faster turnarounds due to SpaceX’s additional port facility in Long Beach, California, which is close to the landing zone for most Starlink missions.
Booster B1082 has previously supported Starlink Group 7-9, Starlink Group 7-14, USSF-62/WSF-M1, Starlink Group 8-2, Starlink Group 9-1, Starlink Group 11-1, OneWeb #20, Starlink Group 9-11, Starlink Group 11-2, Starlink Group 11-8, Starlink Group 15-1, and NROL-145 (USA-23-544). Its first flight was on January 3, 2024.
Starship-Super Heavy Flight 9 launched successfully on Tuesday, May 27, at 7:36 PM EDT (23:36 UTC) from Orbital Launch Pad A at Starbase in Texas. Booster 14 and Starship 35 launched after two short holds – one for a raptor engine issue, and one for a launch tower issue.
SpaceX used this flight as an attempt to resolve the issues experienced with the current Block 2 Starship design. SpaceX was sufficiently confident of the Super Heavy booster design to re-fly Booster 14, which first flew on Flight 7. Flight 9 saw the first attempt at the re-flight of a Super Heavy booster. Four of the original Raptor 2 engines had been replaced on Booster 14 since its first flight in January of 2025 when it was successfully caught by the Launch Tower Chopsticks mechanism.
Booster 14 was intended to splash down and be expended, rather than be caught on this mission, with SpaceX indicating that a series of additional tests would be carried out during re-entry. The Super Heavy booster “glided” back to Earth at a higher angle of attack, which is more akin to a belly-flop, testing the control dynamics of the booster during the descent. An engine-out scenario was also to be enacted during the landing burn, which would see SpaceX turn off one of three center engines to test the ability of the vehicle to cope with such a failure. Additionally, one of the middle ring of 10 engines would continue firing when the remainder are shut down to test whether this can be a viable backup option. Unfortunately, the booster appeared to suffer an explosion during the re-light attempt.
Ship 35 flew atop Booster 14, and succeeded in reaching engine cut-off and coast – the first time a Block 2 Starship reached this milestone. SpaceX also attempted to deploy several dummy Starlink satellites using the ship’s “PEZ” dispenser, but the payload door failed to open fully and the test was abandoned.
During the coast phase, Ship 35 lost attitude control due, according to the SpaceX commentary team, to fuel leaks within the structure, and began to spin out of control. Consequently, SpaceX did not attempt to re-light the ship’s raptor engine in space as planned. The ship continued its expected sub-orbital trajectory but was not expected to survive the heating from re-entry. Telemetry from the ship appeared to be lost approximately 47 minutes into the flight, a moment after the flaps were seen to be disintegrating.
(Lead Image: Booster 14 blasts off on Flight 7. Credit: @Bocachicagal for NSF)
