Space Stuff and Launch Info

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Solar panel and sunshade have deployed. More deployment and commissioning steps will come over the next weeks. Pictures are only expected in early 2027.

 

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Lots of spacewalk activity at the ISS. Normally they have about one per month, with only five in 2025. Currently they are doing the fourth spacewalk within a month.
Among other things, they'll work on the particle physics experiment AMS-02.

Sophie Adenot (ESA) made her first spacewalk on Tuesday August 18, the second on Tuesday August 25, and is now on the third one. You could say this spacewalk is literally just another Tuesday for her.

Jessica Meir (NASA) is already on her 8th spacewalk.

 

[Sagittarius A-Star]

Isar Aerospace has returned to the launch pad for Flight 2. The company is targeting NET 5 September to launch its qualification flight from the company’s dedicated launch complex at Andøya Space.

The launch window opens at 8pm UTC; 10pm CEST, subject to weather, safety and range clearance.

Source:
https://isaraerospace.com/mission-updates-overview

 

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First German rocket to reach orbit.
Germany was the first to reach space (a V2 in 1944) and is now the latest to reach orbit, 82 years later.
(Germany is involved in Arianespace, you could argue that Ariane is partially-German, but Spectrum is built by a German company)

Currently still in a coast phase before they'll circularize the orbit, but it's in orbit already.
Edit: Successful circularization and payload deployment.

 

[Borg]

Fill in a name, and you can have an exclusive coordinate in the universe. Get yours before they're all gone!

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/roman-space-telescope/adopt-a-pixel/

 

[Sagittarius A-Star]

All 16 of Russia's latest satellites for its Starlink rival failed to reach their intended orbit

https://www.businessinsider.com/all...nk-rival-satellites-short-target-orbit-2026-9

 

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It's not so clear if that is actually a failure or just part of the deployment plan. Early Starlink satellites sometimes needed three months to reach their operational orbit. You can adjust the orbital plane by keeping them at a lower altitude for some time.

 

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Starship flight 14 no earlier than September 18
One week from now.
First flight to go to a proper circular orbit.

Edit: No earlier than September 22.
Edit: No earlier than September 28.

 

[Sagittarius A-Star]

Russia conducted another launch of a Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle on September 17, carrying a classified spacecraft
...
It cannot be ruled out that the launch may be related to the further deployment of Russia’s Rassvet low-Earth-orbit communications system.

Source:
https://militarnyi.com/en/news/russia-soyuz-2-1b-rocket-rassvet-satellites/

 

[Sagittarius A-Star]

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has successfully activated the Wide Field Instrument, a 300-megapixel infrared camera that will allow scientists to explore wide swaths of the cosmos very quickly without sacrificing exquisite detail.

Source:
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/roma...ns-primary-instrument-checks-out-coronagraph/

 

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SpaceX is going to have a busy week with three high-profile missions (and one routine flight):

Monday: Starship flight 14, first to enter a circular orbit
Thursday: Dragon Crew-13 (Falcon 9 from Florida) going to the ISS
Thursday: Transporter-18 (Falcon 9 from California) launching dozens of smaller spacecraft
Friday: Falcon Heavy from Florida with a dual booster landing (launching NROL-97, first NRO mission on FH)

Assuming no delays, the three Falcon launches will happen within 13 hours.
If Starship gets delayed by three days, its mission could be ongoing while the two Falcon 9 launches happen.

Meanwhile the rest of the world has no launch scheduled before October 7.

 

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Starship launch in 15 minutes

 

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Monday: Starship flight 14, first to enter a circular orbit
Thursday: Dragon Crew-13 (Falcon 9 from Florida) going to the ISS
Thursday: Transporter-18 (Falcon 9 from California) launching dozens of smaller spacecraft
Friday: Falcon Heavy from Florida with a dual booster landing (launching NROL-97, first NRO mission on FH)

Success for Starship
Crew-13 has docked with the ISS an hour ago.
Successful launch of Transporter-18
Falcon Heavy launch in 17 minutes - third and fourth Falcon booster to return to the launch site within 24 hours

NASA never had a successful "13" crew mission before.
* Mercury stopped after flight 9
* Gemini stopped after flight 12
* Apollo 13 was not successful
* The Space Shuttle had an odd numbering system starting with 1 to 9, then going to 41-B, 41-C, 41-D, 41-G, 51-A, ... 51-L, 26, 27, 28, ... It used that alternative system specifically because the NASA administrator at that time was unwilling to launch a "13" mission.

Obviously Crew-13 is still ongoing, they are only expected to return in half a year or so, but at least the riskiest part of the flight is already done.

The Soviets/Russia just keep naming things sequentially within each Soyuz type.
Soyuz 13 in 1973 was a success.
Soyuz T-13 in 1985 was a success.
Soyuz TM-13 in 1991 was a success.
Soyuz TMA-13 in 2008 was a success.
Soyuz TMA-13M in 2014 was a success.
Soyuz MS-13 in 2019 was a success.

China launched Shenzhou 13 in 2021, successful as well.

Falcon Heavy side boosters during the boostback burn:

 

[Filip Larsen]

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/...rvention-before-launch-of-latest-crew-mission

The launch was delayed from mid-September to replace a balky valve in the Dragon spacecraft’s propulsion system, a task that involved cutting into a propellant line inside the ship to swap out a faulty component.
[...]
Teams devised an unprecedented bit of spaceship surgery to replace the valve without draining the propellant and disassembling the spacecraft, steps that would have triggered a much longer delay. The fix involved cutting into the propellant line, removing and replacing the valve, then welding the line together again. It was the first time SpaceX has performed such a repair with a fully assembled Dragon spacecraft loaded with propellant.