After an extraordinary week in rocket launches, this week brings normalcy — TWIRL #197

We have several Starlink missions coming up this week, and there's nothing much out of the ordinary planned. Last week, however, we got the maiden launch of Blue Origin's New Glenn and Starship's seventh test launch. A Falcon 9 also launched two lunar landers, all of which can be watched in the recap.

Tuesday, 21 January

• Who: SpaceX
• What: Falcon 9
• When: 06:13 UTC
• Where: Florida, US
• Why: SpaceX will launch Starlink Group 13-1 to orbit using a trusty Falcon 9 rocket. Did you know that the Falcon 9 has been involved with 426 missions, and out of those, it has had just 3 failures and 1 partial failure?

This group of satellites will include about 23 Starlink satellites, including 13 direct-to-cell Starlink satellites. All the satellites will join the Starlink constellation and beam internet connectivity to customers on Earth. After the launch, the first stage of the rocket will attempt a landing.

Wednesday, 22 January

• Who: SpaceX
• What: Falcon 9
• When: 14:38–18:38 UTC
• Where: California, US
• Why: In this Starlink mission, a Falcon 9 will launch 27 Starlink satellites to a low Earth orbit. This batch is known as Starlink Group 11-6. After the launch, the first stage will likely attempt to land safely so that it can be reused.

Friday, 24 January

• Who: SpaceX
• What: Falcon 9
• When: 22:45 UTC
• Where: Florida
• Why: The final launch we have this week is another Starlink mission. This group is Starlink Group 10-12. By the way, if you're interested in finding these satellites when they're in orbit, you can use apps like ISS Detector to have a go at spotting them. They're usually quite bright when flying overhead and run in a distinctive train through the sky. This mission includes 22 Starlink satellites, and the first stage will probably try to land.

Recap

• The first launch we got last week was a SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying Starlink Group 12-4 to a low Earth orbit, where they will join the Starlink constellation. The first stage of the rocket performed a landing in the Atlantic Ocean on a droneship so that it could be reused.

• The next launch was the start of some notable launches last week. In it, we saw SpaceX launch a Falcon 9, but instead of the usual Starlink satellites, this one was carrying the Transporter-12 mission, which consists of many smallsats. We don't get that many of these, so it's quite notable, but it wasn't the most exciting launch of the lot.

• The third launch was another Falcon 9, but this time, it was carrying the Blue Ghost lunar lander for Firefly Aerospace and the RESILIENCE lunar lander for space. Both of these landers will arrive at different times, but they should be very interesting to keep an eye on as they attempt a lunar landing.

• My favorite launch this week, which I took the time to watch live, was Blue Origin's maiden launch of New Glenn, named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. This massive rocket is dwarfed only by SpaceX's Starship, which also launched this week.

• The final launch we got was from SpaceX, and it launched Starship on its seventh test flight. Unfortunately, while the booster was captured on the ground following the launch, the upper Starship segment exploded.

That's all for this week; check in next time!

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