Launch Roundup: Gilmour Space to make debut, SpaceX plans east coast doubleheader

Date:
Mon, 30 Jun 2025 17:03:50 +0000

Description:
With the month of June coming to a close and July on the horizon, the The
post Launch Roundup: Gilmour Space to make debut, SpaceX plans east coast doubleheader appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .

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With the month of June coming to a close and July on the horizon, the global launch manifest remains jam-packed. SpaceX is set to kick off the week with two Falcon 9 launches from Florida, with a Starlink mission and the launch of a geostationary weather satellite. The maiden flight of Gilmour Spaces Eris small satellite rocket is scheduled for later in the week, followed by a Chinese launch from Xichang and a Progress cargo flight to the International Space Station.

Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 10-25 SpaceX looks to start the week with the launch of a Starlink mission on a Falcon 9 from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida.
Liftoff is scheduled for no earlier than Tuesday, July 1, at 2:06 AM EDT (06:06 UTC), toward the beginning of a four-hour launch window. The Falcon 9 rocket will fly on a northeast trajectory out of the Cape, with the booster set to attempt a landing on the deck of one of the two east coast droneships in the Atlantic Ocean. Meanwhile, the second stage will continue on to low-Earth orbit (LEO), carrying a batch of 27 Starlink v2 Mini satellites for internet connectivity. A stack of Starlink v2 Mini satellites ready for launch. (Credit: SpaceX)

This mission will mark the 82nd flight of a Falcon 9 in 2025, and the 500th mission for the rocket since its debut launch from SLC-40 in June 2010.
SpaceX hopes to achieve up to 170 Falcon launches before years end. Falcon 9
| MTG-S1 The second SpaceX launch of the week could launch within 15 hours of the first, with liftoff of the MTG-S1 mission scheduled for no earlier than Tuesday, July 1, at 5:03 PM EDT (21:03 UTC) from the historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Teams will have a two-hour and 27-minute window available for launch. Falcon 9 will launch due east out of KSC, using the Earths rotation to gain extra horizontal velocity. As the upper stage transports the payload to an initial parking orbit, the first stage will return to land on one of SpaceXs two east coast droneships stationed downrange in the Atlantic. The upper stage will then perform a burn to place the payload into a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) before deployment. The payload for this mission is the Meteosat Third Generation-Sounder 1 (MTG-S1) weather satellite, to be operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Organization for the
Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). The spacecraft was originally slated to fly on the third flight of Ariane 6 but was remanifested to Falcon 9 due to scheduling reasons. One day to launch! The MTG-S1 satellite, carrying the @CopernicusEU Sentinel-4 instrument, is now safely inside the Falcon 9 fairing ahead of launch.

Liftoff is scheduled at 23:03 CEST. Credits: @SpaceX pic.twitter.com/AJRDo4Uan0

ESA Earth Observation (@ESA_EO) June 30, 2025

MTG-S1, massing in at 3,800 kg at launch and set to be renamed Meteosat-13 after commissioning, is one of three MTG satellites that will provide
improved weather forecasting data for Europe and Northern Africa. The satellite is outfitted with an infrared sounder the first for Europe in geostationary orbit and an ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared light (UVN) spectrometer, provided by ESA as part of the Sentinel-4 instrument package. The Sentinel-4 payload will monitor air quality over Europe, focusing on detecting trace gas concentrations and aerosols in the atmosphere. The data collected across the three spectral bands will supply hourly air pollution information, thus supporting near-real-time operations. The launch of MTG-S1 will be the 83rd Falcon 9 launch of the year. Eris | TestFlight1 In what will be a momentous occasion for Australia, the debut flight of its first
homegrown launch vehicle is scheduled to take place within a ten-hour launch window no earlier than Thursday, July 3, at 7:30 AM AEST (21:30 UTC on Wednesday, July 2) from the Bowen Orbital Spaceport at Abbot Point. After years of development, testing, and regulatory approvals, Gilmour Spaces three-stage Eris rocket is set to proudly carry the banner of Australia into orbit. The first two stages of Eris utilize hybrid propellants, consisting of a 3D-printed solid fuel grain and a hydrogen peroxide liquid oxidizer, while the third stage uses solely liquid propellants. TestFlight1 Update Rocket's
up but the winds aren't in our favour.

Pushing the start of our #TestFlight1 launch window to () AEST.

Follow us here, or our Missions page for the latest.

(Photo credit to Ben S) pic.twitter.com/2Zra8iKHiX

Gilmour Space (@GilmourSpace) June 30, 2025

Eris will fly on a northeasterly trajectory out of the Bowen Orbital Spaceport after liftoff, as Gilmour Space hopes to reach LEO on the vehicles first flight. A successful launch would mark the first for an
Australian-built rocket and the first for a hybrid-fueled rocket. The debut launch of Eris was originally scheduled to take place in May, but was postponed after an unexpected power surge fault triggered the deployment of the rockets payload fairing during preflight checks. A replacement fairing
was sent from Gilmours Gold Coast factory to Bowen and installed, and no damage to the vehicle or launch pad was observed. Eris will not carry an operational payload for its first launch, though Gilmour Space has humorously placed a container of Vegemite flavor spread inside the payload fairing.
Chang Zheng 4B | Unknown Payload Chinas only scheduled launch of the week is set to occur no earlier than Thursday, July 3, at 09:35 UTC. A Chang Zheng 4B (CZ-4B) rocket will take flight from Launch Complex 3 (LC-3) at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center (XSLC), flying on a southeasterly trajectory. The three-stage CZ-4B launcher utilizes hypergolic propellants and is capable of sending up to 4,200 kg to LEO and approximately 1,500 kg to a Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). Across its 26-year tenure, the vehicle has flown 53 times with
52 successes, launching a number of payloads for the Shijian, Yaogan, and Ziyuan remote sensing satellite constellations. Progress MS-31 undergoing processing before launch. (Credit: RSC Rnergia) Soyuz 2.1a | Progress MS-31 The Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, is looking to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) with a Progress cargo mission this week. Liftoff from
Site 31/6 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan is set to take place on Thursday, July 3, at 3:32 PM EDT (19:32 UTC), with Progress delivering approximately 2,500 kg of food, water, and equipment for the crew aboard the Station. The Soyuz rocket will fly on a northeasterly trajectory, placing the Progress MS-31 spacecraft on a trajectory to rendezvous with the ISS.
Progress will dock to the Zvezda service module on Saturday, July 5, at
around 5:27 PM EDT (21:27 UTC).

The launch of Progress MS-31 will mark the 184th flight of a Progress cargo spacecraft, the sixth launch of a Soyuz rocket in 2025, and the third flight of the 2.1a variant this year. Russia also conducted two Angara launches in March and June, for a total of eight flights this year thus far.

(Lead image: Falcon 9 streaks into the night sky over Florida. Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF)



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Link to news story: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2025/06/launch-roundup-063025/


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