Launch Preview: Falcon Heavy to launch Roman telescope, Falcon 9 to launch Starlink satellites

NASASpaceflight reports that this week features five orbital launches from China, the United States and French Guiana. China’s Chang Zheng 6C will lift off from Taiyuan on Tuesday with an undisclosed payload, while SpaceX, the private launch provider founded by Elon Musk, plans two Falcon 9 missions delivering a total of fifty‑six Starlink v2 Mini satellites to low‑Earth orbit on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday, an Ariane 62 will send the Meteosat Third Generation‑II satellite toward geostationary transfer orbit, boosting weather forecasting for Europe and Africa. The week closes on Sunday with SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy lifting off from Kennedy Space Center to deliver NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope—about ten thousand one hundred fifty kilograms—to the Sun‑Earth Lagrange Point 2, where its powerful wide‑field camera will probe dark energy and hunt thousands of new exoplanets. The Roman mission aims to answer some of the biggest questions about our universe.

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton