Umbra and Iceye will kick off its 2023 campaign on Tuesday by launching 5 satellites on SpaceX’s Transporter-6 rideshare mission. The Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to liftoff at 9:56 a.m. EST (14:56 UTC) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in FloridSpaceX has launched 436 payloads on five previous Transporter missions. Like on the upcoming launch, all satellites have been placed in sun-synchronous orbits. (See Who Launched What on SpaceX’s Five Transporter Missions.)
SpaceX launched 61 times without a failure in 2022. Elon Musk has said the company is aiming for 100 launches this year. At least one launch will be the Starship/Super Heavy flight test from south Texas.
On Jan. 8, a Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch 40 OneWeb broadband satellites from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It’s the second of three launches OneWeb booked with SpaceX after the company’s contract to launch on Soyuz rockets in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February.
ABL Space will attempt to launch its RS1 rocket on its maiden flight from the Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska after multiple unsuccessful attempts last year. The launch window is open from Jan. 9-13.
A Chinese Long March 7A is scheduled to launch the Shijian 23 technology demonstration satellite aboard a Long March 7A on Jan. 9.