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The planned launch of a U.S. spy satellite this afternoon (November 13) could trigger a frenzy of four takeoffs in four days, if we’re lucky.
The National Reconnaissance Office’s NROL-101-listed spacecraft is scheduled to be launched on top of a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket at 5:13 p.m. EST (10:13 p.m. GMT) today from Cape Canaveral in Florida. You can watch this mission live here on Space.com, courtesy of ULA, or directly through the company
Several more rockets will then take off relatively quickly, if all goes as planned. For example, SpaceX should launch its Mission Crew-1 Saturday (November 14) at 7:49 p.m. EST (0049 GMT November 15). Crew-1, the company’s first manned operational mission for NASA, will send four astronauts to the International Space Station for a six-month stay.
Next up is Rocket Lab, which loft its “Return to Sender” mission from New Zealand on Sunday (November 15) for a nearly three-hour window that opens at 8:44 pm EST (0144 GMT November 16). Return to Sender will transport 30 satellites to Earth orbit and feature a soft splashdown and recovery of the first stage of the Rocket Lab Electron booster.
The quartet of spaceflight will be completed by Arianespace, whose Vega rocket will launch two Earth study satellites from French Guiana on Monday, November 16 at 8:52 p.m. EST (0152 GMT on November 17).
And there’s more action just beyond that four-day period: SpaceX’s launch of the classified NROL-108 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office could take place as early as November 18. according to Spaceflight Now. Elon Musk’s company also plans to launch the Sentinel 6-Michael Freilich Earth observation satellite on November 21, a joint effort of NASA and several European partners.
So get excited, but also be prepared for a possible disappointment: there is no guarantee that any of these rockets will take off in time, as the scuttling of a similar “launchapalooza” last August shown.
Mike Wall is the author of “Over there“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book on the search for extraterrestrial life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
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