This week, China will launch three taikonauts to the Tiangong space station. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has four flights scheduled, with its third Bandwagon rideshare mission followed by three more Starlink missions, all heading to low-Earth orbit. Firefly Aerospace is also rolling Alpha back to the pad for another attempt to launch Lockheed Martin’s LM400 demonstration mission during the weekend.
The week’s launch manifest began in the early hours of Monday morning with a Falcon 9 lofting the CRS-32 cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. Cargo Dragon C209 docked at the Harmony port of the ISS on Tuesday, April 22, at 8:40 AM EDT (12:40 UTC), following a 28-hour coast and rendezvous.