Two overnight launches
The beat goes on: Since yesterday there were two more successful rocket launches, from India and SpaceX.
First, SpaceX last night launched its fourth Bandwagon mission carrying 18 mid-sized smallsat payloads, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its third flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral. The fairings completed their 11th and 13th flights respectively.
Bandwagon rideshare missions are dedicated missions by SpaceX. SpaceX’s SmallSat Rideshare Program provides small satellite operators with regularly scheduled, dedicated Falcon 9 rideshare missions to mid-inclination orbits for ESPA-class payloads, starting at $300,000 per mission and including up to 50kg of payload mass.
Among these payloads two were most notable, a South Korean military surveillance satellite and a demo module for the space station startup Vast. With the latter, the company will use this unmanned orbiting prototype to test operations to prepare for the launch in the spring of its full-sized manned demo station, Haven-1.
Next India’s space agency ISRO today launched its largest rocket, LVM3, lifted off from its Sriharikota spaceport, carrying the heaviest payload India had yet launched, a government communications satellite.
It appears the LVM-M3 has finally be given a real name. Previously ISRO called it the Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV). When it was upgraded to a more powerful version intended for India’s manned program, the name was revised to LVM3 (Launch Vehicle Mark 3). News reports today referred to the rocket now as Bahubali, calling it a “nickname.”
In all of ISRO’s missions the agency routinely uses very generic official names, but appears to eventually accept nicknames that the press uses, such as Chandrayaan for its moon missions, Mangalyaan for its Mars orbiter, Gaganyaan for its manned missions, and now Bahubali for this rocket. Increasingly however the Modi government seems to be pushing to use these names instead of those generic titles.
This was India’s third launch in 2025. The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
143 SpaceX (a new annual record)
66 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 143 to 109.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The beat goes on: Since yesterday there were two more successful rocket launches, from India and SpaceX.
First, SpaceX last night launched its fourth Bandwagon mission carrying 18 mid-sized smallsat payloads, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its third flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral. The fairings completed their 11th and 13th flights respectively.
Bandwagon rideshare missions are dedicated missions by SpaceX. SpaceX’s SmallSat Rideshare Program provides small satellite operators with regularly scheduled, dedicated Falcon 9 rideshare missions to mid-inclination orbits for ESPA-class payloads, starting at $300,000 per mission and including up to 50kg of payload mass.
Among these payloads two were most notable, a South Korean military surveillance satellite and a demo module for the space station startup Vast. With the latter, the company will use this unmanned orbiting prototype to test operations to prepare for the launch in the spring of its full-sized manned demo station, Haven-1.
Next India’s space agency ISRO today launched its largest rocket, LVM3, lifted off from its Sriharikota spaceport, carrying the heaviest payload India had yet launched, a government communications satellite.
It appears the LVM-M3 has finally be given a real name. Previously ISRO called it the Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV). When it was upgraded to a more powerful version intended for India’s manned program, the name was revised to LVM3 (Launch Vehicle Mark 3). News reports today referred to the rocket now as Bahubali, calling it a “nickname.”
In all of ISRO’s missions the agency routinely uses very generic official names, but appears to eventually accept nicknames that the press uses, such as Chandrayaan for its moon missions, Mangalyaan for its Mars orbiter, Gaganyaan for its manned missions, and now Bahubali for this rocket. Increasingly however the Modi government seems to be pushing to use these names instead of those generic titles.
This was India’s third launch in 2025. The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
143 SpaceX (a new annual record)
66 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 143 to 109.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
“News reports today referred to the rocket now as Bahubali, calling it a “nickname.””
It doesn’t roll off the tongue for this English-speaker, but I’m glad it finally has a name and not just a serial number.
Still, I’m surprised and disappointed that India has only managed three launches this year.
Richard M,
Yeah, India should have a higher launch cadence. Current plans are for another Bahubali to launch the first of ASTSpaceMobile’s full-size Bluebird direct-to-cell LEO sats in December and for the now-rarely-used GSLV Mk 2 to launch some sort of payload also in December.
That would give India five launches for the year. Not a lot, but not at all out of line with what many other national and corporate entities are able to manage using exclusively disposable rockets (cough, ULA, JAXA & Arianespace).
Except for the PRC, no entity is maintaining a high launch cadence using expendables exclusively. The PRC pretty clearly intends to go reusable, but is making heavy weather of the routes to getting there. I suspect we’ll see yet another year go by in 2026 without a stuck landing by any PRC booster – and perhaps not even any attempts.
India will also need to go reusable and seems to intend to do that with their next large rocket, but I suspect we’re some years away from seeing that come to fruition.
“I call you ‘Killer’ because you slay me . . .”
“And I’m calling Bellevue because you’re nuts!”