Starship aims to catch both stages this week as Vulcan flies for Amazon Leo
On Friday, Vulcan launches 40 Amazon Leo satellites and Starship flies to try to catch both its stages; on Saturday, Rocket Lab's 100th Electron lifts off.
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The week at a glance
| Day and time (UTC) | What to watch |
|---|---|
 Launches | |
| Tue 10 Nov03:03 | Falcon 9 launches USSF-627 for the US Space Force from Vandenberg |
| Wed 11 Nov05:00 to 09:00 | South Korea's military rocket makes its first full orbital flight, from a sea platform Moved from 4 November; Launch Library alone gives the date, and South Korea has not announced it. |
| Wed 11 Nov11:32 to 12:05 | Long March 2D launches from Jiuquan |
| Fri 13 Nov04:23 | Falcon 9 launches USSF-317 for the US Space Force from Vandenberg |
| Fri 13 Nov17:54 | Vulcan launches 40 Amazon Leo satellites from Cape Canaveral |
Vulcan carries its first Amazon Leo satellitesUnited Launch Alliance’s Vulcan is due to lift off at 17:54 UTC on Friday from Cape Canaveral with 40 satellites for Amazon Leo, the internet constellation Amazon used to call Project Kuiper. It is Amazon’s largest Leo launch yet and the first of 38 it has bought on Vulcan. Amazon says the date still awaits the range’s approval, and by our count 392 of its satellites were already in orbit on 8 November. ULA streams the launch live on YouTube. | |
| Fri 13 Nov22:45 to 00:00 | Starship launches 26 Starlinks from Starbase on its 15th flight SpaceX is still waiting for regulatory approval. |
Starship tries to bring both stages home SpaceX plans Starship’s 15th flight for as soon as Friday, with a window opening at 22:45 UTC at Starbase, Texas, pending regulatory approval, and aims to catch both stages at the launch tower for the first time: the Super Heavy booster minutes after liftoff, and the ship on Saturday if it flies on time. The ship is to deploy 26 Starlink satellites, circle the Earth about 14 times and come back over northern Mexico and south Texas more than 22 hours after liftoff, which would be the first full recovery of an orbital rocket, SpaceX says. Its webcast is planned to run through the ship’s catch. | |
| Sat 14 Nov05:30 | Rocket Lab's 100th Electron launches iQPS's QPS-SAR-19 from Mahia |
Rocket Lab’s 100th ElectronRocket Lab’s 100th Electron launch is set for no earlier than 05:30 UTC on Saturday from Mahia, New Zealand, carrying a radar satellite to a 575 km orbit for Japan’s iQPS, which names it QPS-SAR-19. It is the second iQPS satellite on an Electron in two weeks, after QPS-SAR-20 on 2 November. Rocket Lab streams the launch from its website about 30 minutes before liftoff. | |
 Missions and spacewalks | |
| Mon 9 Nov10:51 | NASA's ESCAPADE Gold swings past Earth and fires its engine for Mars NASA has yet to say how its twin, Blue, fared on 7 November. |
| Mid-November | SpaceX's CRS-35 Dragon leaves the ISS to splash down off California |
 Expected re-entries | |
| Sat 14 Nov | A 440 kg Ariane 5 adapter, launched in 2019, is due to re-enter ESA's prediction, give or take six days. |
| 9 to 12 Nov | Four Starlinks are due to re-enter |
As published on 8 November 2026. Launch times move: Next launches has them as they stand. Re-entry windows are predictions.
| Day and time (UTC) | What happened |
|---|---|
Launches7 launches · 7 successful | |
| 2 Nov16:41 | Electron launches iQPS's QPS-SAR-20 from Mahia |
| 3 Nov00:15 | Kinetica 2 launches 18 Qianfan satellites from Jiuquan |
| 5 Nov15:58 | Long March 2C launches three Yaogan 51 satellites from Xichang |
| 6 Nov23:37 | Ceres-2 launches four satellites from Jiuquan |
| 7 Nov00:48 | Falcon 9 launches USSF-432 for the US Space Force from Vandenberg |
| 7 Nov | Soyuz launches Kosmos 2621, a Glonass-K1 navigation satellite, from Plesetsk Russia's defence ministry has not named it; the catalogue lists it as Kosmos 2621, in a Glonass orbit of about 19,200 km at 65°. |
| 8 Nov20:24 | Long March 12 launches SatNet's 29th group of satellites from Wenchang Moved from 5 November. |
Mission updates | |
| 3 Nov | NASA and Starfish Space give up on Otter, the debris inspector launched on 1 October |
| 4 Nov | India's NVS-03 reaches geosynchronous orbit after four engine burns |
| 5 Nov13:36 to 20:35 | Two astronauts fit the ISS's eighth and last new solar array |
| 5 Nov | ESA shows Hera's first close-up of the Didymos asteroids, from 60 km |
| 6 Nov | Europe's MTG-I2 weather satellite sends its first images |
| 7 Nov09:51 | NASA's ESCAPADE Blue was due to swing past Earth and fire its engine for Mars NASA has not yet said how it went. |
 Close approaches and Manoeuvres | |
| 4 Nov | Meteor 2-7's breakup is confirmed, as four of its pieces are catalogued |
| 8 Nov13:05 | Meteor 1-14, a Soviet weather satellite from 1973, and a piece of a Delta stage launched in 1978 were predicted to pass 30 m apart A chance of collision of about 1 in 7,400. |
Re-entries | |
| 4 Nov12:39 | NASA's Swift observatory re-enters over North Sumatra, almost 22 years after launch |
| 5 Nov13:58 | Varda's W-8 capsule lands at Koonibba in South Australia after 35 days in orbit |
| 2 to 7 Nov | Ten more re-entries in our list, nine Starlinks and NAPA-1, a Royal Thai Air Force cubesat Two more Starlinks were due on 5 and 8 November; their re-entry is not yet on record. |
 In orbitCounted on Sunday | |
32,899 objects in orbit +62 on the week Satellites, rocket bodies, debris and unidentified objects. See them live on the map | |
Sources
As published on .
- SpaceX, "Starship Flight 15"
- SpaceX, "Returning Starship to the launch site", 7 November 2026
- ULA, "Vulcan Leo 1"
- Amazon, "Amazon Leo mission updates", updated 28 October 2026
- Rocket Lab, "The Mountain God Rises"
- iQPS, QPS-SAR-19 launch schedule
- SpaceX, "USSF-627"
- SpaceX, "USSF-317"
- NASA, "NASA's Twin ESCAPADE Spacecraft to Slingshot Past Earth on Way to Mars", 2 November 2026
- NASA, "Crew Keeps Up Spacewalk Preps, Research, and Cargo Operations", 3 November 2026
- NASA, "Spacewalkers Install Final Roll-Out Solar Array", 5 November 2026
- NASA, "SpaceX Dragon Docks with Science, Supplies, and Roll-Out Solar Arrays", 15 October 2026
- ESA, re-entry predictions (Ariane 5 Sylda adapter, issued 7 November 2026)
- ESA, "Hera's first close-up view of Didymos asteroids", 5 November 2026
- ESA, "MTG-I2 weather satellite delivers first images", 6 November 2026
- ISRO, "Final Orbit manoeuvring of NVS-03 spacecraft", 4 November 2026
- NASA, "NASA-Funded SSPICY Mission Experiences Communications Loss", 3 November 2026
- NASA, "NASA's Swift Observatory to Re-Enter Atmosphere", updated 4 November 2026
- Varda Space Industries, "Varda's W-8 Capsule Returns Safely from Orbit as Three Vehicles Operate in Space", 5 November 2026
- iQPS, QPS-SAR-20 launch
- CAS Space, Lijian-2 Y2 launch of 18 Qianfan satellites, 3 November 2026
- CASC, Long March 2C launch of Yaogan 51 07 to 09, 5 November 2026
- CASC, Long March 12 launch of SatNet LEO group 29, 9 November 2026 (Beijing time)
- SpaceX, "USSF-432"
- Russian Ministry of Defence, Soyuz-2.1b launch from Plesetsk, 7 November 2026
- Space-Track.org (re-entry predictions, decay records and orbits, read 8 November 2026)
- CelesTrak, SATCAT (Kosmos 2621, Meteor 1-14 and the Delta piece, read 9 November 2026)
- Jonathan McDowell, General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects (GCAT)
- The Space Devs, Launch Library 2 (launches)
- Orbinauts API, v1 reference (Launches, Expected re-entries, Close approaches, Breakups, Re-entries and Census, fetched 8 and 9 November 2026)
Cite this
Copy either form. The date is the date of the figures above, so it stays true even if you are reading a saved copy.
- In a sentence
- Amazon had 392 Leo satellites in orbit on 8 November 2026, before its first launch on Vulcan, according to Orbinauts.com.
- As a footnote
- Orbinauts.com, Starship aims to catch both stages this week as Vulcan flies for Amazon Leo, orbinauts.com/news/starship-aims-to-catch-both-stages-this-week-as-vulcan-flies-for-amazon-leo, orbits from Space-Track, retrieved November 9, 2026.
- Under a chart or a table
- Source: Orbinauts.com, orbits from Space-Track