Jack Congram

From the First Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Center, Skyroot Aerospace flew India's first privately developed launch vehicle, dubbed Vikram-1, into low Earth orbit for its debut flight. Liftoff occurred at 06:35 am Universal Coordinated Time. Vikram-1's ascent into orbit was performed as designed, with three solid-propellant stages bringing the vehicle out of the atmosphere, while a storable liquid-propellant stage achieved the final orbit, about 450 kilometers in altitude.

Welcome back to Weekly Dose of Space! This week had six launches taking place worldwide, with one being the debut of a reusable rocket. News from this week has seen preparations for another Starship-Super Heavy flight and the first rocket launch from continental Europe. As always, we'll also look ahead to what the worldwide launch schedule might look like next week. A Falcon 9 flew from Space Launch Complex 40, in Florida, and into low Earth orbit with twenty-nine Starlink satellites.

After a decade-long wait, there are now two nations in possession of operational reusable rockets, the United States and China. The former has had them since December 2015, with SpaceX's Falcon 9 fleet, and added Blue Origin's New Glenn in November 2025.