Launchapalooza

Ariane V took off yesterday, Soyuz the day before... and wow, this Thursday is shaping up to be magical international Launch Day!

If all goes well with weather and hardware, there will be three prominent space launches in five hours. Seriously, words like "Launchapalooza" are being used on Twitter. We always dreamed of the day when launches would be part of regular everyday life, but it's still great to see people talking about them!

Shizuku

Here is the launch scheduled for tomorrow if you want to follow along:

SOYUZ / KOBALT
1400 GMT / 10:00AM ET
A Soyuz rocket will launch a Kobalt optical reconnaissance satellite from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia (800km north of Moscow) for the Russian ministry of defense.

H-2A / GCOM W1 / KOMPSAT 3
1630 GMT / 12:30 ET
The Japanese H-2A rocket will launch the GCOM W1 ("Shizuku") and Kompsat 3 satellites from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center. Shizuku is the first Global Change Observation Mission dedicated to studying Earth's water cycle. Kompsat 3 is a South Korean Earth observation satellite.

PROTON / NIMIQ 6
1912 GMT / 03:12PM ET
An International Launch Services Proton rocket with a Breeze M upper stage will launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to deploy the Nimiq 6 satellite. Nimiq 6 will provide Ku-band HDTV across Canada for Telesat.

Then, this weekend, the big ticket item all the space nerds are anxiously awaiting! It's been delayed NINE times now. Will the 10th date be the charm once they have passed all safety reviews?

FALCON 9 / DRAGON C2+
0855 GMT / 04:55 ET
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the second Dragon spacecraft from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, to demonstrate rendezvous and berthing with the ISS for future cargo-delivery. The company is building the Dragon to fly on operational resupply missions to the orbiting lab.