Spaceflight Daily Report, Wednesday 1st July 2026

Image credit: China Daily/Wang Jiangbo

Launch of Haiyang 2E

CASC/SAST launched a Long March 4B (Chang Zheng 4B) from Jiuquan in Gansu at 2346 UTC, or 0746 Thursday morning local time (CST). It was carrying Haiyang 2E, the first in a trio of oceanography satellites that are replacing an older set of satellites. This was the 118th launch of the Long March 4 series, and the 57th launch of the 4B configuration. [Source: SAST]

Ship 40 Static Fire Test

Ship 40, which is planned to fly on Starship Flight 13, has undergone a static fire test using all six of its engines, bringing the mission closer to launch, though the Super Heavy first stage still needs to undergo testing. Flight 13 will be a re-run of Flight 12, consisting of a sub-orbital hop to the Indian Ocean. Flight 14 will then attempt to get into orbit. [Source: NSF]

International Space Station Activities

NASA published their daily blog post on the crew's activities aboard the International Space Station. The NASA and ESA astronauts had a light duty day following yesterday's spacewalk. They worked on resetting the spacesuits and participated in a post-spacewalk conference. The Russian cosmonauts carried out routine research and maintenance. [Source: NASA]