Space Calendar March 2020: Find Out What's Happening in Space!

Please do not schedule your travel based on a date mentioned here. These dates are subject to change. Launch dates are taken from Space.com.

March 2020

March 14: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is awaited to launch the fifth batch of almost 60 satellites for the company's Starlink broadband network in a mission designated Starlink 5. It will lift off from Florida, NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 9:35 a.m. EDT (1335 GMT).

March 16: A Russian Soyuz rocket will launch a Glonass M navigation satellite from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia, at 2:23 p.m. EDT (1823 GMT).

March 16: India's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk. 2 (GSLV Mk.2) may launch the county's first GEO Imaging Satellite, or GISAT 1. It is scheduled to lift off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, India, at 8:13 a.m. EDT (1213 GMT). The launch was postponed from March 6 due to technical problems with the rocket.

March 19: Happy Equinox! Today marks the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere and the first day of fall in the Southern Hemisphere.

March 19: A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch the sixth Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite for the U.S. military. The AEHF-6 mission will lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, during a 2-hour launch window that opens at 3:22 p.m. EDT (1922 GMT).

March 20: The waning, the crescent moon will make a close approach to Jupiter in the dawn sky. It will be in conjunction with Jupiter at 2:21 a.m. EDT (0621 GMT), and the pair will be above the southeastern horizon for a few hours before sunrise.

March 21: A Russian Soyuz rocket will launch approximately 32 satellites into orbit for the OneWeb satellite constellation. The mission, called OneWeb 3, will lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, at 1:07 p.m. EDT (1707 GMT).

March 23: An Arianespace Vega rocket will launch on the Small Spacecraft Mission Service, or SSMS, proof-of-concept mission carrying 42 microsatellites, nanosatellites and CubeSats. The rideshare mission will lift off from the Guiana Space Center near Kourou, French Guiana, at 9:51 p.m. EDT (0151 GMT on March 24).

March 24: New moon

March 26: Rocket Lab will launch an Electron rocket on a rideshare mission carrying three payloads for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. Also on board will be the ANDESITE CubeSat for Boston University and NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative, which will study Earth's magnetosphere and space weather, and the M2 Pathfinder satellite, a technology demonstration mission that is a collaboration between the Australian government and the University of New South Wales Canberra Space. The mission, nicknamed "Don't Stop Me Now," will lift off from the company's New Zealand launch facility on the Mahia Peninsula.

March 28: The waxing, crescent moon will make a close approach to Venus in the evening sky. It will be in conjunction with Venus at 6:37 a.m. EDT (1037 GMT), and the pair will still appear to close the evenings before and after. Look for them above the southwestern horizon after sunset.

March 30–April 2: The 36th annual Space Symposium takes place in Colorado Springs.

March 30: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the SAOCOM 1B Earth observation satellite for Argentina. It will lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, at 7:21 p.m. EDT (2321 GMT).

March 31: A Russian Proton rocket will launch the Express 80 and Express 103 communications satellites for the Russian Satellite Communication Company. It will lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

March 31: Conjunction of Saturn and Mars. The Ringed Planet and the Red Planet meet up for special conjunction in the dawn sky. Saturn will pass less than 1 degree north of Mars at 6:56 a.m. EDT (1056 GMT).

Source: SPACE.com