Here's Every Major US Space Launch Scheduled in 2025: Plan Your Viewing
Feel like watching a liftoff? Many of them will likely be streamed by NASA or from the YouTube channels of individual companies like SpaceX. Space launches are finicky, and the dates often change with little warning. But if you're looking to keep an eye on the sky in 2025, the list below should help.
Launch date: Launched successfully on Jan. 15Organization: SpaceX / NASA / Firefly AerospaceLaunch site: Kennedy Space Center, FLRocket: SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5
This uncrewed mission, which launched on Jan. 15, will carry Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander to the moon, along with a payload of 10 NASA instruments designed to measure various metrics on the lunar surface, including position and navigation data, regolith behavior and Earth's magnetosphere.
Launch date: Launched successfully on Jan. 16Organization: Blue Origin / NASARocket: Blue Origin New GlennLaunch site: Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, FL
Blue Origin's first test flight of its New Glenn rocket was originally scheduled for Jan. 13. However, a vehicle subsystem issue sprung up that would've taken too long to troubleshoot on the launch pad, so Blue Origin rescheduled the launch, and it successfully reached orbit on Jan. 16. In addition to the inaugural launch, the payload included Blue Ring Pathfinder, which was set to demonstrate its ability to communicate from orbit to ground.
Read more: New Glenn Rocket Launch Marks a Big Moment for Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin
Launch date: Successfully launched on Feb. 27Organization: SpaceX / NASA / Intuitive MachinesRocket: SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5Launch site: Kennedy Space Center, FL
The Lunar Trailblazer and Nova-C IM-2 mission lifted off successfully on Feb. 27. While the Nova-C IM-2 part of the mission is still going okay, the Lunar Trailblazer lost communications with NASA and is currently lost in space. The mission's success will depend entirely on if NASA can reestablish contact, which the agency is still trying to do.
This mission will take the Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander to the moon for its second mission. The trip also includes NASA's PRIME-1 payload, which will be drilling into the moon and using a mass spectrometer to analyze materials beneath the surface.
Launch date: Launched successfully on March 11Organization: SpaceX / NASARocket: SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5Launch site: Vandenberg SFB, CA
SpaceX and NASA originally planned to launch the SPHEREx and PUNCH missions in the last week of February 2025, but were delayed until the second week of March.
SpaceX sent its Falcon 9 rocket into orbit with NASA's SPHEREx and PUNCH. SPHEREx is a two-year mission that will launch a satellite capable of detecting near-infrared light and optical light to gather data. PUNCH is four suitcase-sized satellites that will monitor the Sun's corona to detect coronal mass ejections to eventually be able to predict when they'll happen.
Launch date: March 14Organization: SpaceX / NASA / ROSCOSMOS / JAXARocket: SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5Launch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL
A crewed flight to the International Space Station successfully launched on March 14, bearing American astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Russian astronaut Kirill Peskov and Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi. Once they arrive at the ISS, Crew-9, along with Starliner astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, will make its way back to Earth. Williams and Wilmore made near-constant headlines since their June trip to the ISS stretched from the expected eight days to more than eight months, but with Crew-10 on its way, they should be home soon.
Read more: NASA Crew-10 Astronauts Launch to ISS on SpaceX Rocket
Launch date: TBAOrganization: United Launch Alliance / Kuiper Systems (Amazon)Rocket: Vulcan VC6L and Atlas V 551Launch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL
The first two Project Kuiper launches are scheduled for March 2025. Kuiper Systems is a subsidiary of Amazon and plans to launch a total of 3,276 satellites into orbit for broadband internet access to compete with the likes of SpaceX. There will be a number of these going up throughout 2025 and beyond, but this project is slated to start in March 2025.
Launch date: TBA Organization: Blue OriginRocket: Blue Origin New GlennLaunch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL
Blue Origin will finally begin testing on its Blue Moon Pathfinder MK1 lunar lander. It isn't going to the moon yet, but Blue Origin launches always get plenty of press before they go up. Eventually, Blue Origin wants to use the Pathfinder to take supplies to the moon.
Exact date: TBAOrganization: SpaceXRocket: Falcon 9 Block 5Launch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL
The Fram2 mission is a crewed mission that will take five passengers around Earth's polar caps. Over the five-day mission, the crew will conduct the first-ever human x-ray while in space along with more research on how spaceflight affects the human body. They will also study STEVE, or Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, which is a ribbon of hot gases that light up the night sky similar to aurora borealis. The crew will consist of Chun Wang, Jannicke Mikkelsen, Eric Philips and Rabea Rogge.
Exact date: TBAOrganization: SpaceX / Axiom SpaceRocket: Falcon 9 Block 5Launch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL
The Axiom Space Mission 4 will send four people to the International Space Station where they'll stay for a little over a week. The crew includes retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, Polish engineer Sławosz Uznański and Hungarian astronaut Tibor Kapu.
Exact date: TBAOrganization: Northrop Grumman Space SystemsRocket: Minotaur IVLaunch site: Vandenberg SFB, CA
The EWS OD-1 mission will deploy the Electro-Optical/Infrared Weather System into low Earth orbit as a tech demonstration, allowing various branches of the US military to evaluate its performance as a weather satellite for the Department of Defense.
Exact date: TBAOrganization: United Launch AllianceRocket: Vulcan VC4SLaunch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL
This is a mission for the United States Space Force. It'll deploy the NTS-3 navigation satellite along with NASA's SunRISE mini-satellites, which will study solar activity. Other payloads are planned for this launch but haven't been announced yet.
Exact date: TBAOrganization: Blue Origin / NASARocket: New GlennLaunch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL
The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) mission is a joint venture between Blue Origin and NASA that will send science tools to Mars to study our red neighbor. The instruments will study the solar wind energy transfer through Mars' magnetosphere. It's one of Blue Origin's biggest launches of the year.
Exact date: TBAOrganization: SpaceX / NASARocket: Falcon 9 Block 5Launch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL
The Crew-11 flight will take four more astronauts to the ISS in July 2025. For now, the exact launch date hasn't been set in stone and neither has the crew. However, it'll be just like the Crew-10 launch, where four astronauts will go to the ISS to conduct study and relieve the prior crew.
Exact date: TBAOrganization: Northrop Grumman Space Systems / US Department of DefenseRocket: Minotaur IVLaunch site: Vandenberg SFB, CA
STP-S29A is a fairly large mission from the US Department of Defense that'll see Northrop Grumman launch several technology demonstrations into low Earth orbit. Included in the payload are 200 kilograms worth of CubeSats -- very small satellites -- for testing purposes. In addition, the STPSat-7 will also be deployed, which will track and catalog orbital debris.
September
Exact date: TBAOrganization: SpaceX / NASARocket: Falcon 9 Block 5Launch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL
The IMAP mission is a joint venture between SpaceX and NASA that'll see the deployment of the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, yet another instrument to measure how solar winds affect things in and around Earth. The probe houses 10 instruments that take various measurements. In addition, the mission will house a small lunar orbiter called Lunar Trailblazer, a solar sail called Solar Cruiser and a weather satellite to study ultraviolet emissions in the Earth's exosphere.
Exact date: TBAOrganization: SpaceX / NASARocket: Falcon 9 Block 5Launch site: Cape Canaveral, FL
The Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor 2 is a probe from NASA that'll measure the Sun's energy input into Earth through solar irradiance measurements. This data will be added to the decades of other Sun-related data that NASA has to better understand just how much energy strikes Earth from the Sun. The TSIS-1 is aboard the ISS and measures similar criteria from there.
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