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2025 in spaceflight
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Spaceflight in 2025 followed the 2020s trend of record-breaking numbers of orbital launches (with 273 successes and counting, of at least 300 expected) and new developments in Lunar, Mars, and low-Earth orbit exploration. Spaceflight in 2025 included numerous private companies' launches using reusable launch vehicles. Three private robotic landers attempted landing on the Moon, resulting in one full and one partial success.
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Astronomy and astrophysics
ESA's PROBA-3 mission, launched in December 2024, successfully demonstrated precise formation flying of a space telescope spacecraft and an occulter spacecraft, delivering its first coronography pictures of the Sun in June 2025.[1]
Exploration of the Solar System
On 18 February, ESA's Solar Orbiter left the orbital plane of the solar system after successfully completing its 4th Venus flyby, tilting its orbit to 17°.[2][3][4] The mission's first images and videos of the Sun's south pole were taken in March and then released on 11 June. These are the first images of the Sun's poles taken from outside the ecliptic plane.[5][6]
AstroForge's Brokkr-2 was launched on 27 February to perform a flyby of a near-Earth asteroid and determine if the asteroid is metallic.[7] The mission failed because of communication issues.[8][9]
China launched the Tianwen-2 (ZhengHe) asteroid sample-return and comet probe on 28 May.[10] It will rendezvous with near-Earth asteroid 469219 Kamo'oalewa in mid-2026, attempt to collect samples, and return samples back to Earth in late 2027. Then it will travel to main-belt comet 311P/PANSTARRS for a decade-long mission to further explore the mysterious comet-like object.[11]
NASA's twin ESCAPADE spacecraft were launched on 13 November on New Glenn with the aim of investigating the effects of the solar wind on the Martian atmosphere.[12] The two spacecraft were launched on an innovative trajectory where they stay in a staging orbit around the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2 until late 2026 when the Mars transfer window opens.[13]
Multiple American, Chinese, and European interplanetary spacecraft attempted observing the third known interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, which had its closest approach to the Sun in 2025.[14][15][16][17] The observations by ESA's Trace Gas Orbiter were used to predict the object's path, resulting in a substantial increase in accuracy. This was the first time that astrometric data from a spacecraft at another planet have been accepted in the Minor Planet Center's database.[18][19]
Lunar exploration
On 15 January, Blue Ghost Mission 1 by Firefly Aerospace and Hakuto-R Mission 2 by ispace launched together on a Falcon 9.
Firefly Aerospace's lunar lander carried NASA-sponsored experiments and commercial payloads as a part of Commercial Lunar Payload Services program to Mare Crisium.[20] Landing was completed successfully on 2 March 2025.[21] The mission exceeded expectations by transmitting over 110 GB of scientific and imaging data, including high‐definition views of the lunar horizon glow and an eclipse, far surpassing previous CLPS mission data yields.[22]
Epic Aerospace's Chimera-1 Space tug was planned to transition from TLI to Geosynchronous but failed due to a possible communication failure.[23][24]
On 5 June, Hakuto-R Mission 2, carrying the RESILIENCE lunar lander and the TENACIOUS micro rover, attempted a landing in Mare Frigoris but crashed into the lunar surface.[25][26][27]
Intuitive Machines's lunar lander IM-2, carrying NASA-sponsored experiments and commercial rovers (Yaoki, AstroAnt, Micro-Nova and MAPP LV1) and payloads as a part of Commercial Lunar Payload Services program to Mons Mouton, was launched on 27 February 2025 on a Falcon 9 launch vehicle with Brokkr-2 and Lunar Trailblazer. IM-2 landed on 6 March 2025. The spacecraft was intact after touchdown but resting on its side, thereby complicating its planned science and technology demonstration mission; this outcome is similar to what occurred with the company's IM-1 Odysseus spacecraft in 2024.[28]
Lunar Trailblazer aimed to aid in the understanding of lunar water and the Moon's water cycle. The mission failed as contact was never established with spacecraft after launch.[29]
Human spaceflight
On 30 January, Sunita Williams broke the world record for the most time spent on spacewalk by a woman when she accumulated 62 hours and 6 minutes on her ninth EVA. The record was previously held by Peggy Whitson with 60 hours and 21 minutes.[30]
On 1 April at 01:46 (UTC)[b], Fram2 launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, becoming the first crewed spaceflight to enter a polar retrograde orbit,[31] i.e., to fly over Earth's poles.[32]
Japan debuted its new resupply spacecraft, HTV-X, that flew aboard H3 on 26 October 2025 (HTV-X1)[33] and successfully arrived at ISS on 29 October 2025.[34]
Rocket innovation
Blue Origin completed the maiden flight of its New Glenn rocket on 16 January 2025. The second stage successfully placed its payload into orbit, while the first stage failed to land on the recovery ship offshore.[35] On its second flight on 13 November, the first stage "Never Tell Me The Odds" landed on the Jacklyn drone ship, making it the first non-SpaceX orbital-class booster to successfully land propulsively.[36]
SpaceX expected to perform an in-space propellant transfer demonstration using two docked Starships in 2025—a critical milestone that would allow SpaceX to refuel their Starship HLS vehicle for an uncrewed lunar landing demonstration.[37] The propellant transfer demonstration mission was later postponed to 2026 as SpaceX suffered a number of setbacks with its Starship program in 2025 and haven't achieved a single orbital flight of the vehicle.[38][39][40][41]
Satellite technology
ISRO successfully completed the docking of two SpaDeX satellites (SDX-01 & SDX-02) in the early hours of 16 January 2025.[42] Docking of two vehicles in space has previously only been achieved by the Soviet Union/Russia, United States, ESA, and China.
Kuiper Systems, Amazon's satellite internet subsidiary, has started initial launches. It plans a constellation of over 3,000 satellites. The launches will occur on Atlas V, Falcon 9, Vulcan Centaur, Ariane 6 and New Glenn launch vehicles.[43]
Guowang, a Chinese satellite internet constellation, has started regular launches.[44] A constellation of over 13,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit is expected by the project's end.[45]
NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), a joint project between NASA and ISRO to co-develop and launch a dual-frequency synthetic aperture radar satellite that is used for remote sensing was launched on 30 July 2025. It is notable for being the first dual-band radar imaging satellite.[46]
ESA launched four new missions for the EU's Earth observation programme Copernicus. The atmosphere-monitoring Sentinel-4A and Sentinel-5A launched in July and August aboard other European satellites in a two-missions-one-satellite approach,[47][48][49] while the radar missions Sentinel-1D and Sentinel-6B launched as standalone spacecraft in November.[50][51] ESA also launched another Earth observation satellite of its FutureEO programme, the radar-equipped Earth Explorer 7 Biomass for monitoring carbon storage in forests.[52] Furthermore, the ESA-supported Earth observation constellations AIX, HiVE, and IRIDE launched their first satellites in 2025.[53][54][55]
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Orbital launches
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Deep-space rendezvous
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Extravehicular activities (EVAs)
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Space debris events
Orbital launch statistics
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By country
For the purposes of this section, the yearly tally of orbital launches by country assigns each flight to the country of origin of the rocket, not to the launch services provider or the spaceport. For example, Electron rockets launched from the Māhia Peninsula in New Zealand are counted under the United States because Electron is an American rocket. For a launch attempt to be considered orbital it must be trying to achieve a positive perigee. Launches from the Moon are not included in the statistics.
By rocket
50
100
150
200
- Angara-1.2
- Angara A5
- Ariane 6
- Atlas V
- Ceres-1
- Electron
- Falcon 9 new
- Falcon 9 reused
- Falcon Heavy
- H-IIA
- H3
- GSLV
- LVM3
- PSLV
- SSLV
- Jielong 3
- Kinetica 1
- Kuaizhou 1A
- Kuaizhou 11
- Long March 2
- Long March 3
- Long March 4
- Long March 5
- Long March 6
- Long March 7
- Long March 8
- Long March 11
- Long March 12
- Soyuz-2
- Soyuz 2.1v
- Starship
- Vega C
- Vulcan Centaur
- New Glenn
- Zhuque-2
- Others
By family
By type
By configuration
By spaceport
50
100
150
200
Australia
China
France
India
Iran
Israel
Japan
Kazakhstan
New Zealand
North Korea
Norway
Russia
United States
By orbit
50
100
150
200
250
300
- Transatmospheric
- Low Earth
- Low Earth (ISS)
- Low Earth (CSS)
- Low Earth (SSO)
- Low Earth (polar)
- Low Earth (retrograde)
- Medium Earth
- Molniya
- Geosynchronous
- High Earth
- Lunar transfer
- Heliocentric
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Suborbital launch statistics
By country
For the purposes of this section, the yearly tally of suborbital launches by country assigns each flight to the country of origin of the rocket, not to the launch services provider or the spaceport. Flights intended to fly below 80 km (50 mi) are omitted. This includes suborbital flights for all purposes, including scientific and military application.
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Maiden flights
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Notes
- Last active configuration of this launch vehicle to be retired
- SpaceX's Fram2 mission launched on March 31, 2025 at 9:46 PM EDT.
- Includes Electron launches from Māhia
- From the Iran–Israel war
References
External links
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