The first full week of 2025 – and the first part of next week – featured a full lineup of launches from the United States and China, though Blue Origin’s New Glenn scrubbed on its first launch attempt and Starlink Flight 7 moved into the middle of next week. The year’s first Starlink launch, that successfully flew on Jan. 6, was followed by an additional Starlink flight on a Falcon 9 on Jan. 8.
China’s first launch of 2025, from Xichang, successfully flew on Monday, Jan. 6, and a Falcon 9 launch for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) from California launched on Thursday, Jan. 9. Starlink 12-12 launched on Friday, Jan. 10, while Starlink 12-4 is scheduled for Monday, Jan. 13. Starship Flight 7 is scheduled to launch from Starbase in south Texas no earlier than Wednesday, Jan. 15.
The first Starlink launch of 2025 launched on Monday, Jan. 6, at 3:43 PM EST (20:43 UTC) from SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida. Launch occurred at the very end of a four-hour window that ended at 3:44 PM EST (20:44 UTC) after concerns about weather earlier in the day.
The booster, B1077, flew on a southeast trajectory with a batch of 24 Starlink v2-Mini broadband communication satellites. Following launch, B1077 landed atop SpaceX’s Just Read the Instructions autonomous droneship in the Atlantic. The launch’s timing depended on how quickly SpaceX could turn around SLC-40 after it hosted the launch of the Thuraya 4-NGS mission on Jan. 3.
This flight was the second SpaceX and Falcon 9 launch of 2025. SpaceX achieved 132 Falcon 9, 134 Falcon family, and 138 total launches in 2024, and the company looks to improve on those numbers in 2025. 131 of the 132 Falcon 9 launches last year were successful, with the outlier being the Starlink 9-3 flight in July, and the brief enforced cessation of launches kept SpaceX from meeting its target of 148 flights.
CZ-3B/E at the pad. (Credit: CASC)
Chang Zheng 3B/E | Unknown Payload
China’s first launch of 2025 happened at 20:00 UTC on Monday, Jan. 6, just before Starlink 6-71’s flight. A Chang Zheng (CZ) 3B/E rocket flew the Shijian-25 refueling and life extension demonstrator mission to geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) from Launch Complex 3 (LC-3) at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province in China.
The CZ-3B/E is a version of the ICBM-derived family of CZ-2, CZ-3, and CZ-4 launch vehicles. This version uses three stages and four strap-on boosters attached to the first stage. All stages and boosters on the 56 m tall rocket, except for the third stage, use storable but highly toxic liquid hypergolic propellants, while the third stage uses liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. The rocket can place up to 5,500 kg into GTO and has launched communications satellites and the Chang’e-3 lander — the first Chinese lunar lander — and its Yutu rover to the Moon.
This flight was the 90th overall launch of the CZ-3B/E and the first of this year. The CZ-3B and other variants of the family that use hypergolic propellants and inland launch sites are still in use. However, new additions to the Chang Zheng family use safer, less toxic propellants and utilize coastal launch sites like Hainan Island.
22 Starlink satellites deployed during the Starlink Group 10-8 mission from SLC-40. (Credit: SpaceX)
The second Starlink launch of the year and the week was also the first flight from the Kennedy Space Center and Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) in 2025. The Starlink 12-11 mission launched on Wednesday, Jan. 8, at 10:24 AM EST (15:24 UTC), at the start of a four-hour-long window that lasted until 2:24 PM EST (19:24 UTC).
The booster, B1086-3, flew on a southeast trajectory with 21 Starlink v2-Mini satellites. These were a mix regular Starlink satellites and the slightly larger Direct to Cell variant. Booster landing successfully took place on A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic.
This flight was the third SpaceX flight of 2025 as the company works to equal or exceed last year’s pace. B1086 previously flew the GOES-19 and Starlink 12-5 missions.
The first NRO flight of 2025 and the first launch of the year from Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) happened on Thursday, Jan. 9, at 7:53 PM PST (03:53 UTC Friday, Jan. 10) from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at VSFB on the California coast. The launch window lasted 90 minutes and closed at 8:49 PM PST (04:49 UTC Jan. 10).
The booster, B1071-22, flew on a southeast trajectory down the California coast. Landing on Of Course I Still Love You was successful. The payload for this mission was a batch of Starshield reconnaissance satellites for a constellation operating on a principle similar to Starlink. B1071 started its career with the NROL-87 flight and all of its missions have been flown out of VSFB.
A constellation of distributed reconnaissance satellites would enable more robust coverage than relying on a single large satellite that could fail or become disabled. SpaceX and Northrop Grumman built the satellites for this NRO constellation. This launch was the fourth SpaceX flight of 2025.
Falcon 9 stands ready at SLC-40. (Credit: SpaceX)
The third Starlink launch of 2025 happened on Friday, Jan. 10, at 2:11 PM EST (19:11 UTC) from SLC-40 at CCSFS. Launch successfully occurred near the end of a four-hour launch window lasting until 2:27 PM EST (19:27 UTC).
The booster, B1067-25, flew a southeast trajectory and landed on Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic. Falcon 9 launched a batch of 21 Starlink v2-Mini satellites, with eight regular Starlink satellites and 13 of the slightly larger Direct to Cell version.
The Starlink 12-12 mission was the fifth Falcon 9 and SpaceX launch of the year, with over half of January left. This also set a new record for the number of times a booster has flown and matches the Shuttle Endeavour’s number of space flights. B1067 started its career with the CRS-22 flight.
A Jielong 3 launch vehicle being prepared for flight. (Credit: CASC)
The Chinese company Chinarocket successfully launched a Jielong 3 rocket from an offshore platform in the Yellow Sea off China’s east coast. Launch occurred on Monday, Jan. 13 at 03:00 UTC from the Dongfang Hangtiangang launch platform three nautical miles offshore from the city of Haiyang.
The launch track was southeast, taking 10 CentiSpace-1 small satellites to a near-polar orbit. These orbits can be used by Earth science and observation spacecraft, but the CentiSpace satellites provide global navigation satellite system signals augmentation services.
The Jielong 3 vehicle, a 31 meter tall rocket capable of carrying up to 1,500 kg to a sun-synchronous orbit, is a four stage vehicle using solid rocket motors for propulsion. This was the first Jielong 3 flight of the year and the fifth overall for the vehicle. It was also the second flight for China this year as the Chinese space sector works to make large strides in its capability in 2025.
The first flight-worthy New Glenn first stage, So You’re Telling Me There’s A Chance, starts its rollout to LC-36 for testing. (Credit: Blue Origin)
New Glenn | Blue Ring Pathfinder
Blue Origin’s long-awaited New Glenn heavy-lift rocket, which started in the early 2010s before being formally announced in 2016, is finally on the launch pad at Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) at the CCSFS being prepared for its debut flight.
Blue Origin, founded by Amazon creator and billionaire Jeff Bezos in 2000, developed the two-stage New Glenn as its first orbital-class rocket, following its New Shepard suborbital human launch vehicle. New Glenn, named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, was scheduled to launch on Monday, Jan. 13 during a three-hour window that started at 1:00 AM EST (06:00 UTC).
The launch time kept being pushed back and the flight was eventually scrubbed. The scrub was called less than an hour before the New Glenn launch window ended, and Blue Origin posted on X that they needed to scrub to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue which would take them outside their launch window. They are revisiting when they can schedule the next launch attempt.
New Glenn will carry the DarkSky-1 Blue Ring Pathfinder, a prototype of Blue Origin’s Blue Ring platform. The Blue Ring platform is designed to refuel satellites, transport them to different orbits, and host payloads. It can also act as a satellite bus or a “space tug” and is launch vehicle agnostic, though New Glenn is expected to fly Blue Ring missions in the future.
It's getting real, folks!@blueorigin's recovery vessel, Jacklyn, has departed Port Canaveral for the inaugural launch of New Glenn. She is in the company of her supporting vessel Harvey Stone.
Next time we see them in port might be pretty exciting 👀
📸 – @NASASpaceflight… pic.twitter.com/ibRAfvXySF
— Max Evans (@_mgde_) January 2, 2025
The 57 m tall booster stage, Glenn Stage 1 (GS1), known as “So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance” or GS1-SN001, will attempt to land on Blue Origin’s Landing Platform Vessel 1 (LPV1) named Jacklyn after Jeff Bezos’ mother. The GS1 stage, equipped with seven BE-4 engines using methane and liquid oxygen as propellants, will use all seven engines during launch and up to three during landing. The stage will also use fins and thrusters to guide its path to Jacklyn, which will be out in the Atlantic hundreds of kilometers off the Florida coast.
The 23 m tall Glenn Stage 2 (GS2), equipped with two BE-3U engines using liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen as propellants, will send the Blue Ring prototype into a medium-Earth orbit. GS2 is not reusable, though Blue Origin has worked on a project called “Jarvis” in the past that was a concept to enable full reuse of both stages of the vehicle.
This flight was originally scheduled for October 2024 with NASA’s ESCAPADE Mars payload, but New Glenn was not expected to be ready for its maiden flight by October. The ESCAPADE flight has since been moved to a later date, and the results of this flight will determine the cadence Blue Origin achieves with New Glenn in 2025.
New Glenn, capable of launching up to 45,000 kg to low-Earth orbit (LEO), has contracts for Kuiper, Telesat, and OneWeb constellation launches and several geostationary communication satellites from various customers. Blue Origin hopes to use New Glenn to launch national security payloads and this flight will serve as a certification flight for this purpose.
Blue Origin also hopes to use New Glenn to launch its Orbital Reef space station and Blue Moon lander while being able to reuse individual GS1 stages up to 25 times, and later, 100 times, to lower launch costs. The company hopes to be competitive with SpaceX in the worldwide launch market while working toward a future where millions of people live and work in space.
SpaceX is starting the second full week of 2025 with another Starlink launch. Starlink 12-4 is scheduled to fly from SLC-40 at CCSFS on Monday, Jan. 13 at 9:59 am EST (14:59 UTC). This is at the start of a window that ends at 2:30 PM EST (17:30 UTC).
The booster, which is not yet known, is taking a southeast trajectory with a batch of Starlink satellites. This batch likely includes Direct to Cell as well as regular Starlink v2 Mini spacecraft. Recovery will be aboard a drone ship in the Atlantic.
This flight will be the sixth Falcon 9 launch of 2025 as SpaceX plans to match or exceed last year’s record total of 132 Falcon 9 launches.
Ship 33, the first Block 2 Starship, conducts a test firing at the Starbase Masseys site. (Credit: BocaChicaGal for NSF)
The Starship program, fresh off four flights in 2024, is preparing for its first flight of 2025. Starship Flight 7, another suborbital flight at a nearly orbital velocity, is scheduled to launch from Pad A at Starbase, Texas, on Wednesday, Jan. 15, at 4:00 PM CST (22:00 UTC). Liftoff is currently set for the start of a 98-minute window that ends at 5:38 PM CST (23:38 UTC).
Flight 7, using Booster 14 and Ship 33, will see Starship fly eastward over the Gulf of Mexico out of Starbase. Booster 14 will attempt a catch at Pad A, flying a precise trajectory that will allow it to be captured by the Mechazilla “chopstick” arms on the launch tower. A booster catch attempt succeeded on Flight 5 but was waved off during Flight 6 due to issues with ground equipment.
Once Ship 33 reaches its intended suborbital trajectory, its tasks will include another in-space restart of a Raptor engine and a deployment of ten simulated Starlink v3 satellites from its payload bay. The deployment will use a “PEZ dispenser” to jettison the dummy satellites in succession, and these payloads will enter the atmosphere using the same suborbital trajectory as Ship 33.
A then-live view of Ship 29 during atmospheric reentry, provided by SpaceX’s Starlink constellation. (Credit: SpaceX)
Ship 33 will reenter similarly to earlier flights before splashing down in the Indian Ocean. Liftoff is timed to enable a daylight reentry and ocean landing of Ship 33, and many additional cameras and sensors will be installed on the launch vehicle to provide additional views and data. Ship 33 is the first Block 2 Starship, with modifications to the fins, heat shield, and more.
If schedules hold, Flight 7 will be SpaceX’s sixth launch of the year. The company plans to fly up to 25 Starship missions this year. As Starship is a new system, and the second launch pad at Starbase is still some time away from completion, SpaceX’s cadence goal for Starship in 2025 is very ambitious. However, the Starship program will likely exceed last year’s totals and achievements.
(Lead image: New Glenn NG1 vehicle on the pad at LC-36. Credit: Max Evans for NSF)
