On the heels of a busy April, activity is ramping up for May with launches from five countries and six launch sites on three continents this week. A new orbital launch site in Australia was scheduled to make its debut, but was delayed due to an issue with the launch vehicle, while launches from sites in India, China, New Zealand, and the United States took place.
Australian launch provider Gilmour Space had been preparing its Eris orbital rocket for its first flight from a launch site in Bowen, Queensland, Australia but the attempt has been scrubbed. Across the Tasman Sea, Rocket Lab successfully launched an Earth observation satellite for iQPS. The Indian Space Research Organisation launched its own Earth observation satellite from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India, but the launch failed.
China planned a pair of launches from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, including a CZ-2D mission as well as one with the methane-fueled ZhuQue-2E. Both Chinese launches flew successfully. Finally, SpaceX planned four Falcon 9 launches with Starlink satellites from its pads in California and Florida, with all of them launching successfully.
Starlink Satellites are deployed during the Group 12-8 mission. (Credit: SpaceX)
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 15-4
SpaceX launched just the third flight for Group 15 of its Starlink constellation from Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) in California. The Starlink Group 15-4 mission launched on Monday, May 12, at 6:15 PM PDT (01:15 UTC Tuesday, May 13) within a four-hour window that ended at 9:00 PM PDT (04:00 UTC May 13).
Starlink Group 15-4, using B1088-6, carried 26 satellites to low-Earth orbit (LEO) after flying a southeast trajectory from Space Launch Complex-4E (SLC-4E). The booster landed successfully on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship out in the Pacific, while the satellites were lofted to an initial orbit of 267 by 279 km inclined 70.01 degrees.
This launch was the 56th Falcon 9 flight of 2025 and the sixth Falcon 9 flight of May. All Falcon 9 flights so far this month have been Starlink flights, though GPS and Nusantara Lima missions are still scheduled for May.
Falcon 9 (B1067-3) launches Turksat-5B. (Credit: Stephen Marr for NSF/L2)
After a weather-related scrub in the very early hours of Monday, May 12, SpaceX succeeded in launching Falcon 9 B1067-28 and its Starlink 6-83 payload. Launch took place on Thursday, May 14, at 1:02 AM EDT (05:02 UTC) from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The rocket launched on a southeast trajectory with 28 Starlink v2 Mini satellites on board, which will be lofted to an initial 269 by 278 km orbit inclined 42.99 degrees to the Equator. After stage separation, the booster successfully made a record 28th landing on Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic.
This was the 57th Falcon 9 mission of 2025, and featured the booster with the record of the most launches to date. The Falcon 9’s first stage and fairing reusability enables a higher launch cadence for SpaceX and is a vital part of its business strategy for the type and space access in general.
CZ-2D launches from Jiuquan. (Credit: Shanghai Aerospace)
Chang Zheng 2D | Space Computing Constellation
A Chang Zheng 2D (CZ-2D) successfully launched out of Site 9401, also known as SLS-2, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (JSLC) in the Inner Mongolia region of China. The CZ-2D launched at 04:12 UTC on Wednesday, May 14, with the launch window lasting until 05:21 UTC.
The rocket took a southwest launch trajectory out of Jiuquan. The trajectory supports a Sun-synchronous orbit, which is commonly used by various Earth observation and reconnaissance satellites. In this case, the CZ-2D launched 12 satellites, developed by the Chinese company ADASPACE. These satellites will test inter-satellite laser link modes as well as in-orbit data processing with assistance from artificial intelligence.
This flight is the fourth CZ-2D flight of 2025 as the venerable rocket continues its service despite newer vehicles coming online in China in recent years. In addition, ADASPACE is launching a constellation of satellites for an Earth image data network.
A stack of Starlink v2 Mini satellites before being enclosed in their fairing. (Credit: SpaceX)
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 6-67
The third Falcon 9 flight of the week successfully launched out of Space Launch Complex-40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida. Starlink Group 6-67 lifted off from SLC-40 on Wednesday, May 14, at 12:38 PM EDT (16:38 UTC) with the four-hour window lasting until 3:43 PM EDT (19:43 UTC). The launch weather was forecast at 95 percent favorable.
Starlink Group 6-67, using B1090-4, flew on a southeast trajectory and lifted a batch of Starlink v2 Mini satellites to an orbit inclined 43 degrees to the equator. The booster landed safely on A Shortfall of Gravitas out in the Atlantic.
This flight was the 58th launch of a Falcon 9 in 2025 and the eighth Falcon 9 flight in May. The landing was also the 450th successful landing of a SpaceX rocket, if you count Starship Super Heavy recoveries in Texas.
View of the Eris rocket and the launch pad at the spaceport in Bowen, Australia. (Credit: Gilmour Space)
Gilmour Space, a commercial launch provider based in the Australian state of Queensland, has developed a small satellite launcher known as Eris. Though Australia did host some satellite launches from the remote desert outback during the Cold War, Eris is Australia’s first sovereign orbital satellite launcher.
The first Eris mission, TestFlight1, was scheduled to launch on Thursday, May 15, during a 10-hour window that opened from 21:30 UTC. The launch was scheduled to take place from the Orbital Launch Pad at the Bowen Orbital Spaceport on the Queensland coast, located approximately 200 km southeast of Townsville.
The launch had already been pushed back from its originally scheduled target the day before, due to an issue with ground support equipment, but has since been scrubbed ahead of its second attempt. The company reported that an unexpected issue triggered the rocket’s payload fairing during overnight checks. Another fairing will be dispatched from the company’s Gold Coast facility following an investigation, but Gilmour Space has stood down from its campaign for now. The company also noted that no fuel was loaded and that early inspections showed no damage to the rocket or pad.
The Bowen Orbital Spaceport is Australia’s first licensed commercial orbital launch facility. (Credit: Gilmour Space)
When it does launch, Eris will fly on a northeasterly trajectory over the Coral Sea and carry a test payload for the company’s micro-satellite bus, which they hope to deploy into LEO. A successful orbital mission would result in Australia joining a still-exclusive club of nations that have launched satellites to orbit using indigenous launch vehicles.
The 25 m tall Eris launch vehicle uses three stages and is capable of launching up to 305 kg to a 500 km equatorial orbit, which places it roughly in the same class as the Rocket Lab Electron. The first stage uses four Sirius engines, which use a hybrid system similar in principle to Virgin Galactic’s engine on its SpaceShipTwo suborbital tourist spacecraft. The second stage uses a Sirius motor as well, with the third stage using a liquid-fueled engine. A successful orbital launch would be the first for a rocket powered by hybrid engines.
Gilmour Space is planning to follow up on its initial Eris Block 1 launcher with an Eris Block 2 vehicle with higher performance, similar to the Firefly Alpha. A later Eris Heavy may also be developed, enabling the company to field a medium-lift launch vehicle.
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 15-5
The second Falcon 9 launch this week from California launched on Friday, May 16, at 6:43 AM PDT (13:43 UTC) from SLC-4E. The window, as usual, was four hours long and ended at 10:00 AM PDT (17:00 UTC).
Starlink Group 15-5, using B1093-2, flew another batch of Starlink v2 Mini satellites to LEO. The booster, after flying on a southeast trajectory, was safely recovered on Of Course I Still Love You, permanently based in Long Beach.
Starlink Group 15-5 was the 59th Falcon 9 flight of 2025 and the ninth Falcon 9 flight of May, as the company continues to work toward breaking its record of 132 launches in 2024.
ZhuQue-2E Y2 ascends from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (Credit: CCTV)
The second launch from JSLC this week saw the second Landspace ZhuQue-2E launch from Site 96 in the Gobi Desert. Launch successfully took place on Saturday, May 17, at 04:12 UTC, with the launch window lasting until 04:40 UTC, after Thursday’s attempt was scrubbed, reportedly due to a ground launch support system connector issue.
Like the CZ-2D launch, the ZhuQue-2E flew on a southwest trajectory, which supports payloads flying to Sun-synchronous orbits. Six Tianyi satellites by the SpaceTY company were on board, with three of them being for Earth observation and three technology demonstrators. Earth observation and reconnaissance satellites, along with some weather satellites, commonly use Sun-synchronous orbits. These orbits allow for observations of a given place at the same local time on every pass.
This flight was the fifth launch of a ZhuQue-2 vehicle, which is a medium-lift rocket capable of flying up to 6,000 kg to LEO. ZhuQue-2E uses liquid methane and liquid oxygen as propellants for its four TQ-12 engines, and is the first methane-fueled launch vehicle to reach orbit.
Electron standing on the launch pad at Mahia, New Zealand. (Credit: Rocket Lab)
Rocket Lab launched the “The Sea God Sees” mission on Saturday, May 17, at 08:17 UTC from Launch Complex 1A (LC-1A) at the company’s private spaceport on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand.
Electron took a southeast trajectory and injected the payload into a 575 km circular orbit inclined 43 degrees to the equator. The payload is a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite for iQPS, a Japanese commercial Earth imagery provider. The QPS-SAR-10 satellite, also known as WADATSUMI-I after the Japanese sea god, can observe Earth’s surface through cloud cover and at night.
“The Sea God Sees” is the second of an eight-launch contract for flights in 2025 and 2026 for iQPS to build up its constellation. In addition, this flight is the sixth mission of 2025 for Rocket Lab, following 16 in 2024 as the company works on fielding its medium-lift partially reusable Neutron rocket in the coming years.
A PSLV-XL rocket launches from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in February 2017. (Credit: ISRO)
The final scheduled launch of the week was another SAR Earth observation satellite. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) EOS-09 mission, using the Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-XL (PSLV-XL) C61, launched on Sunday, May 18, at 01:29 UTC from the First Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Center on the Bay of Bengal.
The PSLV-XL flew on a southerly trajectory, which was supposed to place the EOS-09 satellite into a circular Sun-synchronous orbit at 610 km altitude, enabling full coverage of the Earth. EOS-09, also known as RISAT-1B, was to make its observations in the C-band. It masses 1,710 kg and is one in a series of satellites developed by India for Earth observation and reconnaissance. However, an “observation” was noted during third stage flight and the mission veered off its flight path.
This is the second mission of 2025 for ISRO and the first for the PSLV-XL. ISRO is planning to fly a number of missions this year, including the first uncrewed test flight of its Gaganyaan crewed spacecraft, but the launch failure could affect this schedule.
A Gushenxing-1 (Ceres-1) is prepared for the sea launch of the Loong mission in Dec 2024 (Credit: Galactic Energy)
Gushenxing-1 | Tianqi 16-18,20
The first Gushenxing-1S, or Ceres-1S, to launch this year took flight on Monday May 19 at 07:38 UTC from Chinese coastal waters. This was the fifth mission for this sea-launched variation of Galactic Energy’s solid-fuelled vehicle, which lifted off from the Oriental Spaceport Launch Ship, also known as Dong Fang Hang Tian Gang. Previous missions in the last year had carried two batches of Tianqi Internet of Things satellites, and this mission transported another batch of four Tianqi satellites into low-Earth orbit.
At 19 m tall and 1.4 m in diameter, the Gushenxing-1S is Galactic Energy’s four-stage rocket. The first three stages are powered by solid-propellants, while the final one uses a hydrazine propulsion system. The vehicle is capable of delivering payloads of up to 400 kg to low Earth orbit or 300 kg to a 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit.
(Lead image: Falcon 9 launches from Florida. Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF)
