2025 in spaceflight

Spaceflight in 2025 promises to follow the 2020s trend of record-breaking orbital launches (with at least 300 expected) and increased developments in lunar, Mars, and low-earth orbit exploration.

AstroForge's Brokkr-2 was launched on 27 February 2025 to perform a flyby of a near-Earth asteroid and determine if the asteroid is metallic. The mission failed because of communication issues.

China plans to launch the Tianwen-2 (ZhengHe) asteroid sample-return and comet probe in May.

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. Landing was completed successfully on 2 March 2025.

The Hakuto-R Mission 2 will carry the RESILIENCE lunar lander and the TENACIOUS micro rover. Landing is expected in Mare Frigoris around June 2025.

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.

Lunar Trailblazer aims 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. On March 13, Intuitive Machines shared that, like on the IM-1 mission, the Athena's altimeter had failed during landing, leaving its onboard computer without an accurate altitude reading. As a result, the spacecraft struck a plateau, tipped over, and skidded across the lunar surface, rolling once or twice before settling inside the crater. The company's CEO compared it to a baseball player sliding into a base. During the slide, the spacecraft rolled once or twice, before coming to rest inside the crater. The impact also kicked up regolith that coated the solar panels in dust, further degrading their performance.

Blue Origin plans to launch their MK1 Lunar Lander as a "pathfinder" mission in 2025.

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.

On 1 April at 01:46 (UTC), Fram2 launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, becoming the first crewed spaceflight to enter a polar retrograde orbit, i.e., to fly over Earth's poles.

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.

SpaceX expects to perform an in-space propellant transfer demonstration using two docked Starships in 2025—a critical milestone that will allow SpaceX to refuel their Starship HLS vehicle for an uncrewed lunar landing demonstration in the following year.

ISRO successfully completed the docking of two SpaDeX satellites (SDX-01 & SDX-02) in the early hours of 16 January 2025. 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, plans to ramp up launches for its constellation of over 3,000 satellites. The launches will occur on Falcon 9, Ariane 6, Vulcan Centaur and New Glenn launch vehicles.

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.

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.

SpaceX's Fram2 mission launched on March 31st, 2025 at 9:46 PM EDT.

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