Launch Schedule

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a Cygnus XL spacecraft from Northrop Grumman on a resupply mission to the International Space Station. This will be the 22nd launch of a Cygnus spacecraft and the first launch of a Cygnus XL spacecraft, which is capable of carrying 1,250 kg more cargo than the previous version of the Cygnus spacecraft. The spacecraft is named the S.S. William ‘Willie’ C. McCool. Nearly 8 minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9 first stage booster, tail number B1094, making its fourth flight, will make a landing attempt at Landing Zone 2 (LZ-2) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The Cygnus XL spacecraft is expected to dock with the ISS on Wednesday, Sept. 17. Moved up from Sept. 15.

Updated: September 05

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch 24 Starlink V2 Mini satellites into low Earth orbit. A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, the first stage booster, tail number B1088, launching for a 10th time, will target a landing on the drone ship ‘Of Course I Still Love You’ positioned in the Pacific Ocean.

Updated: September 10

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch 28 Starlink V2 Mini satellites into low Earth orbit. A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, the first stage booster, tail number B1092, launching for a seventh time, will target a landing on the drone ship ‘Just Read the Instructions’ positioned in the Atlantic Ocean.

Updated: September 10

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch 28 Starlink V2 Mini satellites into low Earth orbit. A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, the first stage booster, tail number B1085, launching for an 11th time, will target a landing on the drone ship ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’ positioned in the Atlantic Ocean.

Updated: September 12

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the NROL-48 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office. The flight will be the 11th mission supporting the agency’s proliferated architecture, a constellation believed to consist of Starshield satellites. SpaceX will use the Falcon 9 booster, tail number B1081, which will launch for an 18th time. Eight minutes after liftoff, B1081 will target a landing back at Landing Zone 4.

Updated: September 13

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a rideshare mission carrying two spacecraft for NASA and one for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The primary payload is NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), which will use its 10 science instruments to study the boundary of the Sun’s heliosphere. Along for the ride are NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, designed to observe the ultraviolet light from the Earth’s geocorona, and NOAA’s Space Weather Follow On Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1), which will monitor the Sun for key space weather activity. All three spacecraft will be sent toe Lagrange Point 1 (L1), which is about a 1.5 million km from Earth and is positioned in between the Earth and the Sun.

Updated: September 09

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 551 rocket will launch 27 of Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband internet satellites into low Earth orbit. The spacecraft will be deployed at an altitude of 280 mies (450 km) in altitude and will eventually raise to an operating altitude of 392 miles (630 km). The Kuiper Atlas 3 mission is the fifth launch of Kuiper satellites to date, following two missions using ULA’s Atlas 5 rockets and two missions on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets. This launch will give Amazon a total of 129 satellites in LEO.

Updated: August 29

A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket will launch a pair of identical spacecraft on NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) mission. The two satellites, named Blue and Gold, will make a roughly 11-month journey to Mars where they will then perform about an 11-month science mission while orbiting the Red Planet. Blue and Gold were manufactured by Rocket Lab over about 3.5 years and carry science experiments from the University of California, Berkeley. This launch of the New Glenn rocket will also feature a landing attempt on its landing barge in the Atlantic Ocean. Delayed from Oct. 13, 2024. Delayed from mid-August.

Updated: August 15

United Launch Alliance will launch its Atlas 5 rocket in a 551 configuration to support the launch of Viasat’s ViaSat-3 Flight 2 satellite. The 6-ton spacecraft is designed to provide download speeds of more than 100 Mbps and operates using a Ka-band frequency. The satellite is built by Viasat on Boeing’s 702MP+ platform.

Updated: September 04

An H3 launch vehicle, a rocket developed through a partnership between Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), will launch the first HTV-X cargo resupply vehicle to the International Space Station.

Updated: August 29

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the second of the two-satellite Sentinel-6 series. NASA awarded SpaceX a $94 million firm fixed price contract for the launch in 2022. The Sentinel-6B “will use a radar altimeter to bounce signals off the ocean surface and deliver continuity of ocean topography measurements,” according to NASA. The missions is designed through a partnership between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the European Organization for the Exploration of Meteorological Studies.

Updated: February 27

A United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket will launch on its second demonstration flight with Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser cargo vehicle for the International Space Station. The Dream Chaser is a lifting body resupply spacecraft that will launch on top of a rocket and land on a runway. This will be the Dream Chaser’s first flight to space. The Vulcan Centaur rocket will fly in the VC4L configuration with four GEM-63XL solid rocket boosters, a long-length payload fairing, and two RL10 engines on the Centaur upper stage. Delayed from August 2022, December 2023, January 2024,  April 2024 and September 2024.

Updated: May 05

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will launch NASA’s Dragonfly mission, which consists of a rotorcraft designed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) that will explore Saturn’s icy moon, Titan. The mission was originally selected in 2019 and went through multiple plan iterations across fiscal years 2020 through 2022. It passed its Preliminary Design Review in March 2023 and then its Critical Design Review in April 2025. The mission has a total lifecycle cost of $3.35 billion, of which, $256.6 million was awarded to SpaceX to provide launch services and other mission related costs. The 20-day launch window opens on July 5, 2028.

Updated: April 25