Launch Schedule

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch 29 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites into low Earth orbit. The first stage booster, tail number 1069, launching for a 31st time, landed on the drone ship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas,’ positioned in the Atlantic Ocean. Watch live coverage.

Updated: May 01

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a series of 46 payloads on a rideshare mission called CAS500-2, named for the primary payload, manifested by Korea Aerospace Industries. About 7.5 minutes after liftoff, the first stage booster, tail number B1071, launching for a 33rd time, will return to Vandenberg Space Force Base and touch down at Landing Zone 4. The deployment sequence will last until about 2.5 hours after liftoff.

Updated: April 26

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a batch of 25 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites into low Earth orbit. More than eight minutes after liftoff, the first stage booster, tail number B1081, launching for a 24th time, will land on the drone ship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You,’ positioned in the Pacific Ocean.

Updated: April 26

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a batch of 24 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites into low Earth orbit. More than eight minutes after liftoff, the first stage booster, tail number B1103, launching for a second time, will land on the drone ship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You,’ positioned in the Pacific Ocean.

Updated: April 29

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch NASA’s SpaceX CRS-34 mission, part of the agency’s Commercial Resupply Services program. The Dragon spacecraft will deliver thousands of pound of science and supplies to the International Space Station. The vehicle will arrive at the orbiting outpost less than two days after liftoff. Less than eight minutes after liftoff, the first stage booster will return for a landing at Landing Zone 40.

Updated: May 01

An Avio Vega-C rocket will launch the Smile mission, a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The Smile (Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) is set to deploy from the rocket 57 minutes after liftoff and deploy its solar arrays within 10 minutes after that. It has a planned mission life of three years and will operate in a highly elliptical Earth orbit. According to ESA, “Smile will use four science instruments to study how Earth responds to the solar wind from the Sun. This will improve our understanding of solar storms, geomagnetic storms and the science of space weather.” Delayed from April 9 “due to a technical issue… on a subsystem component production line after VV29 launcher integration.”

Updated: April 23

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket will launch a batch of 29 Amazon Leo satellites into low Earth orbit. This is the penultimate mission that the tech giant booked on an Atlas 5 rocket.

Updated: May 01

A Rocket Lab Electron rocket will launch a StriX satellite, an Earth observation Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) spacecraft, on behalf of Japan-based company, Synspective. This is the ninth mission for Synspective on an Electron rocket. The satellite will be deployed into a circular 572 km orbit at a 44.8 degree inclination.

Updated: May 01

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. Delayed from 2025.

Updated: December 22

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket will launch Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station. Originally planned as the first post-certification flight with a four-person crew, this will instead be an uncrewed cargo flight to test changes to the vehicle made in the aftermath of the Crewed Flight Test that launched in 2024.

Updated: April 09

A Spectrum rocket from Isar Aerospace will launch on its second test flight. The two-stage rocket is carrying five CubeSats onboard: CyBEEsat from TU Berlin, TriSat-S from the University of Maribor, Platform 6 from EnduroSat, FramSat-1 from NTNU, and SpaceTeamSat1 from TU Wien Space Team. The sixth and final announced payload is an experiment called “Let it Go” from Dcubed. Exolaunch is responsible for managing payload integration and deployment. Delayed from Jan. 21 due to a pressurization valve issue. Delayed from March 23 due to strong winds. Delayed from March 25 due to boat in the keep out zone. Delayed from April 9 due to leak in composite overwrapped pressure vessel (COPV).

Updated: April 10

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