Space calendar 2025: Rocket launches and skywatching dates

Graphic illustration with 'space calendar' in large blue neon letters and 2025 below it in smaller white letters. Below the title are four neon images depicting a meteor or comet, a telescope, a rocket launch and an astronaut's helmet. There is a starry background to the entire image.

(Image credit: Neon images: Zeybart via Getty Images. Image assembled with Canva by Daisy Dobrijevic)

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Upcoming Events

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November
December
2026
January
February
Past Events

Please note: Launch dates are subject to change. Please DO NOT schedule travel based on launch dates you see here.

November 2025

Rocket Launch

China's Long March 2F rocket, carrying the Shenzhou 8 spacecraft, rolls to the launch pad in preparation for its November 2011 launch.

Rocket Launch

CASC, Long March 2F: Shenzhou 22

November 24, 11:11 p.m. EST (0411 GMT, Nov. 25): The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) will launch an empty crew capsule on a Long March 2F rocket to provide a spacecraft for astronauts aboard the Tiangong space station, who's ride to space was used to ferry home Shenzhou 20 astronauts after their capsule was struck by debris. The mission will liftoff from Launch Area-4 (LA-4), at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (JSLC), in China.

Rocket Launch

Russia's first Angara rocket, a next-generation launch vehicle, streaks toward space carrying a dummy payload during its debut test flight on July 9, 2014 launched from the Plesetsk Cosmosdrome in northern Russia.

Rocket Launch

Kosmos, Angara 1.2: unknown payload

November 25, 8:00 a.m. EST (1300 GMT): Russian will launch a classified payload board an Angara 1.2 rocket. The rocket will launch from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, in northwestern Russia.

Rocket Launch

Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Nuri: CAS500-3

November 26, 10:54 a.m. EST (1554 GMT): Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), South Korea's space agency, will launch a Nuri rocket from Naro Space Center on South Korea's south coast. The mission will carry the CAS500-3 Earth observation satellite.

Rocket Launch

a row of people in the distance take photos of a rocket far away but large in frame.

Rocket Launch

SpaceX, Falcon 9: Transporter 15

November 26, 1:18 p.m. EST (1718 GMT): SpaceX will launch the Transporter 15 mission. As its name suggests, Transporter 15 is the 15th mission in SpaceX's Transporter series, part of the company's SmallSat Rideshare Program to provide small satellite operators with affordable, regularly scheduled Falcon 9 rideshare missions to orbit.

Rocket Launch

The Russia Soyuz spacecraft in front of an aurora, as captured by NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick on the International Space Station during Expedition 71 in 2024.

Rocket Launch

Roscosmos, Soyuz rocket: Soyuz MS-28

November 27, 4:27 a.m. EST (0927 GMT): NASA astronaut Chris Williams will launch on his first mission to the International Space Station, serving as a flight engineer and Expedition 74 crew member.

Williams will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft in November, accompanied by Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev. The trio will spend approximately eight months aboard the orbiting laboratory.

Rocket Launch

a white rocket lifts off from a desert launch site into the dawn sky

Rocket Launch

Blue Origin, New Shepard: NS-37

November 29, 7:00 p.m. EST (0000 GMT, Nov. 30): Blue Origin will launch its New Shepard rocket on the NS-37 mission carrying an unnamed crew on a suborbital flight. This will be New Shepard's ninth launch of 2025, and 16th crewed flight.

Rocket Launch

CASC, Long March 8A: unknown payload

November 29, 7:00 p.m. EST (0000 GMT, Nov. 30): The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) is expected to launch an unknown payload on a Long March 8A rocket. The mission will liftoff from the Wenchang Space Launch Center, China (WSLC), in China.

Rocket Launch

A white rocket topped with a payload fairing stands on the launch pad in a close-up set against a blue sky.

Rocket Launch

SpaceX, Falcon 9: Starlink 15-10

November 29, 9:59 p.m. EST (0259 GMT, Nov. 30): A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a batch of Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit (LEO), from SLC-4E; Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. SpaceX's megaconstellation of LEO Starlink satellites provide low-cost internet to locations around the globe, with nearly seven thousand currently in the orbital network.

Rocket launch

Arianespace, Vega C: ESA — Biomass VV26

November 30, 12:21 p.m. EST (1721 GMT): Arianespace will launch KOMPSAT-7, a South Korean satellite designed to provide high-resolution Earth observation imagery. The mission will lift off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

Rocket Launch

A white rocket topped with a payload fairing stands on the launch pad in a close-up set against a black sky.

Rocket Launch

SpaceX, Falcon 9: Starlink 6-86

November 30, 3:11 p.m. EST (2011 GMT): A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a batch of Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit (LEO), from Launch Complex-40 (SLC-40), at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, in Florida. SpaceX's megaconstellation of LEO Starlink satellites provides low-cost internet to locations around the globe, with nearly seven thousand currently in the orbital network.

Rocket Launch

Rocket Launch

NordSpace, Taiga: Getting Screeched In

NET November: NordSpace will launch the first test flight of its suborbital Taiga rocket. The mission will launch from Space Launch Complex-02 (SLC-02) at the company's Atlantic Spaceport Complex (ASX), in Newfoundland, Canada. The mission, "Getting Screeched In", will launch Taiga on a low-altitude flight to test its primary systems.

December 2025

Skywatching

Photographer Matt Payne blended 2 hours of photos into one composite for this image taken at the Paint Mines Interpretive Park in Colorado on Dec. 13, 2012..

Skywatching

Geminid meteor shower peaks

Dec 13, 8 pm ET (0000 GMT Dec. 14): The Geminid meteor shower peaks overnight on Dec. 13 and Dec. 14. The Geminids are active between Nov. 19 to Dec. 24 each year. Unlike a majority of the meteor showers we see on Earth, the Geminids are the product of an asteroid, not a comet.

Skywatching

This NASA graphic shows where the Ursid meteor shower will appear to radiate out from a part of the northern night sky during the 2016 Ursids peak on Dec. 21 and 22.

Skywatching

Ursid meteor shower peaks

Dec 21, 8 pm ET (0000 GMT Dec. 22): The Ursid meteor shower is active between Dec. 13 to Dec. 26 and will peak on Dec. 22. The best time to look out for Ursids is the evening of Dec. 21 through dawn.

Spaceflight

A Soyuz TMA-11M space capsule lands with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on May 14, 2014.

Spaceflight

Soyuz MS-27 astronauts return to Earth

NET Dec: Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov and Alexei Zubritsky and NASA astronaut Jonathan Kim return to Earth aboard their Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft. They are scheduled to touchdown in Kazakhstan, wrapping up a six-month stint aboard the International Space Station.

2026

Rocket Launch

A Minotaur 4 rocket sits on its launch pedestal here Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2011. The Minotaur 4 will carry DARPA's hypersonic HTV-2 aircraft scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in August 2011.

Rocket Launch

Northrup Grumman, Minotaur IV: EWS OD-1

NET 2026: Northrup Grumman will launch the EWS OD-1 payload for the United States Space Force. The Electro-Optical/Infrared Weather System (EWS) Operational Demonstration-1 (OD-1) is a weather satellite made by General Atomics launching into low-Earth obit (LEO) on a Minotaur IV rocket from Space Launch Complex-8 (SLC-8) at Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB), in California.

Rocket Launch

a black and white space plane stands on end in folded up in a hanger.

Rocket Launch

ULA, Vulcan Centaur: Sierra Space — Dream Chaser

NET 2026: United Launch Alliance (ULA) will launch Sierra Space's Dream Chaser space plane aboard a Vulcan Centaur rocket. The mission will launch from Space Launch Complex-41 (SLC-41), at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, in Florida. the first-ever winged commercial spaceplane, to the International Space Station.

January

Rocket Launch

NordSpace, Taiga: Suborbital Flight Test 2

NET 2026: NordSpace will launch the second test flight of its suborbital Taiga rocket. The mission will launch from Space Launch Complex-02 (SLC-02) at the company's Atlantic Spaceport Complex, in Newfoundland, Canada.

February

Rocket Launch

two massive side booster spew yellow orange fire lifting the core stage of a rocket as two main engines also ignite

Rocket Launch

NASA, SLS: Artemis 2

Feb. 5: NASA's Artemis 2 mission is expected to launch no earlier than Feb. 5, during a window open several days each month through April 2026. Artemis 2 will send three NASA astronauts and one Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut around the moon for the humanity's first lunar excursion in more than 50 years. The mission will launch the crew aboard an Orion spacecraft on NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, on a free-return trajectory lunar flyby to the moon and back to Earth.

NASA commander Reid Wiseman, NASA pilot Victor Glover, NASA mission specialist Christina Koch and CSA mission specialist Jeremy Hansen will fly around the moon on a roughly 10-day-long mission.

Rocket Launch

Rocket Lab, Electron: NASA, Aspera smallsat

Q1 2026: Rocket Lab will launch an Electron rocket with NASA's Aspera smallsat satellite. Aspera will examine hot gas in the space between galaxies, called the intergalactic medium. The mission will study the inflow and outflow of gas from galaxies, a process thought to contribute to star formation.

Rocket Launch

Illustration shows the first the first Haven-2 module, scheduled to be operational in 2028

Rocket Launch

SpaceX, Falcon 9: Vast — Haven-1

NET May 2026: California-based startup Vast Space plans to loft its Haven-1 outpost aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than May 2026. Haven-1 — which will eventually be incorporated as a module into a larger space station, and will be followed in quick succession by Vast-1, a four-person jaunt to the new station that could last up to 30 days. Vast-1 will also launch atop a Falcon 9, and its astronauts will ride on a SpaceX Dragon capsule.

Past Events

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