Last class was a busy one for space missions , and 2025 looks plant to be no different .
The continued development of new rockets will feature hard over the next 12 months . Heading into the new year , SpaceX , for example , is aiming to really ramp up the launch rate of its next - generation Starship rocket .
Since its first test flight in 2023 , the 120 - meter - grandiloquent spaceship , comprising the first - stage Super Heavy takeoff booster and upper - stagecoach Starship spacecraft , has flown six times . SpaceX now has clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration ( FAA ) to launch the spaceship on its seventh examination flight from the company ’s Starbase site in Boca Chica , Texas .
The date of the launching has yet to be substantiate , but reports toward the end of last twelvemonth advise SpaceX is targeting Saturday , January 11 , for the 7th mental test flight of the Starship .
The spaceship launches are a spectacular spate , with the Super Heavy relay transmitter create a record book - breaking 17 million pounds of thrust at launch . There ’s also the added attraction of witness the return of the takeoff rocket after it deploys the Starship spacecraft to orbit .
Unlike SpaceX ’s workhorse Falcon 9 recall dose , which set ashore on the soil when it generate , SpaceX is using giant mechanical weapon on the launching tower to “ catch ” the render Super Heavy friend , securing it before it touches the priming . It achieved the amazing featon its first attempt in the 5th tryout flight in October , but an anomaly during the 6th escape in November force the friend to land in the Gulf of Mexico , from where it was later recovered .
NASA require to use SpaceX ’s Starship vehicle for crew and load flight to the moon , Mars , and perhaps beyond . With increase testing , this yr is likely to see some large footprint toward the Starship gaining certification , pave the way for its first usable flying .
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket
Another rocket salad launch to calculate out for this month is Blue Origin ’s inaugural trajectory ofits first orbital rocket , the New Glenn .
Up to now , the Jeff Bezos - led spaceflight company has only launched its suborbital New Shepard Eruca vesicaria sativa , on tourist flights to the edge of blank space .
The New Glenn , powered by BE-4 engines , is a two - stage , grueling - rhytidoplasty orbital rocket with 3.85 million pounds of thrust at launching , more than double that of SpaceX ’s Falcon 9 rocket salad , which produce 1.7 million hammering of knife thrust as it climbs skyward . The great poke capableness of the New Glenn reflects its invention for large payloads and more demanding missions compared to the Falcon 9 .
In the final days of 2024 , the New Glenn rocket salad successfully completed an integrated launch fomite hotfire test , a major milestone on the route to its first flying .
The maid launch is expected to get underway any solar day now from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral , Florida , and will carry Blue Origin ’s Blue Ring Pathfinder payload designed to quiz central technologies for the new roquette . It will also serve well as a demonstration missionary work for the U.S. Space Force ’s National Security Space Launch programme .
Just to be clear , launch escort for the Starship and New Glenn have yet to be officially announced , but both missions are expect to get underway this calendar month .
