SpaceX' written in large letters in front" width="970" height="584" data-caption='SpaceX’s Starship rocket will take flight again in January. <span class="media-credit">Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images</span>'>
As 2024 comes to a close, 2025 is shaping up to be a pivotal time in the world of space exploration. On the leadership side, the billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman earlier this month was tapped as NASA’s next administrator by President-elect Donald Trump. The CEO of payment processing venture Shift4 Payments, Isaacman has flown to space twice through SpaceX and is expected to be a strong advocate for the commercial space industry.
Speaking of commercial space, SpaceX in December launched its latest radio satellite for SiriusXM from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe celebrated Christmas Eve by flying closer to the sun than any probe before. Originally launched in 2018, the probe has gradually inched closer to the sun through some 22 orbits and is expected to fly 3.8 million miles from the sun while passing through its corona on a flyby that will conduct valuable research on the star’s atmosphere.
Not all December space missions were successful. The Japanese startup Space One, for example, saw its Kairos rocket self-destruct shortly after lifting off from Kushimoto in Japan’s Wakayama Prefecture on Dec. 18. The spacecraft, which reportedly suffered a malfunction leading it away from its intended flight path, marks Space One’s second failed attempt this year to become Japan’s first private company to deliver a satellite into orbit.
The new year is expected to start off with a bang via a trove of exciting space missions from various government agencies and private aerospace companies.
Jan 11: SpaceX’s seventh Starship test: SpaceX is expected to complete its seventh Starship test at the beginning of 2025, according to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) documents. Standing at nearly 400 feet tall, Starship is the world’s largest and most powerful rocket and a central aspect of Elon Musk’s ambition to one day colonize Mars. Launching from SpaceX’s site in Boca Chica, Texas, the next flight test will attempt to perform a controlled landing of the rocket’s upper-stage capsule in the Indian Ocean and see its Super Heavy booster retrieved by SpaceX at the company’s launch site—a feat that was first successfully completed during SpaceX’s fifth test flight in October.
TBD: NASA explores
TBD: China’s Long March 8A rocket prepares for its maiden flight. January will see the inaugural launch of the Long March 8A rocket, developed by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) to become China’s go-to spacecraft for medium- and low-Earth orbit missions. The rocket, which was developed over a period of 28 months and has undergone 44 ground tests, will take off later this month from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in China’s Hainan province.
TBD: Firefly Aerospace shoots for the moon. The Cedar Park, Texas-based Firefly is gearing up for a lunar mission known as “Ghost Riders in the Sky” that will see its Blue Ghost lander launched by a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center sometime in mid-January. The lander will travel in the lunar orbit for around 45 days before arriving in a volcanic feature known as the Mons Latreille, located within the moon’s Mare Crisium basin, where it will spend a complete lunar day (around 14 Earth days) conducting research. Firefly’s mission will deliver ten NASA payloads to the lunar surface, including a vacuum to sample moon dust and an X-ray imager studying how solar wind and the Earth’s magnetic field influence geomagnetic disturbances.
TBD: Second time’s the charm for ispace. Private Japanese company ispace will be hitching a ride with the Blue Ghost lander on the upcoming Falcon 9 launch. Besides carrying Firefly’s lander, The SpaceX rocket will also take ispace’s Resilience lunar lander to orbit in what constitutes the company’s second moon landing attempt following a 2023 failed mission. Partly funded by the Japanese space agency JAXA, the January mission will see ispace’s lander touch down near Mare Frigoris, a basaltic plain located in the moon’s northern hemisphere, four to five months after launch. It will carry payloads including a deep radiation probe and a small rover that plans on collecting soil and dirt from the moon for NASA.
