Please note: Launch dates are subject to change. Please DO NOT schedule travel based on launch dates you see here.
December 2025
Rocket Launch
December 19, 1:45 p.m. EST (1845 GMT): South Korean company Innospace will launch a HANBIT-Nano rocket on its maiden flight. The mission will carry five small satellites from the Brazilian space agency.
Related:
On This Day in Space!
The brightest planets in December's night sky: How to see them (and when)
Night sky, December 2025: What you can see tonight
Is there a rocket launch today?
Rocket Launch
December 20, 9:00 a.m. EST (1400 GMT): Blue Origin will launch its New Shepard rocket on the NS-37 mission carrying a crew of six on a suborbital flight. This will be New Shepard's ninth launch of 2025, and 16th crewed flight.
Rocket Launch
December 20, 7:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT): The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) is expected to launch an unknown payload on a Long March 5 rocket. The mission will liftoff from Pad 101, at the Wenchang Space Launch Center, China (WSLC), in China.
Rocket Launch
December 21, 1:12 a.m. ET (0612 GMT): Rocket Lab will launch an Electron rocket from the company's Pad B, at Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand. The mission will launch a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging satellite for iQPS. The spacecraft will join iQPS’ growing constellation to deliver frequent high-resolution Earth-imaging of specific locations around the globe.
Skywatching
Rocket Launch
December 23, 9:00 a.m. EST (1400 GMT): Roscosmos will launch a Soyuz 2.1a rocket with the Obzor-R No.1 satellite, an X-band radar earth observation probe. The mission will liftoff from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, in Russia.
Rocket Launch
December 23, 10:24 p.m. EST (0324 GMT, Dec. 24): The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will launch a SpaceMobile BlueBird Block 2 communications satellite aboard a Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM-3), previously known as the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV Mk III) rocket. The mission will liftoff from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
Rocket Launch
December 25, 5:00 p.m. EST (2200 GMT): 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
December 26, 11:00 a.m. EST (1600 GMT): The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) is expected to launch a the Fengyun-4C meteorological satellite on a Long March 3B/E rocket. The mission will liftoff from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, in China, and deliver the satellite to a geostationary transfer orbit.
Rocket Launch
December 27, 9:09 p.m. EST (0209 GMT, Dec. 28): A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation (CSG-3) mission for the Italian Space Agency and the Italian Ministry of Defence. The mission will lift off from Space Launch Complex-4E (SLC-4E), at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, and deliver the satellite to low Earth orbit.
Rocket Launch
December 28, 12:00 a.m. EST (0500 GMT): A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a batch of Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit (LEO), from Space Launch Complex-40 (SLC-40), at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base, 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
NET December: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will launch the MICHIBIKI 5 mission, carrying the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZS-6) aboard the 5th H3 Launch Vehicle (H3 F5: Flight No.5). Liftoff will take place from Tanegashima Space Center, in Japan. QZS-5 is part of a Japanese navigation satellite constellation, operating in elliptical geosynchronous orbits. The satellite is designed to augment GPS signals to otherwise unreachable locations; using its orbit to relay signals to canyons and mountainous terrain.
Rocket Launch
NET December: Rocket Lab will launch an Electron rocket from the company's Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand. The Bridging The Swarm mission will launch NeonSat-1A, an Earth observation satellite from the Satellite Technology Research Center (SaTReC) at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
Rocket Launch
NET December: The Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, a Moscow-based space manufacturer, will launch a Proton-M rocket with the Elektro-L No.5 Earth-imaging satellite. Liftoff will occur from launch complex 81/24 (81P) at Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan.
Rocket Launch
NET December: Private Chinese space launch company Galactic Energy is expected to launch a demonstration flight of its new Ceres 2 rocket. The mission will liftoff from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, in China.
Rocket Launch
NET December: The Chinese company iSpace is expected to launch an unknown payload aboard a solid propellant-fueled Hyperbola-1 rocket.
Rocket Launch
NET December: 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.
2026
January
Rocket Launch
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
February
Rocket Launch
NET 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
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.
Rocket Launch
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
