With summer and winter for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres now in full swing, the halfway point of 2025 is fast approaching, and the worldwide launch manifest continues to be as busy as ever. SpaceX is expected to launch four Falcon 9 missions this week, with a private crewed mission to the International Space Station and three Starlink missions.
A Rocket Lab Electron flight from New Zealand is also on the cards, with a Blue Origin crewed suborbital launch and the swan song of the Japanese H-IIA following suit.
Axiom Space is aiming to return crew to the International Space Station (ISS) with a launch scheduled for Wednesday, June 25, at 2:31 AM EDT (06:31 UTC) from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch of the company’s fourth private mission was originally slated to occur toward the start of June, but has since been postponed a number of times for various reasons, such as a propellant leak in the first stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and an investigation into repairs made on the Station’s Zvezda service module after the discovery of a small air leak.
The commander of Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) is Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut and current director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space. This will be her second commercial mission, having previously commanded Dragon during Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2) in May 2023. Joining her for the flight are Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, serving as pilot, and two mission specialists in Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary.
Whitson currently holds the record for the longest cumulative time spent in space by an American astronaut across her missions for NASA and Axiom Space, and that record will continue to grow with this flight. For Shukla, Uznański-Wiśniewski, and Kapu, Ax-4 will be their first flights into space. It will also mark the second human spaceflights for the nations of India, Poland, and Hungary since 1984, 1978, and 1980, respectively.
Ax-4 will be the seventh private astronaut mission to be flown on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, as well as the 18th crewed launch for SpaceX in total.
The crew of Axiom Mission 4. From left to right: Tibor Kapu, Shubhanshu Shukla, Peggy Whitson, and Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski. (Credit: SpaceX/Axiom Space)
The mission will see the debut of Crew Dragon C213, which the crew will name during flight. SpaceX has indicated that this will be the last Crew Dragon capsule to be manufactured, completing a fleet of five spacecraft. The vehicle will remain docked at the ISS for up to 14 days while the crew conducts numerous scientific studies and experiments focusing on human health, plant and microbial biology, and the effects of microgravity.
After completing its stay at the Station, Dragon and its crew will undock and splash down off the coast of California to be recovered by one of SpaceX’s recovery vessels. Falcon 9 booster B1094 is due to launch the Ax-4 mission on its second flight, ascending on a northeast trajectory and conducting a return-to-launch-site landing attempt at Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) shortly after liftoff.
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 10-16
SpaceX will launch its first Starlink mission of the week from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida on Wednesday, June 25, within a four-hour window starting at 12:33 PM EDT (16:33 UTC).
The booster will launch on a northeast trajectory and will attempt a landing on one of SpaceX’s two east coast droneships in the Atlantic Ocean. The second stage will continue to orbit after stage separation, transporting a batch of 27 Starlink v2 Mini satellites into low-Earth orbit (LEO).
This mission will mark the 78th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket in 2025, as SpaceX continues to push towards a goal of completing 170 orbital flights this year, which would far surpass the 134 launches the company conducted in 2024.
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 10-34
SpaceX’s record-setting pace continues with another Starlink mission on the manifest, set to fly from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral in Florida no earlier than Friday, June 27, at 12:48 AM EDT (04:48 UTC) within a four-hour launch window.
Like Starlink Group 10-16, the Falcon 9 booster will launch on a northeast trajectory and attempt to touch down softly on one of the two east coast droneships stationed downrange in the Atlantic. The second stage will carry a batch of approximately 26 Starlink v2 Mini satellites to LEO.
This launch will mark the 79th Falcon 9 of 2025.
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 15-7
The third Starlink launch of the week will take place from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at the Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) in California no earlier than Saturday, June 28. Liftoff is scheduled to occur within a four-hour window starting at 9:43 AM PDT (16:43 UTC).
The Falcon 9 first stage will fly a southeast trajectory, hugging the Baja California coastline before attempting a landing on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship in the Pacific Ocean. Meanwhile, the second stage will deliver a payload of approximately 26 Starlink v2 Mini satellites to LEO.
This mission is expected to mark the 80th launch of a Falcon 9 this year.
Blue Origin is expected to launch its fifth New Shepard mission of 2025 no earlier than Sunday, June 29, pending confirmation by the company after the mission was postponed from its original launch attempt due to inclement weather. The suborbital flight will launch from Launch Site One in West Texas and will carry a crew of six passengers to just above the Kármán Line, where they will enjoy a short period of microgravity before descending back to Earth.
The crew of New Shepard NS-33. (Credit: Blue Origin)
NS-33 will mark the thirteenth crewed flight of the New Shepard launch system. The six-person crew consists of Allie and Carl Kuehner, Leland Larson, Freddie Rescigno, Jr., Owolabi Salis, and James (Jim) Sitkin.
New Shepard is a two-stage launch vehicle, featuring a reusable booster stage powered by a single BE-3 engine that uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants. After ascent and stage separation, the booster will return to land using its engine and retractable landing legs to perform a soft touchdown on a concrete landing pad. The second stage of New Shepard is the crew capsule, which descends under parachutes and uses a retropropulsive braking system to further soften its landing.
Electron | Symphony In The Stars
Rocket Lab aims to continue its record-setting cadence with the launch of the 67th Electron mission from Launch Complex 1B (LC-1B) at the company’s Māhia launch facility in New Zealand. Liftoff was scheduled to take place at 7:00 PM NZST (07:00 UTC) on Tuesday, June 24, but Rocket Lab announced on Monday that it would stand down to complete additional checkouts. A new launch date and time are yet to be determined.
Mission patch for Electron’s 67th flight. (Credit: Rocket Lab)
Interestingly, not much has been revealed about the payload for this mission, except that it consists of a single spacecraft to be operated by a confidential commercial customer and deployed to a 650 km circular Earth orbit.
Based on the design of the mission patch, the mission codename, and the orbital altitude, a possible candidate could be an EchoStar Lyra Block 1 satellite, of which four are planned to launch. Each spacecraft has a mass of 76 kg and would provide S-band connectivity for commercial Internet-of-Things (IoT) services. However, there is no other surrounding evidence that suggests this is the payload.
Rocket Lab states that a second dedicated launch of Electron, meeting the same mission requirements, is scheduled to launch before the end of the year. The company hopes to meet its demand of over 20 launches in 2025 and a 100% mission success rate across all flights.
The 50th and final mission for the H-IIA rocket is tentatively scheduled to launch at the end of June. Liftoff was scheduled to take place on Monday, June 23, from the LA-Y1 launch pad at the Tanegashima Space Center, but has since been delayed due to an issue found in a second stage electrical system.
The final H-IIA vehicle undergoing processing prior to launch. (Credit: MHI)
The vehicle will fly on a southerly trajectory out of Tanegashima, carrying the GOSAT-GW Earth observation payload to a Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). The satellite is designed to monitor greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, and will measure the total amount of water on Earth’s surface and in the atmosphere.
Of course, this mission will be the only flight of the H-IIA rocket in 2025, as the vehicle is being phased out in favor of its successor in the H3 family. Across its career, the H-IIA has successfully flown 48 out of 49 missions, launching a number of notable payloads like the “Hope” Emirates Mars Mission and the XRISM observatory.
(Lead image: Falcon 9 launches from Florida. Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF)
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