Top 5 of 2025: Launch

Starship and its Super Heavy booster on their way to space. Image: SpaceX

​The year of 2025 was also the year of the super-heavy launcher. With new milestones launched, new players in the game, and new races to watch, we’re sure that the number of minutes we spent watching launch livestreams from the edge of our seats hit an all-time high. (When is our NASA Live Wrapped supposed to drop?)
Here’s an incomplete list of our biggest stories in launch from 2025:
​

• Reach for the stars: SpaceX Starship launched five test launches this year, and each time it unlocked new capability and notched additional milestones on its path to operability (despite some spectacular midair failures). On its tenth flight (and fourth of 2025), the world watched as SpaceX’s new megarocket successfully delivered payloads into orbit for the first time. Dreams do come true!
• No sweat: Can you believe Blue Origin’s New Glenn’s first launch was nearly a year ago? On Jan. 16, Blue Origin launched the rocket for the first time and reached orbit. Our favorite moment in New Glenn’s campaign this year came a little bit later, though—last month, the company sent NASA’s ESCAPADE mission to Mars while landing a booster safely back on Earth.
• Building in public: Firefly Aerospace added its name to the list of publicly traded space companies in August, when it completed its IPO on the Nasdaq under the charming ticker $FLY. The company lost its Alpha launch vehicle on its sixth flight in April (and hasn’t flown again since), and we’re on the lookout for when Alpha’s return-to-flight mission for Lockheed Martin will take place.
• Waiting game: In Europe, the launch scene wasn’t so exciting. The continent is still waiting on several highly anticipated rockets to get off the ground, including Arianespace’s Ariane 64 rocket. Also on the list of delayed European launchers: Rocket Factory Augsburg, Orbex, Skyrora, and Maia. On the bright side, we’re rooting for a 2026 Euro summer.
• Keep up with the Joneses: All things considered, this was a record-breaking year in launch. The US blew past its 2024 record of 152 successful orbital launches, closing out 2025 with 178 (as of our last accounting…we are on vacation, after all). China also broke its launch record this year—launching 88 times, more than its past record of 68.