For updates on these and other events, you can make regular visits to The Times Space and Astronomy calendar online.
The space company started by Bezos, Blue Origin, has a powerful rocket called New Glenn that may at last get off the ground in 2025.
The rocket could launch national security satellites for the U.S. military and spacecraft for NASA, including orbiters to Mars and moon landers.
Amazon also plans to launch Kuiper satellites using rockets from many of Blue Origin’s competitors, including United Launch Alliance, Arianespace of France and even SpaceX.
New milestones and new spacecraft SpaceX wowed the world in November during Flight 5 of Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built.
We dubbed this most recent 366-day orbit around the sun “2024” and packed it full of spaceflight and astronomy thrills.
North America saw a solar eclipse. Two robotic landers made it to the moon in mostly undamaged condition. A pair of mechanical arms known as “chopsticks” captured the most potent rocket booster ever constructed. Europa, Jupiter’s icy ocean moon, was the destination of the voyage. A bold spacewalk was also carried out by private astronauts.
Is this revolution around the sun that we call “2025” comparable? We’ll let you decide how excited you are about what to expect on the launchpads and in the night sky.
You can regularly check The Times Space and Astronomy calendar online for updates on these and other events.
Jeff Bezos walks into the arena.
In recent years, Elon Musk has dominated spaceflight around the planet through SpaceX. However, Musk may soon face competition from Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who has aspirations to travel beyond Earth.
Blue Origin, Bezos’s space company, has a formidable rocket called New Glenn that could finally launch in 2025. The booster stage, similar to SpaceX’s Falcon 9, is made to be completely reusable, allowing it to fly repeatedly and lowering launch costs. U.S. national security satellites could be launched by the rocket. A. NASA’s spacecraft and military, including moon landers and Mars orbiters.
Amazon satellites, where Bezos remains executive chair, will also be carried by New Glenn. SpaceX’s Starlink constellation will face competition from the company’s Project Kuiper, which aims to construct a massive constellation of satellites that will beam internet down from space. Amazon intends to use rockets from several of Blue Origin’s rivals, such as SpaceX, Arianespace of France, and United Launch Alliance, to launch Kuiper satellites.
Rubin’s initial illumination.
On top of a mountain in central Chile, astronomers are finishing up the Vera C’s construction. This year, Rubin Observatory may record its first night sky views as early as July 4.
Previously known as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, the observatory was renamed in 2020 in memory of Vera Rubin, who passed away in 2016 at the age of 88. Although no one knows what dark matter is, Rubin’s work convinced astronomers that it exists and accounts for the great majority of the universe’s mass.
The moniker is appropriate. Scientists will utilize the Rubin Observatory’s largest digital camera to produce a time-lapse motion image of the Southern sky. The nature of dark matter and dark energy, the unidentified force that is tearing the universe apart, would be better understood by researchers with the aid of such pictures. In addition to cataloging asteroids and comets in our solar system, including those that might one day collide with Earth, the data will help tell the tale of the formation of our galaxy.
Both Trump and the moon return.
When Donald Trump was in office for the first time, U. S. Lunar exploration became the new focus of space policy. The administration of President Joe Biden maintained that course. However, the country’s current space plans could be upended if Trump cancels the costly rocket that NASA has been developing for over ten years when he returns to the White House in January. Trump might, instead, drastically change NASA’s mission to send humans to Mars. The president-elect has been receiving advice from Musk, whose main objective is to reach the Red Planet.
Early in the year, a number of robotic space missions are scheduled to visit the moon in spite of all that possible uncertainty. The first two will launch as early as mid-January on the same SpaceX rocket. They are two landers from the Japanese company Ispace and the American company Firefly Aerospace. The mission, which will carry NASA-funded cargo, will be Firefly’s first voyage with its Blue Ghost lander. After the company’s first lander crashed into the moon’s surface in 2023, Ispace is making its second attempt at a lunar mission.
Following the successful landing of its Odysseus lander in February, which was tilted over but reached the moon intact, Intuitive Machines may attempt to land another robotic lander on the moon later in the first quarter of this year. A drill that will look for ice samples is one of the NASA-funded instruments that the company’s second lander, Athena, will also carry. NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer orbiter, which will investigate water on the moon, will launch alongside Athena on a SpaceX spacecraft.
First and second voyage vigils.
In 1977 the twin spacecraft Voyagers 1 and 2 were launched, inspiring a generation of cosmonauts. The two spacecraft are beginning to show signs of age after decades of exploring the outer solar system before navigating the uncharted territory of interstellar space.
Each of the robotic explorers has intermittently contacted NASA in recent years. Before it was restored, communication with Voyager 2 was accidentally cut off for a few weeks in 2023 after being purposefully stopped for months in 2020.
However, when Voyager 1 stopped transmitting data back to Earth this year, mission specialists were taken aback. To save power, both spacecraft’s instruments have been turned off.
NASA isn’t giving up on them just yet, though. Given that the two have traveled to places where no other spacecraft has gone before, it would be a fitting place for them to sleep when they are finally buried in the gap between the stars.
India’s orbital target.
The Indian space program has successfully placed a spacecraft in orbit around Mars and landed a robot on the moon. Although the nation’s top priorities are much more grounded in reality, that doesn’t imply that they lack ambition.
Human spaceflight is India’s main priority. Axiom Space has scheduled Shubhanshu Shukla, a member of the country’s astronaut corps, to spend up to 14 days on the ISS this spring as part of a commercial mission.
Shukla and his fellow Indian astronauts aspire to be the first to use their country’s own rockets to launch to low Earth orbit. India announced in December that Gaganyaan, an orbital vehicle from that program, was getting ready for a test launch without any astronauts on board. A successful mission might pave the way for an Indian astronaut launch with a crew as early as 2026.
New spacecraft and new milestones.
Flight 5 of Starship, the most potent rocket ever constructed, stunned the world in November. Anticipate the company’s attempt to replicate the amazing “chopsticks” catch of its enormous Super Heavy booster. After the upper-stage Starship vehicle completes an orbit of the Earth and makes its first return to the launch site in South Texas, SpaceX might also try to capture it. According to SpaceX, it plans to launch 25 Starships in 2025 as it gets ready to land humans on the moon as part of its agreement with NASA.
In 2025, more new spacecraft and rockets might launch.
The first is Rocket Lab, a New Zealand-based company working on the reusable rocket known as Neutron. Using its tiny Electron rocket, the company regularly launches satellites into orbit. The new vehicle could make its first flight from a launch site in Virginia.
Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spacecraft is another. This year, the company hopes to deliver cargo to the ISS for the first time after 2024 delays.
