As well as its suborbital missions, Blue Origin has been progressing toward the first flight of its New Glenn rocket for orbital spaceflight. The most recent — and final — phase of testing ahead of launch took place at Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) over the last few months, culminating in a static fire of the fully-integrated rocket on Friday, Dec. 27. The launch is currently scheduled for the night of Jan. 5/6 and will carry a demonstration payload to orbit with the first stage due to attempt landing on a barge downrange of the launch site. China China carried out 68 orbital launches in 2024, which marks the first year that the legacy Chang Zheng 2, 3, and 4 family of rockets has not accounted for a majority of the country’s launches. A Chang Zheng 2C launches the Aiyinsitan Tanzhen (Einstein Probe) mission These vehicles still made a significant contribution to the total number of missions, with seven CZ-2C, nine CZ-2D, two CZ-2F/G, eight CZ-3B, four CZ-4B, and two CZ-4C rockets launching from across the Jiuquan, Taiyuan, and Xichang Satellite Launch Centers. These launches carried an array of scientific, commercial, and military satellites, including the Aiyinsitan Tanzhen, or Einstein Probe, a collaboration between the China Academy of Sciences, the European Space Agency, and the Max Planck Institute. Deployed in January, this x-ray observatory aims to observe emissions from black holes, neutron stars, and supernovae. Another CZ-2C launch in March carried the Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO) mission, which aimed to test in-space navigation by placing two small satellites into orbit around the Moon, with the rocket aided by a Yuanzheng-1S (YZ-1S) upper stage. A malfunction with the upper stage left the spacecraft in a lower-than-planned orbit, but they were still able to reach their destination under their own power. The two CZ-2F/G launches carried crewed Shenzhou missions to the Tiangong Space Station. The newer series of Chang Zheng rockets had a busy year. The heavy-lifting CZ-5 flew two missions, including the launch of Chang’e-6 in May. This successfully landed in the Apollo crater basin on the far side of the Moon, before returning a sample to Earth in June. In addition to the two CZ-5 launches, a third mission using the two-stage CZ-5B configuration with an add-on YZ-2 upper stage was flown in December, deploying the first 10 spacecraft for the GuoWang constellation of communications satellites. Chang’e-6 on the Lunar surface. (Credit: CNSA) The CZ-6 family of rockets made a total of eight launches across the CZ-6, CZ-6A, and the new CZ-6C variants. The CZ-6C, which made its debut in May, is a two-stage version of the larger CZ-6A. A pair of CZ-7 launches in January and November sent Tianzhou spacecraft to resupply the Tiangong station, while two CZ-7A launches deployed geosynchronous military satellites in June and August. A CZ-8 launch in March deployed the Queqiao 2 communications satellite to support Chang’e-6’s mission to the Moon. Finally, November saw the introduction of a new medium-capacity rocket, CZ-12. In the commercial sector, ExPace’s Kuaizhou (KZ) family of rockets flew five missions, including the debut of a new rocket, KZ-1A Pro. Galactic Energy also made five launches with its Gushenxing-1 (GSX-1), which flew twice from Jiuquan and three times from a barge in the Yellow Sea; the seaborne launches using the modified GSX-1S variant of the rocket. Other seaborne launches included a pair of Jielong-3 rockets and the maiden flight of OrienSpace’s Yinli-1, which took place on Jan. 11. CAS Space’s Lijian-1 (LJ-1) rocket made four launches from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The fourth of these took place on Dec. 27, and was China’s final launch of 2024, but failed due to an attitude control problem early in third stage flight. A July launch of iSpace’s Shuang Quxian 1 (SQX-1) also failed to reach orbit with an anomaly occurring around the time of third and fourth stage separation. In November, Landspace’s upgraded ZhuQue-2E (ZQ-2E) rocket made its first launch. Russia Russia made 17 orbital launches in 2024, with the Soyuz rocket flying 15 of these. The other two were flown by the newer Angara vehicle, including that type’s first launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in April. Vostochny, which has been used by Soyuz since 2016, was opened to provide an alternative launch site for civilian missions from Russian soil, reducing the country’s reliance on the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Vostochny’s lower latitude compared to the primarily military Plesetsk Cosmodrome will allow Angara to fly geosynchronous missions with less of a penalty to its performance. Angara’s launch from Vostochny used the heavy-lift Angara-A5 configuration with an Orion upper stage — derived from the Blok DM-03 — to carry a mass simulator into orbit. The type’s other flight deployed a military payload from Plesetsk in September, via the smaller Angara-A1.2/AM configuration. The first Angara launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome. (Credit: Roskosmos) Three Soyuz launches also took place from Vostochny, deploying the Meteor-M No.2-4 weather satellite, a pair of Ionosfera-M research satellites, and the Kondor-FKA No.2 remote sensing satellites as their primary payloads. Two further civilian remote sensing missions were launched from Baikonur, with the Resurs-P No.4 and No.5 satellites deployed by Souyz-2-1b launchers. Four military Soyuz launches took place from Plesetsk. Baikonur continued to support Russia’s human spaceflight program, with two crewed Soyuz-MS missions and four automated Progress resupply spacecraft launching to the International Space Station. 2024 was the first year since the introduction of the Proton rocket in 1965 in which that rocket has not made at least one flight. Proton’s most recent mission was in March 2023 and although the type is slated to be replaced by Angara-A5, it still has plenty of missions on its books. Potential Proton launches for 2025 include deploying the clandestine Ekvator communications satellite — which has been speculated to be under development for Iran — as well as the Elektro-L No.5 weather satellite. The most recently reported date for the debut of Russia’s new Soyuz-5 rocket — also known variously as Irtysh, Fenix, and Sunkar — was the end of December 2025, but this was announced over a year ago so it will most likely not happen next year. One debut that could take place is that of the Rokot-M, a modernized version of the small Rokot launcher derived from the UR-100 missile. Rokot-M features a new guidance system with Russian-built components replacing ones that were previously manufactured in Ukraine. It had previously been expected to fly in 2024, but a launch date has not yet been announced. Europe European launch provider Arianespace seems to be coming toward the end of a difficult transition phase that it has been in over the last few years. Following the retirement of its Ariane 5 rocket in 2023, the company’s Ariane 6 finally lifted off on its maiden flight in July. While the test flight was not completely successful — a planned restart of the second stage engine could not be accomplished — it has given Arianespace confidence to proceed with a customer payload on the rocket’s next launch in 2025. This is currently slated for the end of February, carrying the CSO-3 imaging satellite for the French military. Ariane 6 lifts off on its maiden flight. (Credit: ESA/S. Corvaja) Arianespace carried out two other missions in 2024 using its smaller Vega family of rockets. The first was in September, marking the final flight of the original version of Vega. The second took place at the start of December and saw its replacement, Vega-C, return to flight almost two years after the failure of its previous mission. Both the September and December launches carried replacement Sentinel satellites for the Copernicus program, beginning the replenishment of that project’s core constellation. Arianespace will enter 2025 under new leadership, with CEO Stéphane Israël’s departure at the end of December. Israël, who had led Arianespace since 2013, will be succeeded by David Cavaillolès, a former ministerial advisor to the French government on space policy who more recently worked in senior roles at IT services company Capgemini. With Arianespace’s recent difficulties, the European Space Agency (ESA) has turned to the commercial market to launch more of its missions. EarthCARE, a climate science mission in partnership with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), was deployed by a SpaceX Falcon 9 in May. The Hera mission to study binary asteroid (65803) Didymos was deployed by another Falcon 9 in October and the India Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched ESA’s Proba-3 formation-flying experiment aboard a PSLV rocket in December.