Launch Schedule – Spaceflight Now (2024)

Arianespace will launch the Sentinel-2C satellite to a Sun-synchronous Earth orbit using its Vega rocket. The mission, dubbed VV24, will be the final launch of Vega before the transition to Vega-C is complete. The Sentinel-2C satellite will become part of the European Commission’s Copernicus Earth Observation program, which is co-funded by the European Union and the European Space Agency.

Updated: September 02

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a Crew Dragon spacecraft. The Polaris Dawn mission will be commanded by billionaire Jared Isaacman, making his second trip to space. He will be joined on the all-private mission by pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet, and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon. The first stage booster B1083 is making its fourth flight and will land on the drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas” about nine and a half minutes after launch. The Crew Dragon will return to a splashdown at sea. Delayed from November and December 2022, March 2023, April 2024, early summer 2024, Aug. 26 and 27. Delayed from Aug. 28 due to poor recovery weather at the end of the planned mission timeline.

Updated: August 31

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a batch of Starlink V2 Mini satellites to low Earth orbit. Following stage separation, the first stage booster will land on a droneship in the Atlantic Ocean.

Updated: September 01

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch two satellites into medium Earth orbit for the European Commission’s Galileo project. The Galileo constellation provides navigation data like the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS). The Falcon 9 first stage booster will be recovered on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

Updated: September 01

A Russian Soyuz 2.1a rocket will launch a three-man crew to the International Space Station. Crew commander Alexey Ovchinin will be joined by fellow cosmonaut Ivan Vagner and NASA astronaut Don Pettit. The Soyuz is set to dock withe the ISS at about 3:33 p.m. EDT (1933 UTC). The spacecraft will remain docked with the orbiting outpost until about April 1, 2025. This will be Pettit’s fourth flight to space.

Updated: August 12

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the first five satellites for AST SpaceMobile’s in-orbit cellular service. Each BlueBird satellite has a communications array measuring 693 square feet. The Falcon 9 booster will return to a landing at Cape Canaveral’s LZ-1.

Updated: September 01

The second flight of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket will carry ballast and a collection of small payloads. ULA changed this mission when it became clear the original payload, Sierra Space Dream Chaser cargo ship, would not ready for launch. This second test flight is needed to gain certification from the U.S. military to fly national security payloads.

Updated: September 01

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a Dragon spacecraft carrying a new crew of four to the International Space Station. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster will return to Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. NASA astronauts Commander Zena Cardman, Pilot Nick Hague, and Mission Specialist Stephanie Wilson, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Mission Specialist Aleksandr Gorbunov will embark aboard the Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft on a six-month expedition to the station. Delayed from Aug. 18 due to the extension of the Starliner Crew Flight Test mission.

Updated: September 01

SpaceX will launch the Hera European Space Agency mission to study the Didymos binary asteroid system that was impacted by the DART mission in September 2022.

Updated: September 01

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will launch NASA’s Europa Clipper to begin its journey to the Galilean moon of the same name. Europa, a moon believed to have a saltwater ocean on its surface, is the fourth largest of Jupiter’s 95 moons. It’s also the sixth closest to the planet. This Falcon Heavy rocket will be flown in a fully expendable configuration, bringing an end to the side booster, tail numbers B1064 and B1065, after they each flew on five previous Falcon Heavy missions.

Updated: September 01

A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket will launch a pair of identical spacecraft on NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) mission. The two satellites, named Blue and Gold, will make a roughly 11-month journey to Mars where they will then perform about an 11-month science mission while orbiting the Red Planet. Blue and Gold were manufactured by Rocket Lab over about 3.5 years and carry science experiments from the University of California, Berkeley. This inaugural launch of the New Glenn rocket will also feature a landing attempt on its landing barge in the Atlantic Ocean.

Updated: September 01

A United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket will launch on its second demonstration flight with Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser cargo vehicle for the International Space Station. The Dream Chaser is a lifting body resupply spacecraft that will launch on top of a rocket and land on a runway. This will be the Dream Chaser’s first flight to space. The Vulcan Centaur rocket will fly in the VC4L configuration with four GEM-63XL solid rocket boosters, a long-length payload fairing, and two RL10 engines on the Centaur upper stage. Delayed from August 2022, December 2023, January 2024, April 2024 and September 2024.

Updated: July 12