A Week of Launches: This Week in Space

The Big Blue

Blue Origin successfully launched its heavy-lift rocket, New Glenn, on its maiden flight, though it failed in its attempt to land the first stage on a sea platform.

The massive rocket lifted off successfully from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after multiple delays, including several launch cancellations earlier this week. The launch proceeded smoothly, and after about three minutes, the first stage separated from the second stage as planned at an altitude of 83 kilometers. The second stage’s two engines were successfully ignited, carrying it into Earth's orbit, where it conducted a demonstration mission to deploy satellites—though no satellites were deployed this time, and the deployment mechanism remained attached, as planned for this test.

The first stage continued with a combination of freefall and controlled engine burns to land on a platform waiting in the Atlantic Ocean. However, contact was lost at an altitude of about 25 kilometers, and minutes later, the company confirmed it had crashed.

Success in reaching orbit on the first trial. New Glenn launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, January 16, 2025 | Photo: Blue Origin

New Glenn is a two-stage heavy-lift rocket comparable to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy or ULA’s Vulcan Centaur. Standing 98 meters tall with a diameter of seven meters, the giant rocket is designed to carry a payload of 45 tons to low Earth orbit or smaller payloads to more distant destinations. Both the first stage—and eventually the second stage—are designed to be reusable, similar to SpaceX’s Starship, which could make it more economically efficient than other rockets in this category, where only some components (if any) are reused. The company hopes this will allow them to offer competitive pricing in the heavy-lift rocket market.

Development of the rocket spanned many years, with its first launch originally scheduled for 2020 but delayed due to financial challenges, among other reasons. This was despite Blue Origin already securing several launch contracts for New Glenn before it even reached space for the first time.

Even if New Glenn enters regular operation soon and meets its challenges, Blue Origin—owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos—may struggle to compete with SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, and its Starship development. Notably, Blue Origin was founded in 2000, two years before SpaceX, yet it has only now achieved its first orbital launch. However, New Glenn is intended to launch Blue Origin’s own missions, including the company’s lunar lander, which was selected for Artemis program missions. A heavy-lift operational rocket is also key to Bezos’ vision of building a private space station to serve both commercial companies and space tourists.

India’s Satellites Unite in Space

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully completed a docking test involving two satellites, making India only the fourth country to achieve successful space docking, following the United States, Russia (Soviet Union), and China. Docking between two spacecraft is a critical step for advanced space missions, such as sample retrieval from the Moon or planets, in-space refueling, extending satellite lifespans, and space debris removal.

ISRO chose to test this capability using two satellites, SDX01 and SDX02, launched last month specifically for this purpose aboard the PSLV C60 rocket. Each satellite weighs approximately 220 kilograms (on Earth), and they docked at an altitude of 475 kilometers.

A significant step toward realizing ambitious space plans. The two test satellites during pre-launch preparations | Photo: ISRO

A few days ago, ISRO conducted an initial docking attempt but halted the test when the satellites, just three meters apart, veered slightly off the docking trajectory. On Thursday, the agency repeated the experiment, and this time it went all the way, successfully connecting the two satellites. ISRO announced that tests of control and management on the docked satellites were successful and that it plans to conduct power transfer experiments between the satellites in a few days, followed by a controlled separation.

״Congratulations to our scientists at ISRO and the entire space fraternity for the successful demonstration of space docking of satellites," Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted. "It is a significant stepping stone for India’s ambitious space missions in the years to come."

On the Way to the Moon

Following the first private lunar landing early last year, 2025 commenced with the launch of two private lunar landers. These landers, developed by the American company Firefly and the Japanese company ispace, were launched together last Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and were successfully placed into Earth orbit.

The American lander, Blue Ghost, was launched as part of NASA’s CLPS program, which funds commercial lunar missions. In return, these missions conduct experiments, research, and technology tests for NASA. These efforts support the Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the Moon by the end of the decade. The lander, with a diameter of approximately 3.5 meters, bears a resemblance to the Israeli spacecraft Beresheet—a connection that is not coincidental. Firefly collaborated on the early development of the spacecraft with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), which acquired the intellectual property of Beresheet in exchange for its share in funding the project. However, Blue Ghost is significantly larger and heavier, with a dry mass (excluding fuel) approaching 500 kilograms—three times the weight of Beresheet.

The scientific payloads of Blue Ghost include a range of experiments, such as studying how lunar dust adheres to various surfaces, a mobile lab to analyze dust composition, a test for dust repulsion using electric fields, a radiation-shielded computer, and an X-ray camera for measuring solar wind. The spacecraft will spend 25 days orbiting Earth to test its systems and activate some of its scientific instruments. It will then fire its engines to embark on a direct trajectory to the Moon, reaching lunar orbit in four days. After an additional 16 Earth days, it will attempt to land in the Mare Crisium region in early March. The landing is scheduled for lunar morning, allowing approximately two weeks of sunlight to power its solar-dependent instruments.

Watch Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission Video

The Japanese lander, Resilience, is the second lunar lander launched by ispace, which has indirect ties to "Beresheet." Ispace originated from the Japanese team that competed in the Lunar X-Prize, the same competition that inspired the founding of SpaceIL and the development of Beresheet. The company’s first spacecraft, Hakuto-R, crashed during a lunar landing attempt in April 2023, in a manner similar to Beresheet.

The new Japanese lander is slightly smaller than its American counterpart, with a diameter of about 2.5 meters. It carries a tiny rover, Tenacious, developed by ispace with funding from Luxembourg's space agency. The rover, comparable or smaller in size to a standard microwave oven, weighs just 5 kilograms and measures 53 cm in length, 32 cm in width, and about 25 cm in height. In addition to the rover, the lander is equipped with several noteworthy experiments, including an electrolysis system to split water into oxygen and hydrogen, which could enable rocket fuel production from lunar ice, an algae growth system to explore food production for future astronauts, radiation measurement devices, and more.

Due to its smaller size, the Japanese lander will follow a more fuel-efficient trajectory to the Moon, involving increasingly larger Earth orbits.  Consequently, it will reach the Moon in approximately 4.5 months—well after the American lander is expected to complete its mission. The Japanese lander is planned to touch down in the Mare Frigoris, a relatively northern region on the Moon's near side.

These two missions are just the first of several lunar landings planned for this year. The American company Intuitive Machines, which landed the first private spacecraft on the Moon last year, is set to launch another lander. Blue Origin may also launch its first lunar lander this year, while another American company, Astrobotic,  plans to send a lander following a disappointing failure last year. Statistically, not all these missions are expected to succeed—or even launch this year—but even partial success would make 2025 an exciting year for lunar exploration

Watch ispace's Resilience Mission Video

Space Emirates

On Tuesday, SpaceX launched a rideshare mission from California, carrying a large number of satellites for various customers and gradually deploying them into their designated orbits. As part of this mission, Transporter-12, the Falcon 9 rocket delivered no fewer than 131 satellites into space. The largest os of these is an advanced imaging satellite from the United Arab Emirates, described by local media as "the most advanced satellite the UAE has ever built." The satellite, MBZ-SAT, weighs approximately 750 kilograms and is comparable in size to a commercial van. It is equipped with a high-resolution camera and a fast communication system capable of transmitting images to Earth at three times the speed of its predecessors.

The UAE states that the satellite will support environmental monitoring, disaster relief, and the planning of transportation and urban infrastructure.

On Wednesday, the UAE Space Center confirmed that the satellite had successfully reached its designated orbit, established communication with ground stations, and that all its systems were operating as expected.

This is the UAE's 11th satellite in orbit around Earth, launched less than seven years after the country sent its first domestically produced satellite into space. At least ten more Emirati satellites are currently under development or construction. The UAE's rapid progress is attributed to the country's massive investments in science over recent years, with a particular focus on space exploration. In addition to MBZ-Sat, the launch included a small student-built satellite from the UAE.

Other notable payloads in this joint launch included 36 miniature imaging satellites from the American company Planet Labs, alongside another larger satellite for high-resolution imaging. Indian company Pixxel launched its first three imaging satellites, while D-Orbit deployed two service satellites designed to adjust the orbits of other satellites.

The region's most advanced satellite. MBZ-SAT during launch preparations and a simulation of its orbit around Earth  | Source: Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC)