As NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida wraps up a year that will see more than 90 government, commercial, and private missions launch from Florida's Space Coast, a look to 2025 shows the missions, partnerships, projects, and programs at the agency's main launch site will continue innovating, inspiring, and pushing the boundaries of exploration for the benefit of humanity.
"The next year promises to be another exciting one at Earth's premier spaceport," said Kennedy Center Director Janet Petro. "We have an amazing workforce, and when we join forces with industry and our other government partners, even the sky is no limit to what we can accomplish."
New Year, New Missions to Space Station
NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP), based out of Kennedy, and its commercial partner SpaceX plan two crew rotation missions to the International Space Station: NASA's SpaceX Crew-10 and Crew-11. This also means the return of the Crew-9 mission and later Crew-10 during 2025. CCP continues working with Boeing toward NASA certification of the company's Starliner system for future crew rotations to the orbiting laboratory.
"Operations in 2025 are a testament to NASA's workforce carefully planning and preparing to safely execute a vital string of missions that the agency can depend on," said Dana Hutcherson, CCP deputy program manager. "This is the 25th year of crewed operations for the space station, and we know that with every launch, we are sustaining a critical national asset and enabling groundbreaking research."
NASA also plans several Commercial Resupply Services missions, utilizing SpaceX's Dragon cargo spacecraft, Northrop Grumman's Cygnus spacecraft, and the inaugural flight of Sierra Space's cargo spaceplane, Dream Chaser. The missions will ferry thousands of pounds of supplies, equipment, and science investigations to the crew aboard the orbiting laboratory from NASA Kennedy and nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
In addition to the agency's crewed flights, Axiom Space's fourth crewed private spaceflight mission, Axiom Mission 4 - organized in collaboration with NASA through the International Space Station Program and operated by SpaceX - will launch to the orbital outpost.
Reestablishing Humanity's Lunar Presence
Preparations for NASA's Artemis II test flight mission are ramping up, with all major components for the SLS (Space Launch System) hardware undergoing processing at Kennedy, including the twin solid rocket boosters and 212-foot-tall core stage. Teams with EGS (Exploration Ground Systems) will continue stacking the booster segments inside the spaceport's VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building). Subsequent integration and testing of the rocket's hardware and Orion spacecraft will continue not only for the Artemis II mission, but for Artemis III and IV. Technicians also continue building mobile launcher 2, which will serve as the launch and integration platform for the SLS Block 1B configuration starting with Artemis IV.
"Looking ahead to 2025, teams will embark on a transformative year as we integrate the flight hardware for Artemis II, while simultaneously developing the foundation for future Artemis missions that will reestablish humanity's presence on the Moon," said Shawn Quinn, EGS program manager.
A key part of the Artemis campaign, NASA's CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative will continue leveraging commercial partnerships to quickly land scientific instruments and technology demonstrations on the Moon. Firefly Aerospace's first lunar CLPS flight, Blue Ghost Mission 1, will carry 10 NASA science and technology instruments to the lunar surface, including the Electrodynamic Dust Shield, a technology built by Kennedy engineers. Intuitive Machines, meanwhile, will embark on its second CLPS flight to the Moon. Providing the first in-situ resource utilization demonstration on the lunar surface, IM-2 will carry the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1), which features The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain from Honeybee Robotics, as well as the Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations built by Kennedy. Both flights are targeted to lift off from Kennedy's Launch Complex 39A during the first quarter of 2025.
In development for Artemis IV and beyond, Gateway will be a critical platform for developing a sustained human presence beyond low Earth orbit. Deep Space Logistics (DSL) is the Gateway Program project office at Kennedy responsible for leading the development of a commercial supply chain in deep space. In 2025, DSL will continue developing the framework for the DSL-1 mission and working with commercial provider SpaceX to mature spacecraft design. Upcoming milestones include a system requirements review and preliminary design review to determine the program's readiness to proceed with the detailed design phase supporting the agency's Gateway Program and Artemis IV mission objectives.
Science Missions Studying Our Solar System and Beyond
NASA's Launch Services Program (LSP), based at Kennedy, is working to launch three ambitious missions. Launching early in the year on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) is a space telescope to survey the universe using visible and near-infrared light, observing more colors than ever before and allowing astronomers to piece together a three-dimensional map of the universe with stunning accuracy. Launching with SPHEREx, NASA's PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission will study how the mass and energy of the Sun's corona transition into the solar wind.
IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe), scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral in late 2025, will help map out thethe heliosphere - the magnetic environment surrounding and protecting our solar system. Carrying 10 instruments to make its observations, the IMAP mission is targeting the L1 Lagrange Point, an area between Earth and the Sun that is easy for spacecraft to maintain orbit, along with two Sun observing rideshare missions - NASA's Carruthers Geocorona Observatory and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's SWFO-L1 (Space Weather Follow-On at L1). Also launching in late 2025 on a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg is the second of two identical satellites, Sentinel-6B, which will monitor global sea levels with unprecedented precision. Its predecessor, Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, has been delivering crucial data since it launched in 2020, and Sentinel-6B will ensure the continuation of this mission through 2030.
