#^Launch Roundup: Orbital launches from five countries planned
On the heels of a busy April, activity is ramping up for May with launches from five countries and six launch sites on three continents this week. A new orbital launch site in Australia is scheduled to make its debut, with launches from sites in India, China, New Zealand, and the United States expected as well.
Australian launch provider Gilmour Space is preparing its Eris orbital rocket for its first flight from a launch site in Bowen, Queensland, Australia. Across the Tasman Sea, Rocket Lab is preparing an Electron to fly an Earth observation satellite for iQPS. The Indian Space Research Organisation is planning its own Earth observation satellite launch from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India.
A pair of launches is planned from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China, including one with the methane-fueled ZhuQue-2E. Finally, SpaceX is planning three Falcon 9 launches with Starlink satellites from its pads in California and Florida.
Starlink Satellites are deployed during the Group 12-8 mission. (Credit: SpaceX)
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 15-4SpaceX is set to launch just the third flight for Group 15 of its Starlink constellation from Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) in California. The Starlink Group 15-4 mission is scheduled for Monday, May 12, at 5:00 PM PDT (00:00 UTC Tuesday, May 13) at the start of a four-hour window which ends at 9:00 PM PDT (04:00 UTC May 13).
Starlink Group 15-4, using a booster not yet publicly known, will carry 26 satellites to low-Earth orbit (LEO) after flying a southeast trajectory from Space Launch Complex-4E (SLC-4E). The booster is expected to land on the
Of Course I Still Love You droneship out in the Pacific, while the satellites will be lofted to an initial orbit of 267 by 279 km inclined 70.01 degrees.
This launch is set to be the 57th Falcon 9 flight of 2025 and the seventh Falcon 9 flight of May. All Falcon 9 flights so far this month have been Starlink flights, though GPS and Nusantara Lima missions are still scheduled for May.
CZ-2D launches from Jiuquan. (Credit: Shanghai Aerospace)
Chang Zheng 2D | Unknown PayloadA Chang Zheng 2D (CZ-2D) is scheduled to fly out of Site 9401, also known as SLS-2, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (JSLC) in the Inner Mongolia region of China. Launch is scheduled for 04:10 UTC on Tuesday, May 13, with the launch window lasting until 05:21 UTC.
The payload is not yet known, but the rocket will take a southwest launch trajectory out of Jiuquan. The trajectory appears to support a Sun-synchronous orbit, which is commonly used by various Earth observation and reconnaissance satellites.
This flight is the fourth CZ-2D flight of 2025 as the venerable rocket continues its service despite newer vehicles coming online in China in recent years.
A stack of Starlink v2 Mini satellites before being enclosed in their fairing. (Credit: SpaceX)
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 6-67The second Falcon 9 launch of the week is scheduled to fly out of Space Launch Complex-40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida. Starlink Group 6-67 is set to launch on Wednesday, May 14, at 11:43 AM EDT (15:43 UTC) with the four-hour window lasting until 3:43 PM EDT (19:43 UTC).
Starlink Group 6-67, using a booster not yet publicly known, will fly on a southeast trajectory and will take a batch of Starlink v2 Mini satellites to an orbit inclined 43 degrees to the equator. The booster is scheduled to land on one of SpaceX’s two east coast droneships out in the Atlantic.
This flight is the 58th launch of a Falcon 9 in 2025 and the eighth Falcon 9 flight in May.
ZhuQue-2E is rolled to the pad. (Credit: Landspace)
ZhuQue-2E | Unknown PayloadThe second launch from JSLC this week is of a Landspace ZhuQue-2E from Site 96 in the Gobi Desert. Launch is scheduled for Thursday, May 15, at 04:10 UTC, with the launch window lasting until 04:40 UTC.
Like the CZ-2D launch, the ZhuQue-2E is flying on a southwest trajectory, which supports payloads flying to Sun-synchronous orbits. The payload is not yet known, but Earth observation and reconnaissance satellites, along with some weather satellites, commonly use Sun-synchronous orbits. These orbits allow for observations of a given place at the same local time on every pass.
This flight is the fifth launch of a ZhuQue-2 vehicle, which is a medium-lift rocket capable of flying up to 6,000 kg to LEO. ZhuQue-2E uses liquid methane and liquid oxygen as propellants for its four TQ-12 engines, and is the first methane-fueled launch vehicle to reach orbit.
View of Eris rocket and the launch pad at the spaceport in Bowen, Australia. (Credit: Gilmour Space)
Eris | TestFlight1Gilmour Space, a commercial launch provider based in the Australian state of Queensland, has developed a small satellite launcher known as Eris. Though Australia did host some satellite launches from the remote desert outback during the Cold War, Eris is Australia’s first sovereign orbital satellite launcher.
The first Eris mission, TestFlight1, is scheduled to launch no earlier than Wednesday, May 15, from the Orbital Launch Pad at the Bowen Orbital Spaceport on the Queensland coast, located approximately 200 km southeast of Townsville. No launch time has yet been provided.
Eris will launch on a northeasterly trajectory over the Coral Sea and carry a test payload for the company’s micro-satellite bus, which they hope to deploy into LEO. A successful orbital mission would result in Australia joining a still-exclusive club of nations that have launched satellites to orbit using indigenous launch vehicles.
The Bowen Orbital Spaceport is Australia’s first licensed commercial orbital launch facility. (Credit: Gilmour Space)
The 25 m tall Eris launch vehicle uses three stages and is capable of launching up to 305 kg to a 500 km equatorial orbit, which places it roughly in the same class as the Rocket Lab Electron. The first stage uses four Sirius engines, which use a hybrid system similar in principle to Virgin Galactic’s engine on its SpaceShipTwo suborbital tourist spacecraft.
Another hybrid Sirius motor is used on the second stage, with a liquid-fueled engine utilized on the third stage. A successful orbital launch would be the first for a rocket powered by hybrid engines.
Gilmour Space is planning to follow up on its initial Eris Block 1 launcher with an Eris Block 2 vehicle with higher performance, similar to the Firefly Alpha. A later Eris Heavy may also be developed, enabling the company to field a medium-lift launch vehicle.
Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 15-5The second Falcon 9 launch this week from California is planned for Friday, May 16, at 6:00 AM PDT (13:00 UTC) from SLC-4E. The window, as usual, is four hours long and ends at 10:00 AM PDT (17:00 UTC).
Starlink Group 15-5, using a booster not yet publicly known, is flying another batch of Starlink v2 Mini satellites to LEO. The booster, after flying on a southeast trajectory, will be recovered on
Of Course I Still Love You, permanently based in Long Beach.
Starlink Group 15-5 will be the 59th Falcon 9 flight of 2025 and the ninth Falcon 9 flight of May, as the company continues to work toward breaking its record of 132 launches in 2024.
Electron standing on the launch pad at Mahia, New Zealand. (Credit: Rocket Lab)
Electron | The Sea God SeesRocket Lab is scheduled to launch the “The Sea God Sees” mission on Saturday, May 17, at 08:15 UTC from Launch Complex 1A (LC-1A) at the company’s private spaceport on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. The one-hour launch window ends at 09:15 UTC.
Electron will launch on a southeast trajectory and inject the payload into a 575 km circular orbit inclined 43 degrees to the equator. The payload is a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite for iQPS, a Japanese commercial Earth imagery provider. The QPS-SAR-10 satellite, also known as WADATSUMI-I after the Japanese sea god, can observe Earth’s surface through cloud cover and at night.
“The Sea God Sees” is the second of an eight-launch contract for flights in 2025 and 2026 for iQPS to build up its constellation. In addition, this flight is the sixth mission of 2025 for Rocket Lab, following 16 in 2024 as the company works on fielding its medium-lift partially reusable Neutron rocket in the coming years.
A PSLV-XL rocket launches from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in February 2017. (Credit: ISRO)
PSLV-XL | EOS-09The final scheduled launch of the week is another SAR Earth observation satellite. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) EOS-09 mission, using the Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-XL (PSLV-XL) C61, is scheduled to launch on Sunday, May 18, at 01:29 UTC from the First Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Center on the Bay of Bengal.
The PSLV-XL will fly on a southerly trajectory, which will place the EOS-09 satellite into a circular Sun-synchronous orbit at 610 km altitude, enabling full coverage of the Earth. EOS-09, also known as RISAT-1B, makes its observations in the C-band. It masses 1,710 kg and is one in a series of satellites developed by India for Earth observation and reconnaissance.
This is the second mission of 2025 for ISRO and the first for the PSLV-XL. ISRO is planning to fly a number of missions this year, including the first uncrewed test flight of its Gaganyaan crewed spacecraft.
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Lead image: Falcon 9 launches from Florida. Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF)
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Launch Roundup: Orbital launches from five countries planned appeared first on
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