12 launches in October 2021 — sortable by date with provider, vehicle, pad, and outcome.
Updated
| Date (UTC) | Mission | Provider | Vehicle | Status | Pad | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 05, 08:55 UTC | Soyuz 2.1a | Soyuz MS-19 | Russian Federal Space Agency (ROSCOSMOS) | Soyuz 2.1a | Success | 31/6 | — |
| Oct 13, 14:49 UTC | New Shepard | NS-18 | Blue Origin | New Shepard | Success | West Texas Suborbital Launch Site/ Corn Ranch | — |
| Oct 14, 09:40 UTC | Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat-M | OneWeb 11 | Arianespace | Soyuz 2.1b | Success | Cosmodrome Site 1S | — |
| Oct 14, 10:51 UTC | Long March 2D | Xihe (CHASE) | China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation | Long March 2D | Success | Launch Complex 9 | — |
| Oct 15, 16:23 UTC | Long March 2F/G | Shenzhou 13 | China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation | Long March 2F/G | Success | Launch Area 91 (SLS-1 / 921) | — |
| Oct 16, 09:34 UTC | Atlas V 401 | Lucy | United Launch Alliance | Atlas V 401 | Success | Space Launch Complex 41 | — |
| Oct 21, 08:00 UTC | Nuri | Flight Test | Korea Aerospace Research Institute | KSLV-2 Nuri | Failure | LC-2 | — |
| Oct 24, 01:27 UTC | Long March 3B | Shijian 21 | China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation | Long March 3B/E | Success | Launch Complex 2 (LC-2) | — |
| Oct 24, 02:10 UTC | Ariane 5 ECA+ | SES-17 & Syracuse 4A | Arianespace | Ariane 5 ECA+ | Success | Ariane Launch Area 3 | — |
| Oct 26, 02:19 UTC | H-IIA 202 | QZS-1R | Mitsubishi Heavy Industries | H-IIA 202 | Success | Yoshinobu Launch Complex LP-1 | — |
| Oct 27, 06:19 UTC | Kuaizhou 1A | Jilin-1-02F | ExPace | Kuaizhou 1A | Success | Launch Area 95A | — |
| Oct 28, 00:00 UTC | Soyuz 2.1a | Progress MS-18 (79P) | Russian Federal Space Agency (ROSCOSMOS) | Soyuz 2.1a | Success | 31/6 | — |
Soyuz mission launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and carrying Roscosmos cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov as well as the Challenge movie crew (Russian film producer Klim Shipenko and actress Yulia Peresild) to the International Space Station.
NS-18 is the second crewed New Shepard flight, carrying 4 paying customers.
A batch of 36 satellites for the OneWeb satellite constellation, which is intended to provide global Internet broadband service for individual consumers. The constellation is planned to have around 648 microsatellites (of which 60 are spares), around 150 kg each, operating in Ku-band from low Earth orbit.
Xihe, also known as the Chinese Hα Solar Explorer (CHASE), is designed to test a newly developed satellite platform and conduct solar observations. The scientific payload of the satellite is an Hα imaging spectrograph (HIS), which can, for the first time, acquire full-disk spectroscopic solar observations in the Hα waveband. It will complement the observations by on-orbit solar spacecraft (such as SDO, IRIS, STEREO and PSP), as well as future solar missions of the Solar Orbiter and the Chinese Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S). Mission is named Xihe after a solar deity from Chinese mythology.
Second crewed flight to the Chinese Tiangong space station carrying Zhai Zhigang, commander, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu, operators, on their second, second and first spaceflight respectively. Their mission duration onboard the TSS is 6 months, the longest so far in Chinese spaceflight.
Lucy is the first mission to explore and study Trojan asteroids. The Trojans are a type of asteroids that orbit the Sun in two groups, in front of and behind Jupiter in its orbit around our star. Since these asteroids have been in such stable orbits for billions of years, they are of great interest as remnants of early Solar System. Lucy is a NASA mission led by NASA Goddard and Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Over the course of 12 years, Lucy will fly by seven different Trojan asteroids and also one main belt asteroid. The complex trajectory to visit all targets will include several Earth gravity assists.
Maiden flight of the KSLV-II "Nuri" launch vehicle, carrying a dummy Payload of 1500 kg to sun-synchronous orbit.
Chinese payload launching on trajectory consistent with geostationary transfer target orbit, official purpose declared as "validation of on orbit space debris reduction technologies".
SES-17 is a Ka-band high-throughput geostationary communications satellite built by Thales Alenia Space designed to provide mobile internet services to airline passengers over the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean. Syracuse 4A is a French military communications satellite built by Thales Alenia Space.
The Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) is a three-satellite regional time transfer system and the satellite-based augmentation system for the GPS that would be receivable within Japan. The primary purpose of QZSS is to increase the availability of GPS in Japan's numerous urban canyons, where only satellites at very high elevation can be seen. A secondary function is performance enhancement, increasing the accuracy and reliability of GPS derived navigation solutions. QZS-1R is a replacement satellite for QZS-1 which was launched in 2010.
Jilin-1 is a series of Chinese commercial remote sensing satellites.
The Progress MS-18 spacecraft will resupply the International Space Station.