$546B+ space economy, 260+ orbital launches, Starship payload deployment, and Artemis II preparation.
2025 cemented the launch-cadence revolution: ~263 successful orbital launches worldwide, with SpaceX flying ~150 Falcon missions and continuing Starship's iterative test campaign — including the first payload deployment from Starship in March. China launched 68+ rockets, Blue Origin's New Glenn flew its operational debut payloads, and ULA Vulcan entered full national-security service. The Space Foundation pegged the global space economy at roughly $546 billion, with commercial revenue contributing the lion's share.
Published April 27, 2026 by SpaceOdysseyHub Editorial.
In 2025, the world conducted 263 successful orbital launches. SpaceX led the manifest with 150 launches, representing roughly 57% of the global cadence.
| Mission | Date | Agency / operator | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starship Flight 7 — payload deployment | 2025-01-16 | SpaceX | First Starlink-class simulator deploy from Starship; upper stage lost on re-entry |
| Starship Flight 8/9 series | 2025-Q1–Q3 | SpaceX | Iterative testing — V2 ship debut, in-space relight, second Mechazilla catch |
| Blue Origin New Glenn NG-2 | 2025-Q1 | Blue Origin / NASA | Success — first operational payload (NASA ESCAPADE Mars), booster recovered on Jacklyn |
| Crew-10 / Crew-11 ISS rotations | 2025 | NASA / SpaceX | Success — including SpaceX recovery of CFT-stranded crew Wilmore & Williams Feb 2025 |
| Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1 | 2025-03-02 | Firefly Aerospace | Success — soft lunar landing in Mare Crisium with 10 NASA CLPS payloads |
| Intuitive Machines IM-2 'Athena' | 2025-03-06 | Intuitive Machines | Lunar landing south pole — tipped on side, ended early; PRIME-1 ice drill partial |
| Tianwen-2 asteroid sample return launch | 2025-05 | CNSA | Success — en route to near-Earth asteroid Kamoʻoalewa |
| ESA Hera arrival at Didymos system | 2025-Q4 | ESA | Pending — DART impact follow-up survey |
| Rank | Country | Civil + military space budget |
|---|---|---|
| #1 | United States | $81.0B |
| #2 | China | $21.0B |
| #3 | Japan | $6.1B |
| #4 | France | $4.6B |
| #5 | India | $2.1B |
| Company | Ticker | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Voyager Technologies | VOYG | 2025-06-11 |
| Karman Holdings | KRMN | 2025-02-13 |
Going into 2026, the industry expects Artemis II crewed flight around the Moon, the first Starship payload-to-orbit insertions, accelerating Chinese megaconstellation deployment, and the maturation of direct-to-device satellite broadband as a mass-market service. The defense build-out — Golden Dome, pLEO Tranche 3, allied resilience constellations — is the single largest growth vector.