4 Space Missions To Watch In February 2025: NASA, SpaceX And More

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The space industry started off 2025 with a bang. January brought the dual launch of lunar landers from the Texas-based Firefly Aerospace and Japan's iSpace. Sent into orbit on Jan. 15 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, Firefly is expected to land on the moon by March, while iSpace's spacecraft will touch down on the lunar surface in four months.

One day after the lander missions hitched a ride together, Jeff Bezos ' Blue Origin hit a major milestone with the maiden launch of its 320-foot-tall New Glenn rocket , marking the company's first successful entry into orbit. January also saw the seventh test flight of SpaceX's Starship rocket, which ended in a mishap with the explosion of its upper stage about nine minutes into the flight.

The rest of the year will likely be just as action-packed. Here's a look at some of the most notable space missions to watch in February.

Feb. 27: NASA's PUNCH and SPHEREx missions share a ride to space. Both NASA's Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) and Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and ICES (SPHEREx) missions are expected to be launched into orbit by a Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than Feb. 27. Taking off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base, PUNCH—which consists of four satellites—will map out the Sun's middle corona, while space telescope SPHEREx will map out the sky in infrared to search for water and carbon dioxide in the Milky Way and shed light on the universe's formation and the collective glow of galaxies.