156 Rocket Launches from Florida’s Space Coast are Planned by the Space Force for 2025

Up to 156 orbital rockets could be launched from Florida’s Space Coast this year, according to Space Force officials, which would greatly exceed the recently established yearly record of 93 launches in 2024.

“A preponderance of them are going to be commercial missions. We do have a considerable increase in national security space missions as well,” Col. Meredith Beg, Space Launch Delta 45 vice commander for operations, explained last week. She announced the 156-launch forecast during a National Space Club Florida Committee luncheon speech Jan. 14 at Radisson Resort at the Port in Cape Canaveral.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s potential groundings, summer thunderstorms, and passing hurricanes might affect this year’s ambitious launch plans from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Don Platt, director of the Spaceport Education Centre at the Florida Institute of Technology in Titusville, is nevertheless hopeful, saying that “we’ll definitely see a large increase in cadence.” He cited other instances from the previous year in which SpaceX workers successfully launched two rockets from the neighbouring facilities in about a day.

Officials anticipate over 111 rocket launches from Florida’s Space Coast this year, according to a January 2024 report.

“They’re able to have a pretty rapid turnaround. And so, SpaceX will play a huge role in those numbers all by themselves. Now, of course, we just had the Blue Origin New Glenn launch (Thursday) morning,” Platt explained.

“They’ll get the bugs out with the landing system. But overall, a very successful launch. And they’re going to want to do more, too. They have their own customer base, in fact, even though their company itself has their (Project Kuiper) satellite constellation that they want to launch with the New Glenn. So they’re going to play a big part in increasing the launch cadence here along the Space Coast,” he explained.

Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nuñez of Florida made headlines in January 2024 when she predicted that more than 111 rockets would be sent into orbit from the Space Coast by the end of the year. In the end, there were 93 launches, which set a new yearly record for Florida even though it did not match the original forecast. 72 launches in 2023 set the previous record.

SpaceX was responsible for 88 of the 93 launches from Cape Canaveral last year, with United Launch Alliance contributing the remaining five missions.

“I think SpaceX alone, with some augmentation from ULA and certainly Blue Origin, can definitely, certainly break the 2024 record,” Platt explained.

During his first speech in the House of Representatives, U.S. Representative Mike Haridopolos, R-Indian Harbour Beach, recently praised the hard-working people that propel America’s spaceflight sector.

“I’m a proud resident of Florida’s Space Coast — the launch pad for America’s journey to the stars since the early days of NASA. But this is not just our past. It is our future,” Haridopolos explained.

“2024 was a record-breaking year for the Space Coast, with 93 successful launches crossing our skies. And in just the first few weeks of 2025, five more launches have taken place, proving that America’s golden age of spaceflight is alive and well,” he explained on Jan. 14.

“This renaissance is powered by the game-changing private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, whose ingenuity has turned spaceflight into a thriving ecosystem of public-private collaboration,” he explained.

There have been two more launches since Haridopolos’ speech. On Wednesday morning, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched the Blue Ghost moon lander from Firefly Aerospace and a lunar lander developed by the Japanese aerospace company ispace from Kennedy Space Centre.