When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.Starship debris from SpaceX’s IFT-7 test mission falls through the sky on Jan. 16, 2025. | Credit: Dean Olson via Twitter2025 was a very busy year for spaceflight, for better and for worse.We saw quite a few milestones notched in the final frontier this year, including the first-ever fully successful private moon landing and the official arrival of Blue Origin’s New Glenn heavy lifter on the spaceflight scene. But there were a number of failures as well, some of them quite dramatic.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHere’s a brief rundown of 12 of 2025’s most memorable mishaps. One caveat first, though: There is no shame in being on the following list. Spaceflight is hard, and coming up short sometimes is part of the deal. It took SpaceX four tries to reach orbit for the first time, after all, and look at where the company is today.12. Indian rocket fails during satellite launchIndia attempted to launch an Earth-observing radar satellite on May 17, 2025, but a problem with the mission’s rocket resulted in a failure. | Credit: ISROAn Indian PSLV-XL rocket launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre on May 17, carrying the EOS-09 Earth-observing radar satellite aloft for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). But EOS-09 didn’t make it to its destination: The PSLV-XL suffered an issue with its third stage about six minutes into flight, and the satellite was lost.11. Firefly Aerospace suffers a 1-2 punchView from the upper stage of Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket during its sixth-ever launch on April 29, 2025, which ended in failure. | Credit: Firefly Aerospace/NSF via YouTubeTexas company Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket lifted off from California on April 29 on its sixth-ever mission, hauling a technology demonstration for Lockheed Martin toward low Earth orbit. Alpha’s upper stage got about 200 miles (320 kilometers) up, but it failed to reach orbital velocity due to a problem suffered shortly after stage separation, and the payload was lost.Firefly diagnosed the problem and began gearing up for Alpha’s return to flight. But the company then suffered another setback on Sept. 29: The Flight 7 first-stage booster exploded on the stand during testing. The company traced the problem to a “process error” during integration and aims to launch Flight 7 (with a different first stage) in early 2026.10. Landspace’s Zhuque-2 rocket failsLandscape’s Zhuque-2 rocket launches on its successful debut mission in 2023. The rocket suffered a launch failure on Aug. 14, 2025. | Credit: VCG via Getty Images)AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe Zhuque-2, a two-stage rocket operated by Chinese startup Landspace, failed on its sixth-ever mission, which launched Aug. 14 from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. The company did not disclose the payloads that were riding on the rocket. It was the second failure for the Zhuque-2, whose engines burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen, like SpaceX’s Raptor, which powers the company’s Starship megarocket.9. Galactic Energy’s Ceres-1, tooLiftoff of Galactic Energy’s second Ceres-1 solid rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert on Dec. 7, 2021. The 22nd launch of the rocket, on Nov. 9, 2025, ended in failure. | Credit: Galactic EnergyNearly three months later, another Chinese rocket went up in flames — a Ceres-1, built by Beijing-based Galactic Energy. The Ceres-1 launched Nov. 9 from Jiuquan, carrying two commercial Earth-observing satellites and a third spacecraft manifested by a Chinese university. The rocket’s first three stages performed well, according to media reports, but its fourth and final stage suffered an anomaly that doomed the mission.There may have been another Chinese rocket failure this year as well. A Kuaizhou 1A vehicle — built by the company ExPace, a subsidiary of the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation — apparently exploded on a pad at Jiuquan before launch on March 1, though reports of its demise remain unconfirmed.8. Japan’s H3 rocket fails during launch of navigation satellite The H3 rises into the sky on Dec. …
