ASU’s SPARCS telescope successfully launched into orbit on Jan. 11 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, marking a milestone for the university’s space exploration program.

NASA also announced that the next crewed mission, Crew-12, which for now is targeting a Feb. 15 launch, will be from SLC-40. Normally SpaceX uses Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A for its Crew Dragon flights, but did use SLC-40 once for Crew-9 in 2024. All four of SpaceX’s 2025 human spaceflights were from KSC.

When Artemis II launches from Kennedy Space Center, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will fly aboard Orion. The mission will make them the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit since 1972.

CAS Space conducts first suborbital launch and capsule landing test Chinese commercial firm CAS Space launched its first Lihong-1 suborbital flight and recovery test mission, seeing a successful parachute descent of the capsule.