Upcoming Rocket Launches

How to read a launch schedule

A rocket launch schedule looks simple, but each line hides a few conventions that decide whether you will actually see a liftoff. The most important is NET, short for “No Earlier Than”. A time marked NET is the earliest moment the vehicle could leave the pad, not a guarantee. Providers slip launches for many reasons: a thunderstorm near the pad, high upper-level winds, a ship straying into the danger zone, a sensor that reads wrongly, or simply the need for more time to inspect the rocket. A launch that is “Go for launch” a day ahead still moves by minutes or hours quite often, and some move by weeks.

The second idea is the launch window. Some rockets can leave at any moment within a period of minutes or hours, and others have an instantaneous window of a single second, because the target orbit rotates under the rocket as the Earth turns. Flights to the International Space Station are the clearest example: the station passes over the launch site only once or twice a day, so the rocket must leave at the instant that puts it in the right plane to catch up. When the page shows a window, the start is the earliest liftoff and the end is the last moment the mission can still reach its planned orbit that day.

Why some launches show only a date

Months before liftoff a provider usually knows a target month, then a day, and only in the final days an exact time. Launch Library marks every entry with a precision, and this page respects it. If only the day is known you see the day and the label “time not yet set”, with no countdown clock, because a countdown to midnight would be misleading. When a launch is known only to the month or the quarter, the date shown is a placeholder and the entry is labelled as approximate. Calendar files follow the same rule: a launch with an exact time becomes a timed event covering its window, and one without becomes an all-day event.

Status labels explained

Go for launch means the provider has the vehicle, payload, range and weather lined up and is working toward the stated time. To be confirmed means a date is chosen but a firm time is not. To be determined means the launch has no usable date yet and the placeholder will move. On hold means the team has paused the countdown to fix a problem or wait for conditions, and the page then shows the stated reason when one is published. In flight marks a launch that has already left the pad and is still ascending or deploying its payload; it disappears from the list shortly afterwards. Where a weather forecast is published, you will also see the percentage chance that conditions are acceptable for launch.

Launches to the International Space Station

A small share of all launches carry people or supplies to the ISS: crewed Dragon and Starliner flights, cargo Dragon, Cygnus, Progress and HTV-X freighters, and commercial visits such as the Axiom missions. The ISS missions only filter picks these out by mission name and destination. They matter for tracking because a spacecraft that has just launched reaches the station in anywhere from a few hours to about two days, and during that approach it travels the same orbital path you can follow on the live tracker. After docking, the new crew members appear on the crew page within hours.

Watching a launch

Almost every launch is streamed live by its provider, usually starting 15 to 30 minutes before liftoff, and the streams are free. If you want to see one in person, check the pad location shown on each entry; public viewing areas near the major Florida, California, Texas and Kourou sites fill up quickly and traffic builds hours ahead. Plan to arrive early, allow for a scrub, and remember that sound takes a while to reach you: you see the rocket long before you hear it. Weather matters to you as much as to the rocket, so use a forecast for the viewing site rather than your home town.

Where the data comes from

The schedule comes from Launch Library 2, a community-maintained database run by The Space Devs, and is refreshed about every fifteen minutes. This site reduces each entry to the fields shown here and does not alter times. Launch Library depends on announcements from providers and range authorities, so a change can take a short while to appear. For anything safety-critical or time-critical, such as travelling to a viewing site, confirm with the launch provider or the range directly. See About & methodology for how the rest of the site’s data is sourced.

Frequently asked questions

When is the next rocket launch?

The “Next launch” card at the top of this page always shows the soonest upcoming launch worldwide, with a live countdown when its time is known.

What does NET mean for a launch time?

NET means No Earlier Than. It is the earliest the launch can happen, and weather or technical checks often push it later.

Why do some launches show only a date?

Providers often announce a date long before an exact time. The page shows only what is known and never invents a time of day.

Can I see the launches that go to the International Space Station?

Yes. Tick “ISS missions only” to list just the crew and cargo flights bound for the station.

Related

• Who is on the ISS right now
• Is the ISS visible tonight?
• What’s in the sky tonight
• Space weather and aurora