First 5 January Total 11 Failures 1 | Last 22 February Successes 10 Catalogued 11 | |
 | ||
Notable spaceflight activities in 2017 will include the maiden flight of the SpaceX Dragon 2 capsule, with a goal to restore capabilities for human spaceflight from the USA, as mandated by NASA's Commercial Crew Development program. U.S. crewed flights have been halted since the Space Shuttle retirement in 2011. However, the first test flight of the Boeing's CST-100 Starliner and debut missions with astronauts on board the new vessels have been pushed to 2018.
The much-delayed Falcon Heavy rocket is scheduled to launch from the refurbished Launch Complex 39 pad A at Kennedy Space Center in the second quarter. India's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III is scheduled to make its maiden orbital flight. The Chinese small-lift Naga-L is also scheduled for its maiden flight, whereas the maiden flight of the Japanese SS-520, a sounding rocket modified for orbital flight, failed in January. The venerable Russian Soyuz-U is slated for retirement after her 786th mission in February.
China will launch its Chang'e 5 lunar sample return mission in the second half of the year from its newly inaugurated Wenchang launch facility on Hainan Island, on top of its new heavy lifting Long March 5. The mission will be the first lunar sample return in over 40 years, since Luna 24 by the USSR in 1976.
After a record-breaking 13-year mission observing Saturn, its rings and moons, the Cassini space probe will be deliberately destroyed by plunging into Saturn's atmosphere, a maneuver currently scheduled for September 15, 2017.
By country
For the purposes of this section, the yearly tally of orbital launches by country assigns each flight to the country of origin of the rocket, not to the launch services provider or the spaceport. For example, Soyuz launches by Arianespace in Kourou are counted under Russia because Soyuz-2 is a Russian rocket.