In 2015, the maiden

spaceflight Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in o ...

s of the Chinese

Long March 6 The Long March 6 () or Chang Zheng 6 as in pinyin, abbreviated LM 6 for export or CZ 6 within China, is a Chinese liquid-fuelled launch vehicle of the Long March family, which was developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corpor ...

and

Long March 11 The Long March 11 (), or Chang Zheng 11 as in pinyin, abbreviated LM-11 for export or CZ-11 within China (and designated 11H when launched from sea), is a Chinese four stage solid-propellant carrier rocket of the Long March family, which is ...

launch vehicle A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload ( spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pads, supported by a launch control center and ...

s took place. A total of 87 orbital launches were attempted in 2015, of which 82 were successful, one was partially successful and four were failures. The year also saw seven EVAs by ISS astronauts. The majority of the year's orbital launches were conducted by

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and China, with 27, 20 and 19 launches respectively.

Overview

In February 2015, the European Space Agency's experimental lifting body spacecraft, the

Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle The Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) is a European Space Agency (ESA) experimental suborbital re-entry vehicle. It was developed to serve as a prototype lifting body orbital return vehicle to validate the ESA's work in the field of reus ...

, successfully conducted its first test flight. In March 2015,

Ceres Ceres most commonly refers to: * Ceres (dwarf planet), the largest asteroid * Ceres (mythology), the Roman goddess of agriculture Ceres may also refer to: Places Brazil * Ceres, Goiás, Brazil * Ceres Microregion, in north-central Goiás ...

became the first

dwarf planet A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit of the Sun, smaller than any of the eight classical planets but still a world in its own right. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto. The interest of dwarf planets to ...

to be visited by a spacecraft when

Dawn Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the appearance of indirect sunlight being scattered in Earth's atmosphere, when the centre of the Sun's disc has reached 18° below the observer's hori ...

entered orbit. In July 2015, New Horizons visited the

Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest ...

- Charon system after a 9-year voyage, returning a trove of pictures and information about the former "ninth planet" (now classified as a dwarf planet). Meanwhile, the MESSENGER probe was deliberately crashed into Mercury after 4 years of in-orbit observations. On 23 November 2015, the Blue Origin

New Shepard New Shepard is a fully reusable suborbital launch vehicle developed by Blue Origin for space tourism. The vehicle is named after Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut in space. The vehicle is capable of vertical takeoff and vertical lan ...

suborbital rocket achieved its first powered soft landing near the launch site, paving the way for full reuse of its propulsion stage. On 21 December, the maiden flight of the SpaceX

Falcon 9 Full Thrust Falcon 9 Full Thrust (also known as Falcon 9 v1.2, with variants Block 1 to Block 5) is a partially reusable medium-lift launch vehicle, designed and manufactured by SpaceX. Designed in 2014–2015, Falcon 9 Full Thrust began launch operations ...

took place, ending with a successful landing of its first stage. Two old

weather satellite A weather satellite or meteorological satellite is a type of Earth observation satellite that is primarily used to monitor the weather and climate of the Earth. Satellites can be polar orbiting (covering the entire Earth asynchronously), or ...

NOAA-16 NOAA-16, also known as NOAA-L before launch, was an operational, polar orbiting, weather satellite series (NOAA K-N) operated by the National Environmental Satellite Service (NESS) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). N ...

and DMSP 5D-2/F13, broke up in 2015, creating several hundred pieces of space debris. In both cases, a battery explosion is suspected as the root cause.

Orbital launches

, colspan=8 style="background:white;",