Four launches, two by China, one by SpaceX, and one by Arianespace
The beat goes on. Since yesterday the global rocket industry completed four separate launches on three separate continents.
First, China’s Long March 3B rocket placed “an experimental satellite” into orbit, lifting off yesterday from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China. The state-run press provided no information as to where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.
China followed up with the launch of another nine satellites in the Guowang (Satnet) internet constellation, its Long March 12 rocket lifting off today from its coastal Wenchang spaceport. This was the 22nd launch for this constellation, bringing the total number of operational satellites in orbit to 175, according to the report at the link, which also added this:
This year, it is planned that 310 satellites will be deployed, followed by 900 in 2027, and 3,600 every year beginning in 2028 to sustain and grow the constellation. In the 2030s, up to 13,000 satellites could be in operational orbit.
Though launched over the ocean, the rocket’s lower stages fell within the territorial waters of the Philippines, requiring its space agency to issue a warning to local residents and boat owners.
Next SpaceX in the early morning hours successfully launched three Bluebird satellites for AST SpaceMobile’s cell-to-satellite constellation, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. AST now has 10 satellites in orbit. It needs to launch 45 to become operational, something it now hopes to achieve by early 2027.
The rocket’s two fairings completed their 16th and 33rd flights respectively. The first stage (B1077) completed its 29th flight (27 days after its previous flight), landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. With this flight the stage moved past the space shuttle Columbia, putting it in seventh place in the rankings for the most reused launch vehicle:
39 Discovery space shuttle
35 Falcon 9 booster B1067
34 Falcon 9 booster B1071
33 Atlantis space shuttle
32 Falcon 9 booster B1063
31 Falcon 9 booster B1069
29 Falcon 9 booster B1077
28 Columbia space shuttle
28 Falcon 9 booster B1078
Finally, several hours later Arianespace launched 36 Leo satellites for Amazon, its Ariane-6 rocket lifting off from French Guiana. This launch was the most powerful configuration of Ariane-6 yet launched and the third in Arianespace’s 18-launch Amazon contract. With this launch, Amazon now has 367 satellites in orbit. It needs to get 3,232 in orbit by July 30, 2029 to meet its FCC license requirements.
This was Arianespace’s third launch this year. The leaders in the 2026 launch race:
72 SpaceX
39 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 72 to 67.
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SpaceX launched the first five of AST SpaceMobile’s big Bluebirds and has now launched numbers 8 – 10. Numbers 6 and 7 were launched on an Indian LVM3. Given the low production and launch cadence of the LVM3, I suspect AST SpaceMobile will wind up booking at least 10 more Falcon 9 launches if it hopes to get to 45 birds on-orbit by early 2027.
Then there are the 10 F9 launches already contracted for by Amazon with the likely prospect of even more to be agreed to.
Starlink launches will still probably constitute the largest single block of F9 launches during the rest of 2026, but launches for SpaceX’s various competitors could well, in combination, equal or exceed the Starlink total in the back half of 2026.
As Robert Z notes, this was SpaceX’s 72nd F9 launch of the current year. 57 of those have been Starlink deployments with two more scheduled during the rest of June. There is also a Starfall Demo mission scheduled and at least three additional 2nd-party customer launches, two civilian payloads and what is likely another batch of Starshield sats for the National Reconnaissance Office. If all of these fly, that will see SpaceX end June with 78 launches, an annualized rate of 156 – well above Gwynne Shotwell’s estimate for the year of 140 – 145 – assuming the first half’s pace continues.
Nextspaceflight.com also shows seven launches of Space Development Agency Proliferated Warfighter Constellation birds still notionally scheduled for 2nd quarter 2026. Four of these are for the Transport Layer and three are for the Tracking Layer.
Given the recent Space Force decision to make Starshield/Starlink its Transport Layer, the four Transport Layer missions currently on the nextspaceflight.com mission board may well never fly at all, never mind during the remainder of June. The Tracking Layer missions will likely go forward. Any of them – if any – that launch in June will serve to raise SpaceX’s F9 total for 2026’s first half by a bit more than the 78 which now seems most likely.
Dick: What your comment illustrates is the abject failure of the managers at ULA, Blue Origin, and Arianespace. It has been more than a decade since SpaceX did its first reflight of a Falcon 9 booster. All three have sat on their hands and done little to demonstrate any real willingness to compete. Yes, all three built new rockets, but only one (New Glenn) is reusable, and none have pushed hard to get their flight rates up to compete with SpaceX.
The result? All this business pours into SpaceX’s coffers, and these three companies end up empty-handed.
If I was a stockholder with any of them, the thoughts of tar and feathers would come to mind.
I was never a fan of ULA, whose leaders belong on a short bus.
China is more competent.. evilly so. The first methalox rocket to orbit is theirs…the latest version of which seems to have broken up
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0O0H3Yy0jTE&pp=ugUHEgVlbi1HQg%3D%3D