SpaceX launches 26 more Starlink satellites
SpaceX last night successfully placed 26 more Starlink satellites in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its third flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
A comparison between this launch of SpaceX’s Starlink with Amazon’s scrubbed ULA launch of 27 Kuiper satellites yesterday is worth noting. This launch of 26 Starlink satellites was utterly routine, and just one of four in just the past week, all of which put 98 satellites into orbit. Thousands of such satellites have been launched since the first launch in 2018.
Amazon’s attempt to launch 27 Kuiper satellites was scrubbed, and would have only been the second launch total, separated by about six weeks. The constellation only has 27 satellites in orbit, and its launches are anything but routine, despite signing launch contracts with four different rocket companies. And yet, Amazon proposed Kuiper at almost the same time SpaceX proposed Starlink, in the mid-2010s.
I will let my readers draw their own conclusions from this comparison.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
75 SpaceX
34 China
8 Rocket Lab
6 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 75 to 55.
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SpaceX last night successfully placed 26 more Starlink satellites in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its third flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
A comparison between this launch of SpaceX’s Starlink with Amazon’s scrubbed ULA launch of 27 Kuiper satellites yesterday is worth noting. This launch of 26 Starlink satellites was utterly routine, and just one of four in just the past week, all of which put 98 satellites into orbit. Thousands of such satellites have been launched since the first launch in 2018.
Amazon’s attempt to launch 27 Kuiper satellites was scrubbed, and would have only been the second launch total, separated by about six weeks. The constellation only has 27 satellites in orbit, and its launches are anything but routine, despite signing launch contracts with four different rocket companies. And yet, Amazon proposed Kuiper at almost the same time SpaceX proposed Starlink, in the mid-2010s.
I will let my readers draw their own conclusions from this comparison.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
75 SpaceX
34 China
8 Rocket Lab
6 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 75 to 55.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I think you are reading too much into this.
Launchers of any company, nation, or economic system can hiccup at any time.
Jeff Wright,
Most of life is probabilistic to some degree. That said, the old aphorism “practice makes perfect” tells you why the probability of glitches is notably higher some places than others. ULA has managed only embarrassingly small annual launch totals for several years now and have been subject to a lot more glitchery – some of it quite severe – than have the folks who launch a lot.