The beat goes on! Even as SpaceX proceeds today with the largest initial public offering of stock ever, raising an expected $75 billion in cash for its long term plans, the global launch industry marched on with two launches today.

First, Japan’s space agency JAXA successfully launched its H3 rocket on a test flight following a launch failure in December 2025. The rocket lifted off from JAXA’s Tanegashima spaceport in southern Japan, using its simplest configuration, with no solid-fueled strap-on boosters. Though the rocket deployed some cubesats, its main payload was a dummy satellite to test the rocket’s deployment system, which caused the 2025 failure by not holding its satellite in place. On today’s launch, the deployment system worked as planned, which means JAXA can now resume operational launches with H3.

This was Japan’s first launch in 2026.

Next, SpaceX placed another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The first stage completed its 27th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic (58 days after its previous flight).

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

70 SpaceX
36 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab (plus three suborbital HASTE launches)

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 70 to 62.