Tag: Falcon 9

Two overnight launches from SpaceX and China

9:15 am

Both SpaceX and China successfully completed launches since yesterday. First, SpaceX launched a new group of satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. For security reasons, the number of satellites launched was not revealed.

The first stage completed its 9th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

Next China launched another set of Qianfan (SpaceSail) internet satellites into orbit, its Long March 6A rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China. Though China’s stage run press did not reveal the number of satellites launched, past Long March 6A launches of this constellation have placed 18 satellites into orbit. If so, there are now 155 Quinfan satellites in space, out of a planned constellation of as many as 10,000. The first phase of the constellation however only requires 648, which China hopes to reach before the end of the year.

The state-run press also did not reveal where the rocket’s lower stages (using very toxic hypergolic fuels) crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

56 SpaceX
25 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 56 to 46.

SpaceX hopes to complete another launch later today, carrying a Dragon cargo capsule to ISS (on its sixth flight), but weather might force a scrub. UPDATE: Scrubbed due to weather, rescheduled for May 13, 2026.

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SpaceX launches 24 more Starlink satellites

10:15 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 24 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 24th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

55 SpaceX
23 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 55 to 44.

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SpaceX launches South Korean Earth imaging satellite plus 44 other smallsats

12:06 am

SpaceX at about midnight tonight successfully launched a South Korean Earth imaging satellite as well as 44 other smallsats, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. As of posting the satellites had not yet been deployed.

The first stage (B1071) completed its 33rd flight, landing back at Vandenberg, 50 days after its previous flight. With this flight, the booster moves into a third place tie with the Atlantis shuttle shuttle in the rankings of the most reused launch vehicles:

39 Discovery space shuttle
34 Falcon 9 booster B1067
33 Atlantis space shuttle
33 Falcon 9 booster B1071
32 Falcon 9 booster B1063
31 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle
27 Falcon 9 booster B1077
27 Falcon 9 booster B1078

Sources here and here.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

54 SpaceX
23 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 54 to 44.

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SpaceX launches 29 more Starlink satellites

11:47 am

SpaceX today successfully placed another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The first stage (B1069) completed its 31st flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic, 63 days after its previous flight. It remains in 6th place in the rankings of the most reused launch vehicles:

39 Discovery space shuttle
34 Falcon 9 booster B1067
33 Atlantis space shuttle
32 Falcon 9 booster B1071
32 Falcon 9 booster B1063
31 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle
27 Falcon 9 booster B1077
27 Falcon 9 booster B1078

Sources here and here.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

53 SpaceX
23 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, 53 to 44.

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Falcon 9 upper stage to hit the Moon in August

9:28 am

Falcon 9 impact on Moon in August
Click for original image.

According to astronomer Bill Gray, who also tracks orbital objects, the upper stage of the Falcon 9 that launched Firefly’s Blue Ghost and Ispace’s Hakuto-R2 lunar landers in January 2025 will hit the Moon on August 5, 2026.

For some time, I’ve provided some software tools astronomers can use to identify satellites in their data. I use the US military’s publicly available satellite data for many objects, and compute orbits for high-orbiting objects the military doesn’t track.

This object falls squarely in the latter category. In September 2025, my software for computing orbits analyzed the observations and projected an impact with the moon on 2026 August 5.

While this looked like a pretty solid prediction, I couldn’t be totally sure of it at the time. The motion of space junk is mostly quite predictable; it simply moves under the influence of the gravity of the earth, moon, sun, and planets. We know those with immense precision. If those were the only factors involved, I could probably tell you where and when this object would hit the moon to within a few meters and a fraction of a second.

The problem is that space junk in general, and 2025-010D in particular [the upper stage], is also pushed around by sunlight (“solar radiation pressure”). This is an extremely gentle force, but over months, it can really build up. And it’s not entirely predictable. As an object tumbles, it may catch more or less sunlight, and may reflect some of it sideways. So sunlight is mostly pushing the object away from the sun, but there’s a slight bit of pushing in other directions as well.

With enough data, we can actually figure out where the forces are pushing an object. But they do change a little over time in ways that aren’t perfectly predictable. So I can be sure it will impact near the time and place I’ve predicted, but those varying forces mean that the actual impact will be at least a little off from that time and place. That’s the largest source of uncertainty in all this, and there’s no way to correct for it; we just have to wait and see what actually happens. (But come August, we’ll have a quite precise idea of where it will hit.

At present, Gray predicts the impact will occur at 2:44 am (Eastern) on August 5, 2026. The image above is his present estimate of where it will hit, as seen from Earth. If this prediction holds, the impact itself will likely not be visible from Earth, as it will occur in daylight and at the very western limb of the Moon. This prediction however could change somewhat in the next few months.

When it hits Gray estimates the stage will be moving at about 5,400 miles per hour, or 1.51 miles per second. Expect the science team for Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to try to image this impact after the fact.

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Two launches yesterday

8:39 am

Both SpaceX and Arianespace successfully completed orbital launches yesterday. First, SpaceX placed another 24 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage completed its 13th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

Next, Arianespace placed 32 more Amazon Leo satellites in orbit, its Ariane-6 rocket lifting off from France’s French Guiana spaceport in South America. The expendable Ariane-6 launched for the second time in its most powerful configuration, with four side boosters. This was also Arianespace’s second launch this year, so it remains off the leader board below. It is also the second launch in Arianespace’s 18-launch contract with Amazon to launch Leo satellites. The satellites were placed at an orbit of 465 kilometers, which SpaceX has claimed violates its Starlink orbital territory. Amazon has agreed what it is doing is a violation, but says it will continue to do so for this and two more launches.

With this launch, Amazon now has 302 Leo satellites in orbit, out of the 1,616 it needs to launch by July to meet its FCC license requirement. The company’s request for a time extension is presently pending at the FCC.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

52 SpaceX
23 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, 52 to 44.

Russia was also supposed to do a test suborbital launch of its new Soyuz-5 rocket. As of posting I have not been able to confirm whether the launch took place.

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SpaceX launches 25 more Starlink satellites

10:08 am

SpaceX this morning successfully placed another 25 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 15th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

50 SpaceX
23 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, 50 to 42.

4 comments

SpaceX launches 24 more Starlink satellites

10:13 pm

SpaceX this evening followed up Rocket Lab with its own launch of 24 more Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its fifth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

49 SpaceX
21 China
6 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, 49 to 38.

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Two launches by SpaceX

12:02 am

In the past two days SpaceX completed two more launches. The first, yesterday morning, placed 25 more Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage completed its 8th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

Then tonight SpaceX launched a GPS satellite for the Space Force, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The first stage completed its 7th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. That drone ship, “Just read the instructions,” is now being shifted to support Starship operations, and will no longer be used for Falcon 9, after supporting 155 first stage landings. What it will do in connection with Starship has not been made clear. The two fairing halves completed their 2nd and 3rd flights respectively.

The Space Force had originally intended to launch this satellite on a ULA Vulcan rocket, but a month ago it shifted the contract to SpaceX because of the nozzle problem that has plagued two different ULA Vulcan launches. Because of this shift, the time from contract award to launch was the quickest by SpaceX for the Space Force.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

48 SpaceX
21 China
6 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, 48 to 37.

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Three launches today, two by SpaceX and one by China

9:37 pm

The launch beat goes on! First, China launched eight satellites using its Kinetic-1 (Lijian-1) rocket, lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. China’s state-run press provide no further information about the satellites, nor did it provide information about where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China.

Next, SpaceX completed two Starlink launches on opposite coasts. First it placed 29 Starlink satellites in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The first stage completed its 26th flight, 42 days after its previous flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The company then did its second launch of the day, placing 25 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage completed its 21st flight, 45 days after its previous flight and landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

46 SpaceX
20 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, 46 to 35.

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Three launches, two by SpaceX and one by China

10:10 am

Falcon 9 landing for its seventh time
Falcon 9 landing for its seventh time on today’s
third launch. See below.

Since last night there were three launches globally, two by SpaceX, and one by China.

First, in the wee hours of the morning SpaceX placed 25 more Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage (B1063) completed its 32nd flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. With this flight, 43 days after the stage’s previous flight, it moved into a tie for fourth place in the rankings of the most reused launch vehicle:

39 Discovery space shuttle
34 Falcon 9 booster B1067
33 Atlantis space shuttle
32 Falcon 9 booster B1071
32 Falcon 9 booster B1063
30 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle
27 Falcon 9 booster B1077
27 Falcon 9 booster B1078

Sources here and here.

Next China launched a classified satellite to test “internet technology”, its Smart Dragon-3 (Jielong-3) rocket lifting off from a sea platform in international waters in the South China Sea. Though China has launched numerous times from this sea platform, previous launches were very close to the shore. This was the first time the platform was moved this far into the ocean.

Finally, SpaceX completed its second launch in less than eight hours, sending Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus capsule on its way to ISS with 11,000 pounds of cargo, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The first stage completed its seventh flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral. Of the two fairings, one was making its first flight, while the other was on its fifth flight.

This was SpaceX’s fourth Cygnus launch for Northrop Grumman. The company originally launched Cygnus on its own Antares rocket, but when that rocket ran out of its Russian first stage engines it was grounded. The company hired Firefly to build a new first stage, but that project remains uncompleted.

Cygnus is scheduled to berth with ISS in two days, on Monday, April 13, at 12:50 pm (Eastern).

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

44 SpaceX
19 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, 44 to 34.

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SpaceX launches 25 Starlink satellites using new first stage

7:58 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully placed another 25 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

This was the first flight for the first stage, which landed safely on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race.

42 SpaceX
16 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

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SpaceX launches 29 more Starlink satellites

11:01 pm

The beat goes on: Even as everyone (including myself) was focused on NASA’s Artemis-2 lunar mission, SpaceX remained centered on its own space effort. This evening it placed another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The first stage completed its 15th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic only 23 days after its previous flight.

Below is the leader board for the 2026 launch race, which I had forgotten to include in the previous two launches by SpaceX and NASA. Those posts have now been updated to include it.

41 SpaceX
16 China
5 Rocket Lab
4 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

Chinese pseudo-company Space Pioneer was also scheduled today to do the first demo launch of its Tianlong-3 orbital rocket, which appears in many ways to be a Falcon 9 copy. At this moment there are no reports out of China of what happened, though Jonathan McDowell reports on X of speculation that it was a failure. We will know more in a day or so.

Space Pioneer is the pseudo-company that in 2024 had this rocket’s first stage do an unplanned launch during a static fire engine test. That incident delayed this launch attempt by at least one year.

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SpaceX launches first stage for record 34th time, passing shuttle Atlantis

2:25 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The first stage (B1067) completed its 34th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic, only 32 days after its previous launch. With this flight, this stage passed the space shuttle Atlantis to hold second place in the rankings of the most reused launch vehicle.

39 Discovery space shuttle
34 Falcon 9 booster B1067
33 Atlantis space shuttle
32 Falcon 9 booster B1071
31 Falcon 9 booster B1063
30 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle
27 Falcon 9 booster B1077
27 Falcon 9 booster B1078

Sources here and here.

SpaceX continues to recycle its first stages in a month or less, so expect this booster to pass Discovery before the end of the year. We should also expect all the boosters in the list above to do the same by the end of next year, though it is possible some will be retired as SpaceX begins to transition from its Falcon 9 high launch rate to using Starship/Superheavy instead.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

40 SpaceX
16 China
5 Rocket Lab
4 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

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Two launches from China and SpaceX early today

9:42 am

Early this morning both SpaceX and China successfully launched rockets. First, SpaceX completed its sixteenth Transporter mission placing 119 payloads in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 12th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. A detailed description of the 119 payloads can be found here.

Next, China successfully completed the maiden launch of its Kinetica-2 rocket, lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China and placing three demonstration satellites into orbit. The rocket is built by the pseudo-company CAS Space, which is entirely owned by one of China’s government space agencies.

According to the developers, the rocket stands 53 meters tall, with a core stage diameter of 3.35 meters and a fairing 4.2 meters wide. At liftoff, it weighs 625 tons and produces 753 tons of thrust. It can deliver up to 12 tons to a 200 kilometers low Earth orbit or 8 tons to a 500 kilometers sun-synchronous orbit.

On this launch, the liquid-fueled core stage and two side boosters were expendable, and crashed somewhere in China. China will use this rocket to partly replace its older expendable Long March 2 and Long March 3 rockets that use very toxic hypergolic fuels, thus reducing the risk to its citizens somewhat from crashing lower stages. Eventually the plan is to make the core stage and boosters reusable, so that they no longer crash uncontrolled inside China.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

39 SpaceX
16 China
5 Rocket Lab
4 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

SpaceX has another Starlink launch scheduled for later today, using a first stage on a record 34th flight.

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SpaceX launches another 25 Starlink satellites

10:02 pm

SpaceX this afternoon successfully placed another 25 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 23rd flight 39 days after its previous flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

38 SpaceX
14 China
4 Rocket Lab
4 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

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Three launches today from three continents and three nations

2:59 pm

The global launch pace continues, with three launches today. First, Russia launched a new Progress cargo capsule to ISS, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its repaired launchpad at Baikonur. That launchpad had experienced serious damage to an access platform during the previous launch in November 2025, and since it was the only pad that Roscosmos could launch payloads and crews to ISS, Russia committed heavy resources to get it fixed quickly.

Once Progress reached orbit, however, one of the antennas used by its Kurs automatic docking system failed to deploy. If engineers can’t get it opened by the time of docking, scheduled for March 24, 2026, the Russian astronauts on ISS will use the back-up TORU system, whereby they control the spacecraft manually from inside ISS.

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 (B1078) completed its 27th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic, only 20 days after its previous flight. This flight also moved the booster up to just behind the space shuttle Columbia in the rankings of the most reused launch vehicles, tying it with SpaceX booster B1077:

39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
33 Falcon 9 booster B1067
32 Falcon 9 booster B1071
31 Falcon 9 booster B1063
30 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle
27 Falcon 9 booster B1077
27 Falcon 9 booster B1078

Sources here and here.

At the pace SpaceX is reusing its fleet of Falcon 9 boosters, expect Columbia to drop off this list in about two months.

Finally, China launched 10 smallsats, according to China’s state-run press, for a planned 160-satellite GPS-type constellation, its Smart Dragon-3 rocket (also called Jielong-3) lifting off from an ocean platform off the northeast coast of China. Video here of launch.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

37 SpaceX
13 China
4 Rocket Lab
3 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

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Two launches today by Rocket Lab and SpaceX

1:12 am

The launch pace continued today with two American commercial launches.

First Rocket Lab placed a Synspective radar satellite into orbit, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of its two launchpads in New Zealand. This was the company’s eighth launch for Synspective, out of a 27-launch contract.

Next, SpaceX placed 25 more Starlink satellites in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage completed its fourth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

36 SpaceX
12 China
4 Rocket Lab
2 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

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Space Force shifts another ULA Vulcan launch to SpaceX

3:19 pm

Unexpected debris falling from rocket at about T-1:00
Nozzle failure during February 12, 2026 Vulcan launch

As expected, the Space Force has taken its next GPS satellite launch from ULA’s Vulcan rocket and given it to SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

The reason for the change is the repeated problems with the solid-fueled side boosters used on Vulcan and built by Northrop Grumman. The nozzles on two different launches failed. Though the rocket’s core stage in both cases was able compensate and get the payload into the proper orbit, the Space Force decided in late February to suspend further launches on Vulcan until ULA gets the problem fixed and proves it by launching other commercial payloads.

The Space Force however is not yet reducing the number of launches it has purchased from ULA, merely delaying them.

If all goes to plan, the satellite — the 10th and final one in the GPS III line — will lift off no earlier than late April from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida [on a Falcon 9].

Vulcan Centaur, in return, will launch USSF-70, a national security mission that had been manifested on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. USSF-70 will fly no earlier than summer 2028, according to Space Force officials.

Nonetheless, the situation is not good for ULA. This is the third such ULA launch the Space Force has shifted to SpaceX. At some point, if ULA doesn’t get the problem fixed the military it will be forced to reduce its reliance on Vulcan.

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ESA to rent SpaceX Dragon capsule to do a European manned mission to ISS

9:15 am

ESA logo

Capitalism in space: At a European Space Agency (ESA) this week in Switzerland, agency officials announced that it is purchasing use of a Dragon capsule from SpaceX in order to do an extended manned mission to ISS in 2028.

Member states endorsed the concept of EPIC — short for ESA Provided Institutional Crew — a proposed mission intended to provide a medium-duration stay for ESA astronauts aboard the ISS.

The plan foresees acquiring a Crew Dragon mission in the first quarter of 2028 in collaboration with “interested international partners.” Crew Dragon is the crew spacecraft built by US company SpaceX.

According to those officials, this mission will be for at least one month, and include astronauts from ESA and some as yet undetermined international partner astronauts.

This contract illustrates the fundamental shift in power and control in manned space in the past decade. Until 2011, all manned missions were flown on government-built rockets and spacecraft. The agencies controlled everything, and actually acted to stymie competition from the private sector.

Now, those agencies are dependent on that private sector for their manned missions. They are instead merely customers, buying services from competing commercial companies that own the rockets and spacecraft, and rent them out for profit. That SpaceX at present is the only one capable of doing these manned missions for hire makes no different. Soon others will enter the fray.

Moreover, this capitalism model actually gives these agencies more flexibility. Beforehand, ESA had to go through NASA to do such a manned mission, and that would involve a lot of negotiations. Now it simply buys the mission from SpaceX, and flies it when ready.

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SpaceX completes a Starlink launch

2:14 pm

UPDATE: It appears The Russian launch described below did not occur as indicated by the story I linked to. There is no confirmation anywhere on the web that the launch occurred. If it had, the nature of the payload would have guaranteed some story in Russia’s state-run press. See also this X post, which suggests the lack of information about the scrub is related to Russian concerns about Ukrainian drone attacks.

Original post
———————-
There were two launches today, both of which sent up a cluster of satellites for broadband internet constellations.

First, Russia launched the first 16 satellites in its proposed 700+ satellite Russvet internet constellation, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northeast Russia. The satellites are built by the Russian company Bureau-1440, which hopes to have the entire constellation in orbit by 2035. Considering that this constellation is designed to compete with Starlink, its pace of launch is ridiculously low. SpaceX can generally launch 700 Starlink satellites in about a month, not ten years. By the time Russia gets this constellation in orbit it will be woefully obsolete.

SpaceX meanwhile proved this point today by continuing its brisk pace in Starlink launches. It successfully placed 29 more Starlink satellites in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The first stage (B1077) completed its 27th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic, only 26 days after its previous flight. This flight also moved the booster up to just behind the space shuttle Columbia in the rankings of the most reused launch vehicles:

39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
33 Falcon 9 booster B1067
32 Falcon 9 booster B1071
31 Falcon 9 booster B1063
30 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle
27 Falcon 9 booster B1077

Sources here and here.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

35 SpaceX
12 China
3 Rocket Lab
2 Russia (corrected)

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

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SpaceX completes two launches since yesterday

8:56 am

Since last night SpaceX successfully completed two Starlink launches.

First, in the evening it placed 25 more Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage completed its 14th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

Then, in the early morning hours it launched another 29 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The first stage completed its 11th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Increasingly it appears SpaceX is improving the turn-around reuse time for its first stages. The two first stages on these flights had turn-arounds of 32 and 27 days respectively, which appears to be the average in recent launches. With a fleet of about two dozen stages, this pace allows the company to easily do multiple launches per week.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

34 SpaceX
12 China
3 Rocket Lab
2 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

2 comments

SpaceX launches 29 more Starlink satellites

8:33 am

SpaceX this morning successfully placed another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its 6th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

32 SpaceX
10 China
3 Rocket Lab
2 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

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SpaceX launches 25 Starlink satellites; reuses 1st stage for 32nd time

10:57 pm

SpaceX earlier today successfully launched another 25 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage (B1071) completed its 32nd flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific, moving into fourth place in the rankings of the most reused launch vehicles:

39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
33 Falcon 9 booster B1067
32 Falcon 9 booster B1071
31 Falcon 9 booster B1063
30 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle

Sources here and here.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

31 SpaceX
10 China
3 Rocket Lab
2 Russia

SpaceX continues to lead the entire world combined in total launches, as it did in both ’24 and ’25.

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SpaceX launches EchoStar communications satellite

8:37 am

SpaceX early this morning successfully launched an EchoStar communications satellite, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its 14th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The rocket’s two fairings completed their 8th and 27th flights respectively.

The 2026 launch race:

30 SpaceX
8 China
3 Rocket Lab
2 Russia
1 ULA
1 Europe (Arianespace)

Not only is SpaceX this year leading the entire world combined in total launches — as it did in both ’24 and ’25 — at the moment its pace is twice that as the rest of the globe.

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SpaceX launches 25 more Starlink satellites

10:02 am

SpaceX early today successfully placed another 25 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 7th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The 2026 launch race:

29 SpaceX
8 China
3 Rocket Lab
2 Russia
1 ULA
1 Europe (Arianespace)

Not only is SpaceX this year leading the entire world combined in total launches — as it did in both ’24 and ’25 — at the moment its pace is about twice that as the rest of the globe.

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SpaceX launches 29 more Starlink satellites

8:32 am

SpaceX early this morning successfully placed another 29 Starlink satellites in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The first stage completed its 25th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The 2026 launch race:

28 SpaceX
8 China
2 Rocket Lab
2 Russia
1 ULA
1 Europe (Arianespace)

Not only is SpaceX this year leading the entire world combined in total launches — as it did in both ’24 and ’25 — at the moment it has launched twice as much as the rest of the globe.

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SpaceX completes its second Starlink launch today; Firefly scrubs launch

8:05 pm

SpaceX successfully placed another 29 Starlink satellites in orbit this evening during its second launch today, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The first stage completed its 26th launch, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Firefly meanwhile scrubbed its launch of its Alpha rocket due to high winds. No new launch date as yet been scheduled. This would be Firefly’s first launch since it had a launch failure in April 2025, followed by a static fire test explosion in September 2025. According to the company, this Alpha launch will be the last of this version before it begins flying an upgraded rocket.

The 2026 launch race:

27 SpaceX
8 China
2 Rocket Lab
2 Russia
1 ULA
1 Europe (Arianespace)

As it did in both ’24 and ’25, SpaceX in ’26 so far has more launches than the entire rest of the world combined.

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SpaceX launches 25 more Starlink satellites

8:37 am

SpaceX early this morning successfully placed another 25 Starlink satellites in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 20th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The 2026 launch race:

26 SpaceX
8 China
2 Rocket Lab
2 Russia
1 ULA
1 Europe (Arianespace)

As it did in both ’24 and ’25, SpaceX in ’26 so far has more launches than the entire rest of the world combined.

Both SpaceX and Firefly have launches scheduled for later today. The Japanese rocket startup Space One has now rescheduled the third launch attempt of its Kairos rocket for March 3, 2026.

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SpaceX launches 29 Starlink satellites; another booster reaches thirty flights

9:01 am

SpaceX early this morning successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The first stage (B1069) completed its 30th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. With this flight, B1069 becomes the fourth SpaceX first stage to fly thirty times:

39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
33 Falcon 9 booster B1067
31 Falcon 9 booster B1071
31 Falcon 9 booster B1063
30 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle

Sources here and here.

The 2026 launch race:

25 SpaceX
8 China
2 Rocket Lab
2 Russia
1 ULA
1 Europe (Arianespace)

As it did in both ’24 and ’25, SpaceX in ’26 so far has more launches than the entire rest of the world combined.

Rocket Lab’s suborbital launch from two days ago had been scrubbed due to weather, and is now scheduled for later today, lifting off from Wallops Island in Virginia and carrying an Australian hypersonic test vehicle. This won’t count in the totals above, but I will report the results after launch.

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