Tag: Falcon 9

SpaceX gets launch contract from Globalstar

8:58 am

As it appears right now to be the only American rocket company capable of taking on new launch contracts, SpaceX today was awarded a new launch contract from Globalstar to launch its third generation set of satellites.

The press release is not clear about the number of satellites or launches involved, but either way the deal signals SpaceX’s continuing dominance. For larger satellites it has no real competitors. Not only are its launch prices the cheapest, none of its competitors are capable of adding new customers to their launch manifests. In fact, those competitors, ULA, Arianespace, and Blue Origin, are having trouble simply getting their rockets off the ground on a regular basis.

This situation however is likely to change by two years, assuming the new rockets being developed by Rocket Lab, Stoke Space, and Relativity finally begin flying.

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SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites

8:40 am

After an unusual pause of launches of several days (likely due to the July 4th weekend), SpaceX last night successfully launched by placing another 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its 22nd flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

85 SpaceX
36 China
10 Rocket Lab
8 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 85 to 63.

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SpaceX yesterday completed two launches

9:10 am

SpaceX yesterday successfully completed two launches from Florida. First, it placed a European Union weather and climate research satellite, Sentinel-4, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center. The first stage completed its ninth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Next, it continued its unrelenting pace of launching Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off with 27 from Cape Canaveral. The first stage completed its 29th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

That flight makes this particular first stage the third most traveled launch vehicle, with only the space shuttles Discover (39 flights) and Atlantis (33 flights) ahead of it.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

84 SpaceX
35 China
10 Rocket Lab
7 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 84 to 61.

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Speculation on future New Glenn launch schedule

9:26 am

According to anonymous sources at Blue Origin, the company has now delayed the second launch of its New Glenn rocket to September, ten months after its first launch in January 2025, and hopes to quickly follow with three more launches by the middle of 2026.

The September launch will launch NASA’s two smallsat Escapade Mars orbiters.

After Escapade, Blue Origin has several missions tentatively plotted out. However, sources cautioned that the manifest could be moved around due to the readiness of subsequent New Glenn vehicles and their payloads. Based upon information received by Ars, the launch manifest could look something like this:

  • New Glenn 2: ESCAPADE (fall 2025)
  • New Glenn 3: Firefly’s Elytra orbital transfer vehicle (end of 2025, early 2026)
  • New Glenn 4: Blue Moon MK1 lander (first half of 2026)
  • New Glenn 5: First batch of 49 Amazon Project Kuiper satellites (mid-2026)

Whether this schedule will occur as speculated is unknown. Blue Origin’s long term track record — slow and timid — suggests it is very unlikely. And even if it does fly as planned, it suggests strongly that Amazon is not going to meet its FCC license requirement to have 1,600 Kuiper satellites in orbit by July 2026. So far Amazon has only placed 54 operational Kuiper satellites into orbit, on two Atlas-5 launches. It has contracts to launch these satellites 46 times on ULA rockets (8 on Atlas-5 and 36 on Vulcan), 27 times on Blue Origin’s New Glenn, 18 times on ArianeGroup’s Ariane-6, and 3 times on SpaceX’s Falcon-9.

Except for the Falcon 9, none of the other rockets have begun flying with any frequency. Vulcan has only launched twice, New Glenn once, and Ariane-6 twice. All three have been extremely slow to ramp up operations, with months passing between each launch. To meet Amazon’s FCC license requirements, they will have to achieve between 35 to 60 launches in the next twelve months, a pace of three to six launches per month. At this point none of these companies appear capable of even coming close to doing this.

Nor does Amazon have the option to switch these launches to the Falcon 9. SpaceX would certainly accept the business, but the manifest for the Falcon 9 is presently very full. It is doubtful it could do more than double or triple its commitment to Amazon.

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More successful launches today

10:44 am

Two more launches occurred this morning, one in Japan and one in the U.S.

First, Japan completed the last launch of its H2A rocket, lifting off from its Tanegashima spaceport in south Japan, placing a Japanese climate satellite into orbit. This was the 50th launch for the H2A, which has now been replaced by the as expensive H3 rocket.

Next, SpaceX continued its unrelenting launch pace, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California carrying 26 more Starlink satellites into orbit. The first stage completed its eighth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean.

As Japan’s launch was only its second in 2025, it does not make the leader board of the 2025 launch race:

82 SpaceX
35 China
10 Rocket Lab
7 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 82 to 61.

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Two American launches this evening

12:19 am

This evening two different American companies completed successful commercial launches, doing so from opposites sides of the globe.

First, SpaceX launched another 27 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral, with the first stage completing its fifth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. This launch was on the evening of June 27th.

Then, a few hours later Rocket Lab completed the first of two quickly scheduled launches for an unnamed commercial customer, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of its two launchpads in New Zealand. This launch, on June 28th in New Zealand, was the company’s second launch in less than two days, its fastest turn around yet. As of posting the payload was not yet deployed.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

81 SpaceX
35 China
10 Rocket Lab
7 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 81 to 60.

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Axiom’s manned mission docks with ISS

8:56 am

SpaceX’s newest manned Dragon capsule, dubbed Grace, this morning successfully brought Axiom’s fourth commercial passenger mission to ISS, docking with the space station after launching yesterday on a Falcon 9 rocket.

The spacecraft docked at 6:31 a.m. to the space-facing port of the space station’s Harmony module. Former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland, and Tibor Kapu of Hungary now are aboard the space station after launching at 2:31 a.m. on June 25, on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the fourth private astronaut mission to the orbiting laboratory, Axiom Mission 4.

The plan is for them to stay on ISS for two weeks.

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SpaceX launches Axiom’s fourth commercial manned mission to ISS

8:45 am

SpaceX last night successfully launched Axiom’s fourth commercial manned mission to ISS, dubbed Ax-4, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The first stage completed its second flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral. The Dragon capsule, the newest and fifth ship in SpaceX’s fleet of manned capsule, was dubbed “Grace,” as announced by Axiom mission commander and former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson. The three paying passengers are government astronauts from India, Hungary, and Poland.

The capsule will dock with ISS tomorrow (Thursday) at 7 am (Eastern), where it and its crew will spend about one to two weeks before returning to Earth.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

79 SpaceX
35 China
8 Rocket Lab
7 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 79 to 58.

The overall lack of excitement about this manned space mission speaks directly to how successful SpaceX has become as a private commercial rocket company. Its rockets and capsules work routinely well, with almost no problems, making these manned space missions seem as boring as an airline trip from New York to Washington.

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NASA sets another new date for Axiom’s Ax-4 commercial manned mission to ISS

9:21 am

NASA today announced a new launch date of June 25, 2025 for Axiom’s Ax-4 commercial manned mission to ISS carrying a three passengers from India, Poland, and Hungary respectively and commanded by former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson (now working for Axiom).

As with previous announcements, the information provided was sparse:

NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX are targeting 2:31 a.m. EDT, Wednesday, June 25, for launch of the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, Axiom Mission 4.

The mission will lift off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew will travel to the orbiting laboratory on a new SpaceX Dragon spacecraft after launching on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket. The targeted docking time is approximately 7 a.m. Thursday, June 26. NASA will provide more details and its coverage information shortly.

The launch had previously been delayed several times because NASA and Russia wanted to first assess the repair work on the leaks in the Russian Zvezda module before allowing another docking at the station. No information however has been released so far detailing that assessment. Though there have been indications that the loss of air in ISS was stopped by the repair, neither NASA nor Roscosmos have provided any specific data.

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2nd test flight of French cargo capsule prototype “partial success”

9:13 am

According to an update today from the French cargo capsule startup The Exploration Company, its Mission Possible capsule prototype launched yesterday on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 had a “partial success (partial failure)” during its return to Earth.

The capsule was launched successfully, powered the payloads nominally in-orbit, stabilized itself after separation with the launcher, re-entered and re-established communication after black out. But it encountered an issue afterwards, based on our current best knowledge, and we lost communication a few minutes before splash down. We are still investigating the root causes and will share more information soon.

This was the second prototype test flown by the company, the first launched on the inaugural flight of the Ariane-6 rocket. That test was unable to complete its mission because of a problem with the rocket’s upper stage, which prevented it from completing its de-orbit burn, which would have then permitted the prototype to be released and return to Earth for flight testing. Instead, no test was done.

The company had initially only planned two test flights of these smaller prototypes before moving on to test flights of its full scale Nyx cargo capsule, designed to garner commercial cargo business to and from the space stations presently under development. The update today suggests it might now do another test flight with a smaller prototype.

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SpaceX completes another smallsat Transporter launch, launching 70 payloads

3:23 pm

SpaceX today successfully placed 70 payloads, including 66 separate deployments, into orbit as part of its Transporter program for smallsats, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its 26th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean. It also completed this flight only 22 days after its last flight. As of posting the deployment of these payloads and satellites was on going.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

78 SpaceX
35 China
8 Rocket Lab
7 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 78 to 58.

9 comments

NASA/Axiom announce another four-day launch delay for Axiom’s fourth manned mission

8:55 am

NASA and Axiom today announced that they have rescheduled the launch of Axiom’s fourth manned mission to ISS, dubbed Ax-4, to June 22, 2025 in order to give Russian and American engineers more time to assess the leak repairs in the station’s Russian Zvezda module.

The press announcement provided little information, simply stating that:

The change in a targeted launch date provides NASA time to continue evaluating space station operations after recent repair work in the aft (back) most segment of the International Space Station’s Zvezda service module.

It would be nice if the agency would release some actual data. Earlier reports had suggested that the repairs had completely sealed the leaks and that the station was no longer losing air. The vagueness of today’s report suggests that the repairs might not have been as successful as hoped. It could also be engineers simply want more data for a longer period to prove the repairs have worked.

The lack of detailed information causes unnecessary speculation.

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SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites

8:47 am

The beat goes on! SpaceX successfully launched another 28 Starlink satellites early this morning, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

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

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

76 SpaceX
34 China
8 Rocket Lab
6 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 76 to 55.

0 comments

SpaceX launches 26 more Starlink satellites

8:44 am

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.

2 comments

SpaceX launches 23 more Starlink satellites

9:16 am

SpaceX this morning successfully placed 23 Starlink satellites into orbit (including 13 with phone-to-satellite capabilities), its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its 21st flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlanta.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

74 SpaceX
33 China
8 Rocket Lab
6 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 74 to 54.

0 comments

Axiom’s fourth commercial manned mission scrubbed due to leak

8:04 pm

Axiom and SpaceX have scrubbed the launch tomorrow of Axiom’s fourth commercial manned mission to ISS due to an oxygen leak detected during the standard prelaunch static fire test.

NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX are standing down from the launch opportunity on Wednesday, June 11, of Axiom Mission 4 to the International Space Station to allow additional time for SpaceX teams to repair a liquid oxygen leak identified during post-static fire Falcon 9 rocket inspections. A new launch date for the fourth private astronaut mission will be provided once repair work is complete, pending range availability.

There a number of launches already scheduled for Florida in the next few days, so it could be that the launch of Ax-4 could be delayed by more than a few days.

3 comments

SpaceX launches 23 more Starlink satellites

8:54 am

SpaceX this morning successfully launched another 23 Starlink satellites (including 13 with phone-to-satellite capabilities), its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

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

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

72 SpaceX
33 China
7 Rocket Lab
6 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 72 to 53.

SpaceX’s launch of Axiom’s AX-4 manned commercial mission to ISS, carrying government astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary, has been delayed one more day to 8 am (Eastern) tomorrow due to weather issues.

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