All the improvements appear designed to allow for quicker reuse of the pad, including protecting it better when both Starship and Superheavy return to be captured by the chopstick towers. For example:

On the tower, work has progressed on the Ship Quick Disconnect (SQD) arm, which connects to the Starship upper stage for propellant loading. This week, technicians added steel reinforcements to the lower side of the arm’s shoulder section. These additions are believed to strengthen the structure while enabling the arm to retract more quickly during launch.

A faster swing-out reduces the risk of damage from the intense exhaust plume of Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines at liftoff. This improvement should minimize post-launch refurbishment and contribute to a higher launch cadence. The core work on the SQD arm itself appears largely complete, and scaffolding may soon be removed as final preparations continue.

Other work includes a new tower roof structure to protect it from the rocket’s engine exhaust, and other work on the pad itself to facilitate faster fueling. These additions have been accompanied by testing to make sure they work.

All this work appears intended to make it possible to launch frequently once the next test launch is completed.

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
4 Russia

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

Instead, it is now pushed back to early to mid-May.

Next flight of Starship and first flight of V3 ship & booster is 4 to 6 weeks away.

In his tweet, “V3” refers to the third version of both Starship and Superheavy, incorporating many upgrades learned from the first eleven test flights. Version three will also be the first to use SpaceX’s Raptor-3 engine, the most powerful rocket engine ever built but with a much simplified design.

It is not clear what has caused this delay. The last test flight was in October 2025, which means there will be eight month gap between test launches, a much longer gap than desired by the company. Part of the delay was because the company was building a whole new launchpad for the rocket. Also, there were two tank failures during static fire tests of Superheavy that needed investigation and as well as pad repairs.

Still, time is marching on. SpaceX needs to launch this rocket, and begin doing it at a much faster pace. It can no longer complain about red tape, as under Trump that issue has been squashed quite effectively.

Amazon yesterday submitted a letter [pdf] to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) responding to SpaceX’s FCC complaint earlier this week that accused it of using Arianespace’s Ariane-6 rocket to place 32 Leo satellites in a 450 kilometer orbit — 50 kilometers more than its license allowed — causing SpaceX to maneuver 30 of its own Starlink satellites to avoid any collisions.

In its response, Amazon claimed the higher orbit was not a violation, that its original license allowed for orbits “at or above 400 kilometers”, and that the problem was really caused by SpaceX’s decision in the past few months to lower the orbits of its Starlink satellites to a 462 to 485 kilometers. It also accused SpaceX of refusing to compromise when Amazon proposed a solution. Instead, SpaceX demanded Amazon stop launching at this orbit height, a change that Amazon claimed would delay the next few Ariane-6 launches by months.

Despite these claims, Amazon then backed off:

Even so, Amazon Leo has made significant operational changes in response to SpaceX’s concerns. Working with Arianespace, Amazon Leo has committed to lowering its target insertion altitude, beginning with its fourth Ariane mission. Similarly, Amazon Leo is working with its other launch providers to determine if they can lower insertion altitudes without impacting Amazon Leo’s schedule.

In other words, Amazon will do as SpaceX requests, but only do so after it completes three more Ariane-6 launches at this higher orbit.

The FCC now has a choice. If it demands Amazon immediately concede SpaceX’s point, this will likely cause a delay in three Ariane-6 launches of approximately 100 Leo satellites. Amazon’s FCC license requires it to launch 1,616 Leo satellites by July 2026, and at present it only has a little more than 200 satellites in orbit. Because Amazon doesn’t expect to meet this goal, it has already asked the FCC for a time extension.

Thus, it appears this dispute with SpaceX might actually benefit Amazon. If the FCC denies Amazon’s request to launch the next three Ariane-6 missions at this higher orbit, it will also be agreeing to a delay in Leo satellite launches. It will thus be forced to grant Amazon’s request for that time extension. And even if it does allow Amazon to launch at the higher orbit, requiring the two companies to work out any orbital conflicts, that permission will confirm the FCC is going to grant Amazon’s time extension request as well.

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
3 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.

SpaceX yesterday filed the first confidential paperwork the the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its initial public offering (IPO) of public stock, now targeting a June-July time frame.

The filing was reported by Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and Reuters, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The SEC said it had no comment on the matter. The filing will lead to a sale of shares by June or July, according to the published reports. Confidential filings are used by companies to share information with the SEC and investors before they have to disclose to the broader public.

How much SpaceX plans to raise through a sale of some of its shares are not yet available due to the confidential nature. But CEO and principal shareholder Elon Musk is expected to control a majority of voting shares once the details are revealed. And it could make Musk, already the world’s richest person, that much richer.

SpaceX was valued at $800 billion and xAI $230 billion at their most recent funding round in January according to PitchBook, a research firm that tracks the valuation of private companies. That puts the combined companies’ worth at more than $1 trillion.

SpaceX also now includes X (formerly Twitter) that Musk bought for $44 billion, so the combined company is actually even larger. We still do not know any details, such as the number of shares to be sold as well as the initial sale price. One rumor has indicated that SpaceX wants to reserve 30% for sale to individuals, a number much higher than usual. Other rumors say that Musk is designing the sale to make sure he remains the majority stock-holder and thus in control of all three companies.

Stock experts have predicted this stock sale could garner SpaceX as much as $75 billion in cash, which would give it the resources to not only build its proposed million-satellite data center constellation in orbit but also develop the Starship/Superheavy infrastructure to build its own data center on the Moon. And along the way SpaceX would have the funds to do its own space program to settle Mars.

If SpaceX does raise that much, it will truly become America’s space program, doing far more that NASA and much faster — financed voluntarily by the American people.

SpaceX yesterday confirmed the incident.

On Sunday, March 29, Starlink satellite 34343 experienced an anomaly on-orbit, resulting in loss of communications with the satellite at ~560 km above Earth. Latest analysis shows the event poses no new risk to the Space_Station, its crew, or to the upcoming launch of NASA’s Artemis II mission. We will continue to monitor the satellite along with any trackable debris and coordinate with NASA and the USSpaceForce.

This is the second time in just over three months that a Starlink satellite has failed suddenly. In mid-December a Starlink satellite began to tumble when fuel began venting from a tank. It burned up in the atmosphere a month later.

Considering that SpaceX has approximately ten thousand Starlinks in orbit, any failures should not be a surprise. You launch that many, some are going to fail. That the company has only had two such failures indicates instead SpaceX’s incredible quality control in manufacturing, as almost every satellite works as expected with no such failure.

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
3 Russia

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

“The aerospace giant has infused $13 billion into into the economy across Brownsville and South Texas. It has created 24,000 direct and indirect jobs across the region, with approximately 4,000 jobs on site today. It is projected that 4,000 more jobs are coming,” Cowen said.

Cowen made his remarks about SpaceX at his 2026 State of the City Address, held March 25 at Texas Southmost College’s Performing Arts Center.

“SpaceX has generated more than $305 million in tax revenue. It has managed business relationships with more than 350 suppliers, putting $147 million into the regional supply chain,” Cowen said.

None of this is a surprise, except to some local and national news outlets that like to act as PR departments for the fringe activist groups — Save RGV, the South Texas Environmental Justice Network and the fake Indian tribe dubbed the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas — that have opposed SpaceX’s Boca Chica operations from day one, and have repeatedly gone to court to try to shut it down. Those news outlets always give these activists a big bullhorn to tout their position, even though they represent practically no one in the region and likely get their funding from leftist sources outside of Texas.

Hat tip to Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.

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
3 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.

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
3 Russia

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

Initially, it was expected that the IPO could raise $50 billion for the company, but the latest report indicates it could raise as much as $75 billion, with a valuation as high as $1.75 trillion. The colossal figures being thrown around on Wednesday have garnered excitement among investors for other space stocks that are already publicly traded.

Here were the top gainers in the session:

• Firefly Aerospace: +19%
• Intuitive Machines: +11%
• AST SpaceMobile: +9%
• EchoStar Corporation: 9%
• Rocket Lab Corporation: +8%

The most recent indications suggest SpaceX will file the offering’s prospectus in the next week or so. If the predictions about it are correct, and SpaceX does raise $75 billion, it would then have on hand more than three times the cash that Congress normally budgets annually to NASA, with an ability to use that money far more effectively.

As I have been saying now for more than a year, the real space program for the United States is being run by SpaceX, not NASA. Expect SpaceX to outpace NASA in their parallel and complementary efforts to build a moonbase.

The “TERAFAB” project is a joint effort involving Tesla, SpaceX and xAI. Musk said the chips will be used in vehicles, Tesla’s humanoid AI robots and for projects in space, including solar-powered AI satellites.

…In a Sunday post on X, Musk clarified that the Austin-area facility is one part of the larger project and will focus on chip design. The main TERAFAB facility, he said, would require thousands of acres, and multiple locations are being considered. Musk said the chip production was necessary to fuel his companies’ growth. On Saturday, he shared an ambitious vision for the future powered by TERAFAB, including billions of robots and interplanetary travel. “We want to be a civilization that expands to the galaxy with spaceships, that anyone can go anywhere they want at any time,” he said. “And have a city on the moon, cities on Mars, populate the solar system and send spaceships to other star systems.”

Essentially, Musk has realized that to build his data centers in orbit and on the Moon, he will a lot of computer chips. Early in the history of SpaceX Musk learned that being dependent on outside contractors was crippling. Too often those contractors saw SpaceX has a competitor and acted to sabotage it. He soon decided his companies must be vertically integrated, doing as much work as possible in-house.

He is now applying that policy in chip production as well.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Original post
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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.

Starship Flight 12 took another step toward launch, with Booster 19 completing an initial test campaign on the newly commissioned Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas. Culminating in a short Static Fire test, the series of tests was a first for Pad 2, the Block 3/V3 Super Heavy Booster, and for the upgraded Raptor 3 outside of single engine testing.

As the inaugural vehicle to undergo operations on this pad, B19’s campaign served as both a booster qualification test and a commissioning milestone for the expanded launch infrastructure, paving the way for a long-awaited static fire test of its Raptor 3 engines.

Lots of details worth reading. Ground testing will now shift to Starship. All in all, it does appear that an early April launch is likely.

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.

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.

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.

During an upcoming meeting, the Starbase City Commission is scheduled to consider an ordinance canceling the May 2, 2026 General Election, as all candidates for mayor and city commissioner are running unopposed.

Under Texas law, local governments may cancel elections when every race on the ballot is uncontested.

That means Starbase’s current leadership will remain in office without voters needing to cast ballots. The city’s inaugural mayor is Robert “Bobby” Peden, a SpaceX executive who serves as Vice President of Texas Test and Launch for the company. Two commissioners serve alongside him: Jordan Buss, a senior director of environmental health and safety at SpaceX, and Lois Wallace, an interim commissioner and Starbase resident.

Expect to see stupid mainstream stories suggesting no one filed because people were afraid to run against these SpaceX managers and thus threaten their job status. “Musk, that evil fascist, clearly threatened to send out hit men against anyone who filed! Opposition to Musk will not be allowed!”

What I think is really happening is twofold. First, no one at SpaceX is really interested in this boring administrative government work. They’d rather build cutting-edge rockets. Note that the two commissioners are not really rocket engineers, with one being the wife of a SpaceX employee and the other doing “environmental health and safety” work, likely related to making sure SpaceX meets government work regulations. The real engineers at SpaceX have better things to do.

Second, there really isn’t that much for these town officials to do anyway. The town was established mostly to ease SpaceX’s own regulatory red tape with the state, and once established the task is largely done. Why waste time running for a position that will only add to your work load, while accomplishing nothing of real substance?

Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, yesterday harshly criticized Amazon for filing papers opposing SpaceX’s application to place a million new satellites into orbit while failing to meet its own FCC license requirement to get 1,600 Amazon Leo satellites in orbit by July 2026.

Amazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit.

To put it mildly, Carr’s point is well taken. In legally protesting SpaceX’s proposed constellation while failing to launch on time as promised, Amazon is following what appears to be standard Jeff Bezos’ practice, epitomized by his rocket company Blue Origin. When customers begin favoring others because the Bezos company either submits a poor bid or fails to meet schedules, the Bezos companies routinely go to court in an attempt to squelch that better competition.

Carr is demanding Amazon stop this, and focus instead on getting its own job done for once. Carr is also signaling the FCC’s position on both SpaceX and Amazon. It is likely going to reject Amazon’s filing and give its okay to SpaceX’s million-satellite constellation, in one form or another.

Carr is also telling Amazon that it faces some push back for failing to launch the required number of Amazon Leo satellites on time. Though it is extremely unlikely the FCC will cancel Amazon’s Leo license, the FCC might fine it heavily. Or it could impose new limits on the constellation. Carr is also indicating the FCC will treat future Amazon license applications much more stringently.

According to this update at nasaspaceflight.com, the Superheavy booster, the 19th prototype and the first version 3 booster, is now on the launchpad for final checks.

On March 8, Booster 19 left Mega Bay 1 and rolled down Highway 4 towards the launch site and Pad 2. This is the start of pad commissioning and booster engine testing for Block 3.

Booster 19 is mounted on Pad 2 to conduct multiple tests over the coming days. This will likely include ambient pressure testing, tanking tests with Liquid Oxygen (LOX) and Liquid Methane (LCH4), spin primes, and eventually a static fire, maybe even a couple of static fires. These tests are not only to help test the booster but also to test all of the pad systems.

While crews have run operations with the Pad 2 tank farm many times, they have never loaded an actual booster with propellant. With a booster finally on the pad, this will help in the final commissioning process.

For these initial pad and booster check-outs, #19 does not have all 33 engines installed. It appears the company wants to test the launchpad fueling system first, with the minimum number of engines needed.

Meanwhile, the Starship prototype that will fly, #39 in the series, is in the assembly building after completing its own series of tanking and launchpad tests.

I want to highlight two numbers — 19 and 39 — in order to illustrate how SpaceX does things versus NASA. Not only has SpaceX already completed eleven test flights of Starship/Superheavy, it has tested or flown 19 and 39 prototypes of each, in one manner or another. The company has a very rich history of hardware and testing as it ramps up towards operational flights. This practically guarantees that those operational flights will not only occur relatively soon, they will be relatively safe and robust.

This was all done in less than a decade, though most of the testing of those prototypes has occurred in the last six years.

NASA meanwhile began work on SLS about fifteen years ago, and has built two rockets total, and so far flown only one. Though the agency did a lot of tests of pieces of the rocket, it flew only one test launch, in 2022. SLS’s design is so cumbersome and expensive, the agency could not afford to fly it multiple times. Thus, much of its testing was done on computer screens, in simulations.

Which rocket would you want to fly on when both are operational?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.