The beat goes on! SpaceX this morning successfully launched 28 more Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The first stage completed its 23rd flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
110 SpaceX
48 China
12 Rocket Lab
11 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 110 to 84.
SpaceX this evening successfully launched another 24 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The first stage completed its fifteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
109 SpaceX
48 China
12 Rocket Lab
11 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 109 to 84.
SpaceX earlier today launched another 28 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The first stage completed its 30th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. This is a new reuse record for a Falcon 9 first stage. At this moment only the space shuttles Discovery (39 flights) and Atlantis (33 flights) have flown more often.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
108 SpaceX
48 China
12 Rocket Lab
11 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 108 to 84.
SpaceX today successfully launched another 24 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its seventeenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
103 SpaceX
47 China
11 Rocket Lab
11 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 103 to 82.
SpaceX today successfully placed another 24 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vanenberg in California.
The first stage completed its ninth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
101 SpaceX
46 China
11 Rocket Lab
9 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 101 to 79.
Having successfully completed two Starlink launches last night, putting a total of 52 satellites into orbit, SpaceX has now accomplished 100 successful orbital launches in 2025.
First, in the early evening last night the company launched 24 satellites from Vandenberg in California, its Falcon 9 rocket first stage completing its fifth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
Seven hours later it placed another 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage on this flight completed its tenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
100 SpaceX
44 China
11 Rocket Lab
9 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 100 to 77.
SpaceX’s launch rate has become so routine that it is important to note the truly amazing nature of its achievement. Until 2018, the entire world had trouble completing 100 launches in a year. In fact, prior to SpaceX’s arrival it only happened because the Soviet Union in the ’70s and ’80s launched many short term small reconnaissance satellites that only stayed in orbit for a few months. When the Soviet Union fell the launch rate fell below 100 and did not recover until SpaceX began increasing its launch rate.
In other words, this one American private company has fueled a renaissance in space exploration. And it has done so by being efficient, innovative, and most important of all, profitable. And it all happened under the banner of freedom.
Access to SpaceX’s Starlink internet constellation to customers worldwide continues to expand.
First. Kazakhstan announced that Starlink is now available in that country, beginning today.
Next, the Ukraine government announced it is beginning beta testing of SpaceX’s direct-to-phone Starlink capability, with the product to launch to its citizens later this year.
With Starlink’s Direct to Cell system, Ukrainians will be able to send SMS messages in remote or hard-to-reach areas—such as in the mountains, during severe weather, or blackouts—without the need for expensive satellite equipment. The only requirements: a standard 4G smartphone with a SIM or eSIM card, and a clear view of the sky.
These actions by both Kazakhstan and the Ukraine underlines the negative consequences of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. Its former Soviet provinces, now independent, have become much more willing to forge alliances and deals with western nations and companies, in order to better protect themselves from possible attack.
In Lebanon however things have not gone so well. SpaceX’s request to offer Starlink has met with opposition in that nation’s parliament.
Lebanon’s parliamentary Media and Communications Committee raised serious legal and procedural concerns over a proposed license for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service. Committee chair MP Ibrahim Mousawi and rapporteur MP Yassine Yassine said discussions with the telecom minister and officials from regulatory and oversight bodies revealed “major constitutional and legal violations.” These include bypassing Parliament’s authority to grant natural resource concessions, ignoring public procurement laws, sidelining the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, and failing to ensure data sovereignty.
The committee recommended against Starlink, demanding a new and expanded review of the proposal. I suspect these ministers are either upset because they didn’t get their own kickbacks in the deal, or are worried that giving Lebanese citizens Starlink — thus bypassing all government censorship — might threaten their hold on power.
After a year of regulatory paperwork, the Israel government has finally allowed SpaceX to offer Starlink to customers in Israel proper, but not in the West Bank or Gaza.
The company received an operating license from the Communications Ministry last year, following lengthy negotiations and regulatory procedures, but its launch was delayed until now. The restriction on coverage in the West Bank and Gaza is likely due to security concerns over potential use by hostile actors.
Expect the usual leftist anti-Semites to accuse Israel of bigotry for excluding access to Palestinians, but until those Palestinians show some willingness to live with Israel in peace (something they so far show no signs in doing, especially in Gaza), this policy makes perfect sense.
Only a few hours after it scrubbed the launch of its Endeavour capsule carrying four astronauts to ISS because of weather at Kennedy in Florida, SpaceX proceeded to successfully launch 19 more Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The relatively low number of Starlink satellites on this launch appears related to the higher orbit in which they were placed. The first stage completed its 27th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. SpaceX now has four boosters that have flown more than 25 times, respectively 29, 27, 26, and 26.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
95 SpaceX
41 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 95 to 71. Meanwhile, the manned Endeavour launch has now been rescheduled for tomorrow morning.
Cutting off your nose to spite your face: The Ontario government yesterday canceled a $100 million Starlink contract it had with SpaceX to provide internet service to remote areas, doing so in retaliation to Trump’s tariffs.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford threatened to cancel the contract in February if U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods were imposed. He killed the deal in March when U.S. President Donald Trump moved ahead with tariffs. “It’s done, it’s gone,” Ford said at the time. “We won’t award contracts to people who enable and encourage economic attacks on our province … and our country.”
…Ford’s cancellation of the deal came as part of a suite of measures in retaliation to Trump’s tariffs. He pulled American booze off the shelves of LCBO stores in March and has said the U.S. booze ban will be kept in place until Trump removes his tariffs on Canada. Ford also banned American companies from bidding on $30 billion worth of procurement contracts the province awards each year. He also banned U.S. companies from bidding on contracts related to his $200-billion infrastructure plan to build highways, tunnels, transit, hospitals, and jails.
It appears the province had to pay SpaceX a penalty for canceling the contract, but the amount has not been revealed. The cancellation also leaves those rural areas stranded, as the government presently has no alternative service to offer.
SpaceX this evening successfully placed 28 more Starlink satellites in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The first stage completed its 26th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
94 SpaceX
39 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 94 to 68.
There were two more launches last night and today. First, SpaceX put another 24 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage completed its 19th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
Next, China today successfully launched another five satellites in its planned Guiwang (“king”) internet constellation of 13,000 satellites, its Long March 6 rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northern China. No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China.
This launch brought the total number of operational satellites in orbit for this constellation to 39, all launched since December 2024. At this pace it will take many years for China to complete this constellation, though it likely can begin selling the service in China with an incomplete constellation. Its international licence requires it to launch 10% by 2029 and 50% by 2032.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
93 SpaceX
38 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 93 to 67.
