The commander of the military unit responsible for running the Cape Canaveral spaceport in Florida expects SpaceX to begin launching Starship rockets there next year.

Launch companies with facilities near SpaceX’s Starship pads are not pleased. SpaceX’s two chief rivals, Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance, complained last year that SpaceX’s proposal of launching as many as 120 Starships per year from Florida’s Space Coast could force them to routinely clear personnel from their launch pads for safety reasons.

This isn’t the first time Blue Origin and ULA have tried to throw up roadblocks in front of SpaceX. The companies sought to prevent NASA from leasing a disused launch pad to SpaceX in 2013, but they lost the fight.

Read full article

Comments

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida—Another Falcon 9 rocket fired off its launch pad here on Monday night, taking with it another 29 Starlink Internet satellites to orbit.

This was the 94th orbital launch from Florida’s Space Coast so far in 2025, breaking the previous record for the most satellite launches in a calendar year from the world’s busiest spaceport. Monday night’s launch came two days after a Chinese Long March 11 rocket lifted off from an oceangoing platform on the opposite side of the world, marking humanity’s 255th mission to reach orbit this year, a new annual record for global launch activity.

As of Wednesday, a handful of additional missions have pushed the global figure this year to 259, putting the world on pace for around 300 orbital launches by the end of 2025. This will more than double the global tally of 135 orbital launches in 2021.

Read full article

Comments