For the sixth year in a row, SpaceX is on course to set a new annual launch record for the Falcon 9 rocket, highlighting SpaceX’s increasing dominance in orbital launch activity, as well as the success of its reusable booster system in enabling frequent, cost-effective flights. The Elon Musk-led spaceflight company is set to complete […]
Welcome to Edition 8.20 of the Rocket Report! For the second week in a row, Blue Origin dominated the headlines with news about its New Glenn rocket. After a stunning success November 13 with the launch and landing of the second New Glenn rocket, Jeff Bezos’ space company revealed a roadmap this week showing how engineers will supercharge the vehicle with more engines. Meanwhile, in South Texas, SpaceX took a step toward the first flight of the next-generation Starship rocket. There will be no Rocket Report next week due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. We look forward to resuming delivery of all the news in space lift the first week of December.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Northrop’s Pegasus rocket wins a rare contract. A startup named Katalyst Space Technologies won a $30 million contract from NASA in August to build a robotic rescue mission for the agency’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory in low-Earth orbit. Swift, in space since 2004, is a unique instrument designed to study gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the Universe. The spacecraft lacks a propulsion system and its orbit is subject to atmospheric drag, and NASA says it is “racing against the clock” to boost Swift’s orbit and extend its lifetime before it falls back to Earth. On Wednesday, Katalyst announced it selected Northrop Grumman’s air-launched Pegasus XL rocket to send the rescue craft into orbit next year.
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.
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