Latest news with #Falcon9
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches GPS III-7 mission from Florida: Watch replay
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket on Friday for the GPS III-7 mission to medium-Earth orbit from Florida. What we know The rocket lifted off around 1:30 p.m. from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. This is the fourth time this rocket booster has been used. It previously launched the CRS-32, NROL-69, and a Starlink mission. After the rocket's first stage separated, it successfully landed on the droneship, A Shortfall of Gravitas, in the Atlantic Ocean. STAY CONNECTED WITH FOX 35 ORLANDO: Download the FOX Local app for breaking news alerts, the latest news headlines Download the FOX 35 Storm Team Weather app for weather alerts & radar Sign up for FOX 35's daily newsletter for the latest morning headlines FOX Local:Stream FOX 35 newscasts, FOX 35 News+, Central Florida Eats on your smart TV The Source This story was written based on information shared by SpaceX.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
SpaceX knocks out another national security launch while ULA faces scrutiny
ORLANDO, Fla. — United Launch Alliance's years-long delays with its new Vulcan rocket have flipped the script for national security missions, making SpaceX the new reliable provider. The shift to Elon Musk's company at the detriment to ULA's bottom line took center stage again Friday with a SpaceX Falcon 9 launching the GPS III-7 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:37 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the fourth time making a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. The mission to launch a GPS satellite was the second originally awarded to ULA but transferred to SpaceX under the National Security Space Launch Phase 2 contract. Initially assigned to ULA's Vulcan, both a December 2024 launch and then Friday's launch were shifted to Falcon 9 as ULA faced an extended delay in certification of its replacement for both its Atlas V and Delta IV class of rockets. While called the GPS III-7 mission, it's actually the eighth of 10 satellites constructed by Lockheed Martin to add to the U.S.'s GPS capability in space. It's also part of an accelerated mission timeline laid out by the Space Force for national security missions in which payloads get to space in under three months from the decision to go, compared to the normal turnaround that can take up to 24 months. 'It highlights another instance of the Space Force's ability to complete high priority launches on a rapid timescale, which demonstrates the capability to respond to emergent constellation needs as rapidly as space vehicle readiness allows,' said Space Force Col. Jim Horne, senior materiel leader of launch execution with the Assured Access to Space program. The latest GPS satellites are three times more accurate and eight times more resistant to jamming than the other 38 in space already, according to the Space Force. The Department of Defense's desire to launch more effective GPS hardware, less susceptible to interference, forced the switch to SpaceX in both missions. The NSSL Phase 2 contract, which featured five years' worth of task orders announced from 2020-2024, was originally announced to give ULA 60% of the assignments. All of those were supposed to fly on Vulcan, with its first launches to be completed by summer 2022. But as Vulcan faced myriad delays, the final spate of task orders ended up putting 26 missions on ULA's plate to SpaceX's 22. Now another two of those missions have swapped from ULA to SpaceX, although the Space Force has said ULA will get back two future missions previously assigned to SpaceX. To date, ULA has only managed to fly one of those 26 missions, and that wasn't on a Vulcan. Instead ULA was forced to use one of its few remaining Atlas V rockets, which flew last summer. ULA, which is a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin that formed in 2006, had originally been targeting mid-2020 for Vulcan's debut. But it faced hurdles from COVID, acquisition of engines from supplier Blue Origin, delays from customer payloads and even a fiery test stand incident that all contributed to a nearly four-year slide. It flew for the first time in January 2024, but not again until that October, both as part of ULA's efforts to get national security certification. An issue with a solid rocket booster motor detaching during launch on the second flight, though, delayed that certification until March 2025. At this point, the first national security launch on Vulcan won't be until at least July, according to Major Gen. Stephen G. Purdy, the acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration. Purdy, a former head of Space Launch Delta 45 based at Patrick Space Force Base, raised concerns about ULA's delays during written testimony released earlier this month to the U.S. House Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. 'In NSSL Phase 2, the ULA Vulcan program has performed unsatisfactorily this past year,' he wrote. 'Major issues with the Vulcan have overshadowed its successful certification resulting in delays to the launch of four national security missions. Despite the retirement of highly successful Atlas and Delta launch vehicles, the transition to Vulcan has been slow and continues to impact the completion of Space Force mission objectives.' Vulcan's certification is at the point only partial, having only been signed off for five of the Space Force's nine required orbital needs, Purdy said. He did said ULA has increased its 'engineering resources and management focus to resolve design issues' while government personnel have been more involved with both technical and program management. Purdy said ULA's first national security launch on Vulcan will be USSF-106. The payload, Navigation Technology Satellite-3, is headed to geostationary orbit. Built by L3Harris, it's funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory and a potential replacement technology for GPS. It was one of two task orders given to ULA in 2020 with a value of $337 million. The other, USSF-51, was the one that launched last summer on an Atlas V. With ULA dealing with a backlog of the Phase 2 contract missions, the company's piece of the next pie got smaller. Earlier this year, the Space Force announced SpaceX, not ULA, would get the majority of the Phase 3 contracts with a total of $13.7 billion to be doled out over the next five years. SpaceX would receive 28 of 54 planned missions, or 52%. Meanwhile, ULA's take is only 19 missions, or 35%, while newcomer Blue Origin would get seven, or 13%. Purdy confirmed ULA had already lost out on some Phase 3 contracts because of the Vulcan delays, and addressed what he deemed to be ULA's marching orders along with other commercial providers that have fallen short on delivery to the government. 'For these programs, the prime contractors must re-establish baselines, establish a culture of accountability, and repair trust deficit to prove to (me) that they are adopting the acquisition principles necessary to deliver capabilities at speed, on cost and on schedule,' he said ULA meanwhile is dipping its toes back into launches, lining up only its second planned mission of the year, a commercial launch for customer Amazon using another of its remaining Atlas V rockets. Following the April launch of the first mission for Amazon's Project Kuiper, an internet satellite constellation that aims to compete with SpaceX's Starlink system, the second mission is targeting liftoff no earlier than June 13. Meanwhile, SpaceX has now flown its Falcon 9 on 65 missions this year, including 44 from the Space Coast. ------------
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
How many satellites could fit in Earth orbit? And how many do we really need?
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. In the last five years, the number of satellites orbiting Earth has more than doubled and will likely double again within a similar timespan, thanks to the efforts of private companies such as SpaceX. But while these spacecraft can provide important benefits, they are also causing multiple issues that are only just being realized by scientists. So, how many satellites can we expect to see in our skies in the coming decades? And — more importantly — how many is too many? As of May 2025, there are around 11,700 active satellites in orbit around Earth, ranging from military spy satellites and scientific probes to rapidly growing private satellite networks. But the rate at which spacecraft are being launched into space is increasing year-on-year. The biggest contributor to this trend is SpaceX's Starlink constellation, which currently has around 7,500 active satellites in orbit — more than 60% of the total number of operational orbiting spacecraft, Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who has been tracking satellites since 1989, told Live Science. All of these have been launched since May 2019. However, other organizations are also beginning to develop their own "megaconstellations," such as Amazon's Project Kuiper and China's "Thousand Sails" constellation. It is also getting easier to put new satellites into space thanks to the reusability of rockets, such as SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, which is being used to launch multiple competing satellite networks. Other companies are also exploring new ways of launching larger payloads, including shooting hundreds of satellites into space at once using a giant spinning cannon. Related: There was nearly 1 rocket launch attempt every 34 hours in 2024 — this year will be even busier All of this activity has left researchers wondering how many satellites could eventually end up orbiting our planet and what problems they might cause along the way. "Megaconstellations are planning to cover most of the Earth's surface," Fionagh Thomson, a senior research fellow at the University of Durham in the U.K. who specializes in space ethics, told Live Science. But there is still "a large amount of uncertainty" over how large they might get and how damaging they could become, she added. It is difficult to estimate how many satellites will be launched in the future because satellite companies often change their plans, Aaron Boley, an astronomer at The University of British Columbia in Canada who has extensively studied the potential effects of megaconstellations, told Live Science. "Companies update their plans as they develop their systems, and many proposed systems will never be launched. But many will," Boley said. Proposals for more than 1 million private satellites belonging to around 300 different megaconstellations have been submitted to the International Telecommunications Union, which regulates communications satellites, according to a 2023 study co-authored by Boley. However, some of these, including a proposed 337,000-satellite megaconstellation from Rwanda, are unlikely to come to fruition, the researchers noted. The proposed number seems massive, but most private satellites have short lifespans. For example, the average Starlink satellite spends around five years operational, after which it falls back to Earth and burns up upon reentry. So even if all 1 million proposed satellites are launched, they will not all be orbiting Earth at once. While it is tricky to predict how many satellites will be launched and when, researchers have estimated a maximum number of spacecraft that can coexist within low-Earth orbit (LEO) — the region of space up to 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) above Earth's surface, where a vast majority of private satellites operate. Above this upper limit, or carrying capacity, satellites would likely start constantly crashing into one another. McDowell and Boley, as well as other astronomers — including Federico Di Vruno at the transnational Square Kilometer Array (SKA) Observatory and Benjamin Winkel at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany — all believe that the carrying capacity for LEO is around 100,000 active satellites. Above this number, new satellites will likely only be launched to replace those that come to the end of their operational lives. It is unclear exactly when this carrying capacity will be reached. However, based on the current rate of increasing launches, several experts told Live Science that it could happen before 2050. Given the impending rise in satellite numbers, researchers are hard at work trying to figure out what problems they may cause. A major issue associated with megaconstellations is space junk, including rocket boosters and defunct satellites, that will litter LEO before eventually falling back to Earth. If space junk collides , it could create thousands of smaller pieces of debris that increase the risk of further collisions. If left unchecked, this domino effect could render LEO effectively unusable. Researchers call this problem the "Kessler syndrome" and are already warning that it should be tackled now, before it is too late. Megaconstellations also threaten to severely limit ground-based astronomy in two main ways: First, light reflecting off satellites can interfere with optical astronomy by photobombing telescopes as they pass overhead; Second, electromagnetic radiation that unintentionally leaks from communications satellites can interfere with radio astronomy by obscuring signals from distant objects, such as faraway galaxies. If the carrying capacity is reached, some experts fear that the level of radio interference could render some types of radio astronomy completely impossible. Related: Controversial paper claims satellite 'megaconstellations' like SpaceX's could weaken Earth's magnetic field and cause 'atmospheric stripping.' Should we be worried? Satellites can also impact the environment via greenhouse gases that are emitted during rocket launches, as well as through metal pollution that is accumulating in the upper atmosphere as defunct satellites and other space junk burn up upon reentry. Given all these potential impacts, most researchers are calling for companies to reduce the rate at which they launch satellites. "I don't think a full stop on satellite launches would work," Boley said. "However, slowing things down and delaying the placement of 100,000 satellites until we have better international rules would be prudent." While private satellites help monitor Earth and connect rural and disadvantaged communities to high-speed internet, many experts argue that these benefits do not outweigh the potential risks. Others are more skeptical and question whether the payloads being put into orbit will really do any good or if they are just a way for companies to make more money. "Do we really need another CubeSat in space that allows us to take selfies?" Thomson asked. "And in reality, does connecting remote communities [to the internet] help solve systemic issues of inequality, poverty and injustice?" RELATED STORIES —Chinese scientists call for plan to destroy Elon Musk's Starlink satellites —World's 1st wooden satellite arrives at ISS for key orbital test —Geomagnetic storm sends 40 SpaceX satellites plummeting to Earth Many benefits could also be achieved with fewer satellites. The proposed numbers are so high, mainly because there are so many different companies competing to provide the same services. "It would be better to cooperate more, in order to need fewer satellites," Winkel told Live Science. "But I find that highly unlikely given the current situation in the world."
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Invisible radiation leaking from private satellite 'megaconstellations' could ruin radio astronomy forever, experts warn
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. If you look up at the sky on a clear night, shortly after one of SpaceX's many Falcon 9 rocket launches, you might see a bright string of lights zooming across the heavens. This phenomenon, known as a Starlink train, occurs when light reflects off a newly deployed batch of SpaceX satellites before they eventually fan out and become part of the wider Starlink network. It is also a common reminder that giant groups of private satellites, known as "megaconstellations," are quickly becoming a reality. But behind these lights lurks an invisible — and much more problematic — form of radiation: radio waves. If our eyes could also detect this hidden radiation, the sky would be full of bright spots and nonstop flashing that would obscure the distant signals from objects beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). And unlike the light pollution we see from satellites, these intrusive signals don't just happen at night or in the hours after new satellites are released — they happen all the time. Some researchers are so worried about this invisible pollution that they think we could eventually reach an "inflection point," beyond which ground-based astronomy instruments could become radio-blind to the cosmos. "It would basically mean that no radio astronomy from the ground would be possible anymore," Benjamin Winkel, a radio astronomer at the Max Planck Institute of Radio Astronomy in Germany, told Live Science. "It will eventually reach a point where it is not worthwhile to operate a [radio] telescope anymore." At the rate that megaconstellations are growing, this could happen within the next 30 years, some experts predict. Radio astronomy allows us to see a host of hidden cosmic structures and phenomena that we can't detect through visual light alone. Scientists use radio frequencies to study a range of phenomena, from the jets of energy shooting from supermassive black holes to the subtle changes in the trajectories of near-Earth asteroids. Radio telescopes are also constantly finding phenomena, such as fast radio bursts — millisecond pulses of ultra-energetic radiation, some of which repeat at regular intervals — that come from super-dense, highly magnetic objects such as neutron stars. Their observations also provide some of the best insights into the "Age of Reionization," as far back as 400 million years after the Big Bang, when the first stars and galaxies were emerging from clouds of primordial hydrogen. Scientists scouring the skies for signs of alien life, such as those at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, also favor hunting in radio waves because any advanced civilizations will likely use these wavelengths for communication, just as humans do. We also rely on radio telescopes to pin down our precise location compared to other cosmic objects, which is constantly shifting. The radio portion of the electromagnetic spectrum ranges from roughly 3 kilohertz to over 300 gigahertz — equal to wavelengths from more than 60 miles (100 kilometers) long down to 0.04 inches (1 millimeter). However, not all of these wavelengths are visible from Earth, and most astronomers hunt for signals somewhere between 1 megahertz and 100 GHz, according to the British Astronomical Association. Many of the world's biggest radio telescope arrays focus on even narrower ranges. For instance, the world's largest single telescope, China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope, searches between 70 MHz to 3 GHz; while the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO), the world's largest array of radio telescopes scattered across Australia and South Africa, scans between 50 MHz to 14 GHz. But increasingly, many of these frequencies are being bombarded by noise from Starlink and other satellites. While satellite messages deliberately beamed down to operators on Earth, known as intended downlinks, are problematic, the biggest risk to these projects is what's known as unintended electromagnetic radiation (UEMR), or the radio waves that inadvertently leak out of the spacecraft at all times. "This was not a problem before, when the number of satellites was low," Federico Di Vruno, a radio astronomer at SKAO and co-director of the International Astronomical Union's recently created Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference (CPS), told Live Science. "But now the situation has changed." And UEMR is particularly prevalent among private satellite constellations, such as Starlink. When Di Vruno and colleagues used Europe's Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) to observe a group of Generation 1 Starlink satellites, they found that the satellites were leaking UEMR at a much higher rate than other orbiting spacecraft. In their results, published in 2023, they reported that this radiation had frequencies between 110 and 188 megahertz, representing a large portion of the operating range of LOFAR (10 to 240 MHz), which scans for signals from pulsars, solar wind, cosmic rays and galaxies from the Age of Reionization. "We were not surprised that we detected something," Winkel, who was a co-author of the study, told Live Science. "But we didn't anticipate that the level would be so high." However, what came next was even more shocking. In September 2024, Di Vruno and Winkel were co-authors of a follow-up LOFAR study that showed that the newer Generation 2 Starlink satellites were leaking over 30 times more UEMR than their predecessors, even though the researchers had previously warned SpaceX about the findings of the initial study. This radiation was emitted in roughly the same frequency bandwidth as the Gen 1 satellites. And SpaceX will not be the only source of UEMR. Other companies, agencies and countries are also launching competing satellite constellations. These include Amazon's Project Kuiper, Eutelsat's OneWeb network (which is being launched by SpaceX), the European Union's IRIS² network, AST SpaceMobile's giant communication satellites, and China's Qianfan, or "Thousand Sails," constellation, Di Vruno noted. "We don't know [how much UEMR these spacecraft will emit] yet," Winkel said. "Every satellite will have UEMR, but it remains to be seen, at what level." As a result, many other frequencies could be affected, he added. In addition to overlapping with the frequencies of distant signals, UEMR is also much more intense, or brighter, than naturally occurring radio-emitting objects. For example, the UEMR emitted by the Gen 2 Starlink satellites is up to 10 million times brighter than the faintest radio-visible objects in the night sky, which include ancient galaxies located billions of light-years from Earth. "This difference is similar to the faintest stars visible to the naked eye and the brightness of the full moon," Cees Bassa, an astronomer at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) and lead author of the 2024 study, previously stated. Trying to detect signals from beyond one of these satellites is "like taking a photograph while someone points a flashlight in your direction," Winkel said. Some radio telescopes, such as LOFAR, will be hit harder than others, due to the frequencies they specialize in, but all radio telescopes will be affected "in different ways," Di Vruno said. Studies that require long-term datasets will be particularly susceptible to interference because there is a greater chance that leaky satellites will pass over them during the data collection period. "As some projects need to continuously record data over hours, days, months or years, even tiny interference signals can have a statistical impact on the results," Winkel said. "And perhaps the astronomer analyzing the data is not even aware of it." Intended downlinks, which are sent in multiple frequencies over 1 GHz, are also extremely bright and often appear in tandem with UEMR, exaggerating these effects. As the problem gets worse, certain frequencies will become increasingly hard to study. "Some radio bands could be completely wiped out," Di Vruno said. "And if [these] science cases are just not possible anymore, it would mean that we are effectively closing 'windows' to observe our universe." As of May, there are 11,700 active satellites orbiting Earth. More than 7,300 of those (over 60%) are Starlink satellites, which have all been launched since 2019, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who has been tracking satellite launches and reentries since 1986. But this is just the beginning. Well over 1 million satellites have been proposed by various organizations across the globe. And, while most of these may never be launched, many experts agree that we could eventually have up to 100,000 private satellites in LEO, potentially by as early as 2050. (This will likely be the maximum number that can be sustained at once without satellites crashing into one another.) Related: What goes up must come down: How megaconstellations like SpaceX's Starlink network pose a grave safety threat to us on Earth If that maximum number is reached, there is "real possibility" that we could reach an inflection point, beyond which ground-based radio astronomy would become effectively impossible, Di Vruno said. Not all radio frequencies will be impacted. However, the obscured wavelengths will likely be lost for good, and the unaffected frequencies are unlikely to yield as many meaningful discoveries, he added. At this point, we would no longer be able to "observe faint signals far out into the universe," which would be "a serious problem," Fionagh Thomson, a research fellow at Durham University in England who specializes in space ethics and was not involved in the LOFAR research, told Live Science. Some radio astronomy could also still be achievable from space on a smaller scale. For example, there are plans to build a radio telescope on the moon. However, this would be very expensive and would capture limited data compared with the current suite of radio telescopes on Earth. But even if we avoid the "worst-case scenario," we risk severely limiting our astronomical capabilities unless satellite operators and researchers can find viable solutions to the problem, Thomson said. Satellite operators can limit the impacts of their spacecraft on radio astronomy in a few ways. For example, most intended downlink frequencies are kept separate from those used by radio astronomers. Some companies, including SpaceX, are also investigating the implementation of "boresight avoidance," in which the satellites temporarily halt signal sending as they pass over radio "quiet zones," or areas where radio telescopes are actively collecting data. However, for astronomers, it is also imperative that these companies minimize UEMR. We know that this is possible because spacecraft from NASA and other space agencies produce much less accidental radiation than private satellites do. But companies can only mitigate a satellite's UEMR before it is launched into space. Once in LEO, "they are hard to fix," Winkel said, so it is vital that they are tested for leaks before launch. "If satellite operators care about the UEMR, we will be OK," Di Vruno said. "It will be more difficult to conduct radio astronomy than it is now, but we understand technology evolves and we will evolve with it." Astronomers can also limit the impacts of radio pollution by removing the interfering signals from their datasets. However, this "cleaning" may cause astronomers to miss crucial data that is masked by the interference. "The amount of data you have to discard or the effort that you need to put in to somehow clean the data also increases the more interference there is," Winkel said. One way around this is to collect more data so that there is more left once you've cleaned it, but this also makes it much more expensive to do research, he added. By working together, satellite operators and radio astronomers can solve the radio pollution issue without any external help, Thomson said. "But inevitably, satellite operators and the radio astronomy community have different goals, priorities and budgets, and finding workable solutions is no easy feat." Because private companies and scientists have different priorities, the most effective solution to the problem is to impose strict limits on the amount of UEMR that private spacecraft can give off, experts told Live Science. "We would, of course, be more relaxed if proper regulation was in place," Winkel said. At present, specific radio frequencies, like those used by LOFAR, are protected on behalf of astronomers by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) — a United Nations agency responsible for regulating global communications technologies. However, these regulations apply only to Earth-based sources of radio pollution, not to private spacecraft. Most satellite operators do try to respect the ITU's guidelines when using intended downlinks — with limited degrees of success. But UEMR frequently overlaps with the protected wavelengths and remains perfectly legal. RELATED STORIES —Sci-fi inspired tractor beams are real, and could solve a major space junk problem —How many satellites could fit in Earth orbit? And how many do we really need? —NASA plans to build a giant radio telescope on the 'dark side' of the moon. Here's why. Some experts also argue that the ITU's radio-quiet frequency bands are no longer wide enough to protect radio astronomy: "They were set in a different era and are arguably too narrow for modern radio astronomy," Thomson said. The IAU's CPU is hoping to have strict new regulations in place by the end of the decade and hopes that a breakthrough can be achieved at the next World Radiocommunication Conference, in 2027, Di Vruno said. Therefore, it is important for researchers to closely monitor the radiation leaking from private satellite constellations over the next few years, so that any new rules can have an effective and long-standing impact, he added. However, even stricter guidelines might not be enough if organizations don't respect them. "There is an assumption that imposing laws will fix complex problems," Thomson said. "But not all viable solutions involve implementing binding legislation," she warned.
CNET
8 hours ago
- Business
- CNET
SpaceX Plans a Launch About Every Other Day for the Rest of 2025
SpaceX wants to launch rockets into space 170 times in 2025. That's an amibitious goal, considering that 64 launches have been completed so far, and to hit the goal, SpaceX would need to increase the pace of launches to one nearly every other day. That's a significant increase from SpaceX's single-year record of 134 orbital liftoffs in 2024. For comparison of just how normal the new cadence has become, in 2020, there were only 25 launches. The average launch is every two to three days now. Read more: SpaceX Loses Contact With Starship in Third Test Flight Failure in a Row SpaceX can undertake so many launches because of the Falcon 9, the world's first orbital-class reusable rocket. Being able to reuse the most expensive parts of the rocket not only drives down the cost, but it also allows SpaceX to increase the number of launches each year. Falcon 9 performed 132 of 2024's liftoffs, and the other two in 2024 were Falcon Heavy, which is composed of three reusable Falcon 9 engine cores. So far in 2025, all 64 orbital missions have used Falcon 9. Read more: Here's How to Watch Every Major US Space Launch for the Rest of 2025 It could also be another big year for Starlink, SpaceX's satellite venture. Two-thirds of the launches last year were in efforts to build SpaceX's Starlink broadband constellation. Growth is expected to continue. Of the 64 orbital missions in 2025, 48 have been Starlink flights. This number doesn't include the suborbital Starship test flights. Orbital launches require more speed to go into or beyond the Earth's orbit. Suborbital launches move at lower speeds because they do not enter orbit. Starship, a suborbital rocket, is a reusable craft designed to carry humans and cargo through space one day. The three most recent Starship test flights, including one on May 27, have ended with the craft breaking up. Previous rocket explosions happened in January and March.
