Space Coast's 60th launch of year also Falcon 9's 500th successful SpaceX mission
The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:04 a.m. carrying an Israeli communications satellite on the Commercial GTO 1 mission.
The first-stage booster flew for the 13th time and made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions.
It was the 502nd launch of a Falcon 9 since its debut in 2010, with the company only losing the rocket on two missions - once in 2015 and then in July 2024. The company has also flown its larger Falcon Heavy 11 times since 2018, but not yet so far in 2025.
SpaceX has launched all but three of the Space Coast missions in 2025, with Blue Origin's New Glenn making its debut flight in January and United Launch Alliance having flown two Atlas V rockets on missions for Amazon's Project Kuiper in April and June.
ULA has its new Vulcan rocket lined up for its first national security launch, the USSF-106 mission for the Space Force, but its launch date has not been announced.
Blue Origin this week announced the engines for its next New Glenn rocket are ready, but isn't expected to fly until at least fall.
Meanwhile, SpaceX will continue to launch regularly from both Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center.
The next KSC launch from SpaceX is the Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station no earlier than July 31. The Commercial Crew Program flight will take up two astronauts from NASA, one for Japan's JAXA and one cosmonaut for Roscosmos to relieve the Crew-10 crew that has been on the station since March.
That flight will be the fourth human spaceflight for SpaceX this year including Crew-10 and the private polar orbital Fram2 mission and private Axiom Space Ax-4 mission, whose astronauts are currently on board the station, but scheduled to leave as soon as Monday morning.
The Space Coast saw a record 93 launches in 2024 and is on pace to break 100 launches for 2025.
SpaceX has flown 85 orbital missions among its Florida and California facilities this year, and is also on track to break its record of 134 missions that it flew in 2024.
_____
Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Digital Trends
28 minutes ago
- Digital Trends
Astronaut's stunning snapshot shows Earth in a whole new way
Earth has rarely looked as remarkable as it does in this stunning shot (above) captured by NASA astronaut Don Pettit from the International Space Station (ISS). Taken during his recent seven-month mission aboard the orbital outpost, the astonishing image shows an airglow over the planet we call home, together with distant stars and a part of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked at the station. Recommended Videos 'SpaceX Dragon flies between the stars of deep space, and a sea of clouds lit by the red upper atmospheric airglow,' Pettit wrote alongside the photo in a social media post that he shared on Sunday. 'This is a 20-second exposure taken with my orbital sidereal drive that tracks the stars thus allowing long exposures.' SpaceX Dragon flies between the stars of deep space, and a sea of clouds lit by the red upper atmospheric airglow. This is a 20 second exposure taken with my orbital sidereal drive that tracks the stars thus allowing long exposures. — Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) July 12, 2025 An airglow is a faint, natural light that occurs as sunlight interacts with atoms and molecules within the atmosphere. It's seen from space as a thin, colorful glowing band close to the edge of our planet, usually green in color but sometimes red or blue. Unlike auroras, which are driven by solar storms, airglows are always present although they're only visible at night. The orbital sidereal drive that Pettit speaks of is an innovative device created by Pettit himself to keep stars sharp in long-exposure photos captured from the space station. The tool moves the camera to compensate for the movement of the ISS, thereby keeping the stars in the same spot on the camera sensor, preventing them from streaking across the frame. Pettit has earned a reputation for taking breathtaking shots of Earth and beyond from orbit. He shared many of his efforts during his most recent space mission, which ended in April, but since then he's been sharing new images captured during the same expedition. Just last week, for example, Pettit posted this incredible near-infrared shot of the Grand Canyon, which he described as 'reminiscent of the surface of Mars.'
Digital Trends
2 hours ago
- Digital Trends
SpaceX just achieved a landmark Falcon 9 rocket mission
SpaceX conducted its 500th successful Falcon 9 mission on Sunday, marking an impressive achievement for the company, which launched in 2002. The Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 1:04 a.m. ET on Sunday, on the Commercial GTO-1 mission to deploy the Dror 1 geostationary communication satellite. Falcon 9 completes its 500th mission — SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 13, 2025 This was the 13th flight for the Falcon 9 first-stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched Crew-8, Polaris Dawn, CRS-31, Astranis: From One to Many, IM-2, and seven Starlink missions. Recommended Videos After landing back on the Read the Instructions droneship stationed off the coast of Florida, the booster will now be checked over and refurbished ahead of its 14th flight. Falcon 9's first stage has landed on the Just Read the Instructions droneship — SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 13, 2025 Reusing rockets is core to SpaceX's approach to spaceflight as it allows for more frequent launches and at much lower costs. Earlier this month, one of its Falcon 9 boosters launched and landed for a record 29th time. While many of the launches have deployed satellites for an array of private and commercial firms as well as government agencies around the world, most have been used to deploy small internet satellites for SpaceX's Starlink program. It also uses the Falcon 9 for crew and cargo flights to and from the International Space Station (ISS), with the next crewed mission to the ISS expected to take place in just a few weeks' time. The SpaceX team is now applying what it's learned from the Falcon 9 to its next-generation Starship rocket, which it's already launched and landed several times in tests at the company's Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. However, an explosion last month involving the upper-stage spacecraft put a dent in its progress, and the company has yet to announce plans for the 10th launch of the rocket, the most powerful ever to fly. Once operational, the Starship, comprising the first-stage Super Heavy and upper-stage Starship, will be used for crew and cargo missions to the moon and possibly Mars, too.
Bloomberg
3 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Musk Suggests Tesla Shareholders Will Vote on xAI Investment
Tesla Inc. plans to poll shareholders on whether to invest in xAI, Elon Musk said after the Wall Street Journal reported SpaceX was prepared to funnel $2 billion into the Grok chatbot developer. The billionaire entrepreneur, responding to a post on X, said any decision to back the startup ultimately wasn't his to make. Musk asked X users publicly last year if Tesla should invest $5 billion in xAI, writing at the time that he was just testing the waters. But he said then that the EV maker's board and backers would need to green-light such a decision.
