SpaceX has accomplished in just 10 months what took NASA more than 30 years to achieve. The private space company has now completed 136 orbital launches in 2025, surpassing the total number of 135 Space Shuttle missions flown by NASA between 1981 and 2011.
The record-breaking flight took place early Sunday morning from Cape Canaveral, Florida, when a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off carrying 28 Starlink satellites into orbit. It marked the 89th launch of the year from Florida’s Space Coast and the 136th nationwide.
Falcon 9 launches 28 @Starlink satellites to orbit from pad 40 from Florida pic.twitter.com/egmVbtb4Bh
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 26, 2025
In less than a decade, the company has transformed spaceflight from an occasional event into a weekly, sometimes even daily, and sometimes even multiple times per day, occurrence. With more than two months left in the year, SpaceX shows no signs of slowing down.
At its current pace, the company is on track to exceed 160 launches by the end of 2025, easily outpacing its previous annual record of 134 missions, a benchmark it had already surpassed just last week.
Falcon 9 completes our 135th mission of the year after lifting off from pad 4E in California and delivering 28 @Starlink satellites to the constellation pic.twitter.com/PHfCYTzlYY
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 25, 2025
This rapid tempo is made possible by the company’s hallmark innovation—rocket reusability. Many Falcon 9 boosters flying today have completed well over 20 missions, with turnaround times between launches shrinking to just a few days.
The record-setting year also comes as SpaceX celebrates another major milestone: the launch of its 10,000th Starlink satellite. The company reached that mark earlier this month, further solidifying its dominance in low Earth orbit and expanding its role as a global broadband provider.
Each Starlink launch typically adds 20 to 30 new satellites, contributing to an ever-growing constellation designed to deliver high-speed internet coverage around the world. While 10,000 satellites have been launched, about 8,700 are still in orbit, with the remaining burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere as part of the company’s de-orbiting plan.
The scale of this achievement is difficult to overstate. NASA’s entire Space Shuttle program spanned three decades and represented the peak of government-led human spaceflight. SpaceX has now matched and exceeded that output in less than a single calendar year, using largely reusable rockets built for high-frequency commercial operations.
What was once a rare national event is now a regular sight, with Falcon 9 boosters lighting up the skies from Florida to California almost every week.
