(This story has been updated after United Launch Alliance’s second scrub and the Federal Aviation Administration issued a launch curfew.)
The annual orbital rocket launch record on Florida’s Space Coast is about to fall by the wayside for the fourth straight year, with the unprecedented 94th liftoff poised to occur this weekend.
Details: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift 29 Starlink broadband satellites into low-Earth orbit at 7:10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 8, from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
That Starlink mission would tie Florida’s latest annual record of 93 launches from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and KSC.
And if SpaceX succeeds, the record-shattering 94th launch is scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 9 — a full 52 days ahead of last year’s pace.
That’s when Blue Origin hopes to launch its second New Glenn rocket, sending NASA’s twin ESCAPADE spacecraft up to study the Martian magnetosphere. The enormous rocket should rumble into flight during a window extending from 2:45 p.m. to 5:11 p.m. from Launch Complex 36 at the Space Force installation.
What’s the driving force behind these new records? SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rockets — which account for 87 of this year’s 92 launches — feature first-stage boosters that return to land or touch down atop drone ships in the Atlantic Ocean, Vice President of Launch Kiko Dontchev said. And refurbishing and relaunching boosters accelerates the launch rate to “a mission cadence that the world has never seen before.”
Describing drawbacks of older, traditional rocket technology, Dontchev illustrated an air-travel scenario where “the airplane takes off, but the wings fall off and the fuselage falls off — and the only thing that makes it to its destination (is) just a small amount of people.”
“Reusability is what’s enabled this massive cadence. And if you think about the arc of humanity, then what happens when a new mode of transportation is unlocked? You get this huge leap in capability, right?” Dontchev said during a Wednesday fireside chat at The Economist’s Space Economy Summit at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
“Whether it’s the railroad, an interstate highway, from sail ships to steamships, that’s what reusability has done. That’s what Falcon 9 has done. It’s allowed an entire economy to get built in low-Earth orbit,” Dontchev said.
Complicating matters beyond this weekend, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a rocket launch curfew Thursday via emergency order amid the ongoing shutdown in Washington, D.C.
Starting Monday, Nov. 10, commercial launches and reentries will only be permitted between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Shifting launches to late-night hours is intended to “ensure the safety of aircraft and the efficiency of the National Airspace System,” per the order.
United Launch Alliance was poised to launch the record-tying 93rd rocket Thursday night — but instead, crews called a second straight scrub stemming from an issue with the Atlas V booster liquid-oxygen tank vent valve. That ViaSat-3 mission has yet to be rescheduled.
As recently as 2013, only 10 rockets launched from the Cape all year, Space Florida records show. But with the rise of SpaceX, lofty new annual records were sent in 2022 (57 launches), 2023 (72 launches), and 2024 (93 launches).
As of Thursday, SpaceX Falcon 9s have launched every mission from Florida’s Space Coast this year, save five. Those exceptions were Blue Origin’s maiden New Glenn liftoff, three ULA Atlas V rockets, and one ULA Vulcan rocket launch.
Widening the lens to include Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, Dontchev said SpaceX officials have upped total Falcon 9 launches from 132 last year to 141 so far this year. Goal by year’s end: Between 165 and 170 U.S. launches.
However, signs point toward even more launches accumulating in the next few years. Back at the Cape, Stoke Space recently raised $510 million from investors to scale manufacturing of Nova, its planned rocket with reusable first and second stages. The company is constructing new facilities at long-dormant Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
“When you have 150 domestic launches or 200 global launches, it’s only 200 interactions you have with this (space) economy. And it’s just not enough, right?” Stoke Space CEO and co-founder Andy Lapsa said Wednesday during a Space Economy Summit fireside chat.
“If you think about any other transportation logistics in the world, that number is so paltry, right? At the same time, it’s an order of magnitude higher than it has been for our industry,” Lapsa said.
Florida’s fourth straight annual launch record
A few fast facts about Florida’s rocket launches during 2025 thus far:
- SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellite missions have accounted for 60 of this year’s Florida launches.
- A total of 1,521 satellites have launched from Florida.
- Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station has hosted the lion’s share of liftoffs.
Ed Mango is a 34-year NASA veteran who leads Eastern Florida State College’s aerospace technology program, which teaches fabrication, assembly, repair and manufacturing. College officials expanded the program this fall to include night classes at the Titusville campus.
Mango’s philosophy on launches: “The more, the better.” He said EFSC aerospace technology program graduates land jobs with Blue Origin; ASRC Federal, which supports Lockheed Martin with assembly, integration and testing of NASA’s Orion spacecraft; and Amentum, prime contractor for NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems program.
“Just about every student who graduates who wants a job right away gets a job, either before graduation or right after graduation,” he said.
Mango said SpaceX is “driving the train” on the Cape’s commercial-space boom.
“The more, the merrier. It’s sort of like the cruise industry at the port, right? It started out with one or two cruise ships once in a while — and now the cruise industry at the port is one of the busiest in the world,” Mango said.
Officials praise boost to Brevard economy
Greg Autry, UCF’s associate provost for space commercialization and strategy, said he would not be surprised to see the record-breaking 94-launch threshold increase to 294 launches or 394 launches in the near future — further boosting the Space Coast economy.
“With New Glenn coming online and Starship coming here, it’s going to more than just ‘more launches.’ It’s going to be much, much bigger launches,” Autry said during a Wednesday interview at the Space Economy Summit.
“Those people, of course, have pretty good-paying jobs. The money they spend in the local economy flows down,” Autry said.
“And those companies have a supply chain — not just of exotic materials like Inconel. But they need food. They need office supplies. They need all the things that any other factory or business needs,” he said. Inconel is an advanced nickel-based alloy used by the space industry.
During a late September interview with FLORIDA TODAY, U.S. Rep. Mike Haridopolos said these launches represent not just a space race or American expertise, but a sign that Brevard’s economy is booming — and a reason so many people are relocating near the Cape.
“It was vacant 12 years ago. It was totally NASA. Now you go there — if you were Rumpelstiltskin and you took a time machine, or you fell asleep for a bunch of years — you’d say, ‘I can’t believe this is Brevard County,’ ” the Indian Harbour Beach Republican said.
“Every person in this county knows every two or three days there’s a launch,” Haridopolos said.
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Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
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