SpaceX checks off launch No. 9 from Florida’s Space Coast

After a week of nasty weather across Florida, the business of launching rockets got back on track Monday afternoon.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off at 5:05 p.m. Eastern time from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 carrying 21 of the company’s Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit.

The first-stage booster for the mission is the latest to join the 20-launch club for the company, making another recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas, stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. The fleet leader for SpaceX has flown 24 missions, but several have made it to 20.

The launch became the ninth of the year from the Space Coast, with SpaceX responsible for all but one of them. Blue Origin’s heavy-lift New Glenn rocket knocked out the other with its debut earlier this month.

The previous mission to fly before Monday’s launch was six days earlier, a bit of a lull after the first half of January saw a blistering pace of seven launches within 13 days between Jan. 3–16.

Space Launch Delta 45 officials confirmed the group was prepared to support up to 13 missions a month for a total of 156 for the year from launch pads at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral.

The majority of those will continue to be from SpaceX, which flew 88 of the 93 total missions in 2024, but a ramp-up for United Launch Alliance as well as more Blue Origin flights are expected in 2025.

SpaceX’s next launch is slated for Wednesday on the SpainSat NG 1 mission from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A during a window that runs from 8:34 p.m. until 12:23 a.m. Thursday.

2025 Orlando Sentinel. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.