Halfway through 2025, SpaceX breaks Falcon records and struggles with Starship

In the second quarter of 2025, SpaceX continued its record launch cadence with the Falcon family of rockets, completing the 500th launch of that family by any measure. The company continued to grow its Starlink constellation and customer base, and completed the deployment of its first-generation Direct-to-Cell constellation.

While all other programs at SpaceX have seen some level of success, the Starship program continued suffering issues and failures during the second quarter of 2025. This includes the explosion of a Starship second stage prior to a static fire test, which has prompted the company to devise a new path for Starship’s tenth flight. Additionally, progress continues in Florida to bring the massive rocket to the Space Coast.

Falcon and Dragon

During the second quarter of 2025, SpaceX once again launched more rockets than any other entity in the world. The 45 launches conducted in that period by SpaceX’s Falcon rockets made up 57% of all launches worldwide and more than 90% of all payload mass launched into space from Earth.

Graphic highlighting the worldwide mass-to-orbit amounts for the first and second quarter of 2025. (Credit: Ryan Caton/NSF)

With 81 launches completed in the first six months of the year, SpaceX would be on track to complete 162 launches by the end of 2025. However, much like what was analyzed in the previous quarterly roundup, this extrapolation is not entirely accurate, as it assumes that the launch cadence will remain constant for the rest of the year. 

But, even assuming a constant launch cadence, SpaceX wouldn’t need to increase its cadence that much for the remainder of the year to reach its goal of 170 launches by the end of 2025.

Caption: Table showing the number of launches per country of origin and their outcomes as of the end of the second quarter of 2025.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

In May 2025, SpaceX matched its current record for the most launches in a calendar month, first set in November 2024, with 16 launches. The company also set the highest average monthly cadence for any quarter thus far, managing to complete 15 launches per calendar month on average.

By maintaining that kind of cadence through the following six months of the year, it would already translate into an additional 90 launches in the second half of the year — not only reaching but surpassing the goal of 170 launches in total for 2025. 

This record launch cadence has been, in part, thanks to a rather failure-free quarter, at least compared to the previous one, where many technical issues led to SpaceX standing down for several days to investigate them. 

The third quarter of 2025 will see the first anniversary of Falcon 9’s last launch failure, which occurred during the Starlink Group 9-3 mission in July 2024. As of the time of writing, Falcon 9 has successfully completed 148 missions since that failure, something that, for any other rocket, would be an unprecedented streak of successful flights. 

However, this streak of successes does have precedence for Falcon 9 as it is less than half the length of the streak of successes the rocket achieved before Starlink Group 9-3, which stood at 335. At the rocket’s current launch cadence, if no further issues occur, it will likely reach that number again by the summer or fall of next year. 

In June 2025, SpaceX’s Falcon family achieved its 500th launch overall, counting the five Falcon 1 launches, 11 Falcon Heavy launches, and 484 Falcon 9 launches. Shortly after, the company also achieved the 500th successful launch within the Falcon family, with two for Falcon 1, 11 for Falcon Heavy, and 487 for Falcon 9.

Additionally, the Falcon 9 rocket itself achieved its 500th launch overall at the start of the third quarter of 2025 on the Starlink Group 10-25 mission. If the current launch cadence holds, Falcon 9 could cross the 600th and 700th launch marks in 2026.

Of these over 500 Falcon rocket launches, the majority have taken place from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40), which has become the most active launch site in history. SpaceX has launched more than 260 times from the Florida launchpad, with 38 of those launches occurring in the first half of 2025. 

This means the site has averaged a launch approximately every five days. During the second quarter of 2025, SpaceX set a new pad turnaround record. Although this new record was only slightly shorter than the previous one, it happened immediately after another quick turnaround that had come close to the record. 

This means the record was not a one-off event, and that SpaceX teams can achieve close to record-breaking turnaround times on multiple different occasions. SpaceX’s Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) also saw a new turnaround time record during the second quarter of the year, which saw a higher frequency of launches than in the first quarter. 

Caption: Table comparing previous record turnaround times and new record turnaround times at Space Launch Complex 40 and Launch Complex 39A

As with all past launch cadence and turnaround records set by SpaceX, these achievements were primarily made possible by the recovery and reuse of Falcon 9 boosters and fairings. 

In the second quarter, the Falcon 9 booster fleet saw a new record for most flights for a single booster. This was set by B1067 flying for the 28th time on the Starlink Group 6-83 mission in May. The booster has since flown again at the start of the third quarter, during the Starlink Group 10-25 mission, bringing the record up to 29 flights. 

Falcon 9 fairing halves also set a new record number of flights. In May, the fairing half SN185 became the first to fly for the 30th time. SpaceX does not publicly mention the previous flights of fairing halves for every mission, nor the number of times they’ve flown, unless it is for a special occasion or a customer mission.

However, since late last year, these fairing halves have been fitted with serial number decals that are visible under certain conditions, allowing observers to track these fairings and their flight history. 

Based on observations of the launches that followed the record-breaking 30th flight, it is believed that SN185 has flown at least two more times. This means the current record for most missions flown by a fairing half is, at least, 32.

SpaceX also introduced three new boosters during the second quarter: B1093, B1094, and B1095. The latter two boosters debuted from the company’s east coast launch facilities while the first debuted at SpaceX’s California launch site. 

Another booster, B1091, was also tested during this quarter at the company’s test facility in McGregor, but has not debuted yet. This booster is unique in that it was built as a Falcon Heavy center core but fitted with hardware typically seen only on Falcon 9. 

SpaceX officials confirmed that the company intends to fly the booster first as a Falcon 9 booster before using it as the center core of a Falcon Heavy on a later mission. This approach gives SpaceX the opportunity to further utilize the booster’s hardware, rather than creating a single-use vehicle, as has been the case in past Falcon Heavy missions.

While no boosters were lost in the last three months, booster B1076 has seemingly been pulled from regular rotation as it has not flown since February 2025. This booster, which has flown 21 times to date, may be in storage awaiting a dedicated mission. However, given its age, if that were the case, it would be very likely for that mission to see the booster expended. 

Falcon 9’s only expendable piece of hardware, its second stage, also seems to be progressing at a good pace in production and testing. Based on the test cadence seen at SpaceX’s McGregor test facility via NSF’s McGregor Live livestream cameras, the company is still under the ideal rate needed to fulfill the goal of 170 launches this year. Still, it’s performing better than last year. 

As SpaceX continues increasing Falcon’s launch cadence, the company is preparing to activate a new launch site for this storied rocket family at Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. 

In May 2025, the Department of the Air Force (DAF) released a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) studying the effects of launching Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets from SLC-6, as well as an increase in launch cadence at Vandenberg from 50 to 100 launches per year. 

SpaceX and the DAF initiated this process early last year, but the Draft EIS provides more details about the company’s plans for the site than were previously known. For example, it states that SpaceX plans to remove the legacy hardware that was used at the site for the now-retired Space Shuttle and Delta IV rockets. 

A new tank farm would be built on-site to support the RP-1 kerosene fuel that Falcon uses, and a pair of new landing zones would be built at the south of the complex for booster recovery. 

Proposed configuration of Space Launch Complex 6 as described in the Draft EIS. Building 398 located to the northwest, while located at SLC-6, was already part of SpaceX’s group of hangars and buildings and is used for booster and fairing refurbishment. (Credit: Department of the Air Force)

The site would still utilize some of the existing hardware, such as the flame trench, liquid oxygen storage, or the water tower. Under the main plan proposed in the document, SpaceX would use the existing Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF) that was used during the Delta IV program.

The Delta IV Medium and Delta IV Heavy rockets had their first and second stages integrated horizontally, allowing Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets to use the same hangar with minimal modifications to the existing infrastructure. If this is not possible, SpaceX also proposes an alternative plan where the existing HIF is not used for rocket integration and a new HIF is built closer to the pad.

In the second quarter of 2025, SpaceX launched a total of nine customer missions, down from 12 in the first quarter. This second quarter saw Dragon missions such as Fram2, the first crewed flight to orbit the Earth’s poles. This mission also marked the first time a Crew Dragon had splashed down off the coast of California instead of Florida. 

Caption: Table showing the types of missions launched during every month of 2025 thus far. 

SpaceX decided in 2024 to change coasts for Dragon recovery, allowing the spacecraft to deorbit while the trunk is still attached. This change necessitates the existence of large patches of water for the trunk to safely reenter and burn up.

To prepare for this new recovery plan, SpaceX relocated one of its Dragon recovery ships, Shannon, from Florida to California. The other recovery ship, Megan, remained in Port Canaveral until a few weeks ago, when SpaceX formally retired it.

Two other Dragon missions followed the Fram2 mission, with the CRS-32 cargo mission launching a few weeks later and Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) launching to the International Space Station in June. The Ax-4 mission featured the debut flight of a new Dragon capsule with serial number C213, where the “C” stands for capsule, the “2” for Dragon 2, and the “13” for the 13th Dragon 2 capsule.

Following previous traditions, the Ax-4 crew, being the first to fly in the new capsule, named the capsule Grace. As of writing, Crew Dragon Grace and its crew of four are still docked to the orbiting laboratory and are expected to return to Earth in mid-July.

In May, SpaceX also launched the GPS-III SV08 satellite for the U.S. Space Force (USSF) on a second demonstration of rapid response mission acquisition. The satellite had originally been scheduled to fly on United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket, but the USSF decided to switch rides and launch this satellite on Falcon 9 instead.

In turn, the USSF moved the GPS-IIIF SV11 satellite from Falcon Heavy to Vulcan. The change of vehicles was performed in February with the aim of launching the satellite before the end of May — a feat that all parties successfully achieved. 

SpaceX also launched commercial satellites, such as the SXM-10 satellite for SiriusXM. This mission featured, for the first time, a Falcon 9 second stage deorbit burn from a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO).

The company also launched the Bandwagon-3 and Transporter-14 missions under its Smallsat Rideshare Program, launching 73 payloads between both missions. 

More customer missions are expected in the third quarter of the year. SpaceX has already launched the MTG-S1 satellite for EUMETSAT, which also featured a second stage deorbit burn from GTO. Another satellite bound for GTO this summer is the Nusantara Lima communications satellite for Pasifik Satelit Nusantara of Indonesia. 

An upcoming O3b mPOWER satellite to be launched by SpaceX. (Credit: SES)

During this period, SpaceX also has a few missions dedicated to launching internet satellites for competitors of its own Starlink constellation. This includes a pair of O3b mPOWER internet satellites for Luxembourg-based SES and up to two missions for Amazon’s Project Kuiper. 

This summer could also see the beginning of launches for the Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture Tranche 1 constellation, which will feature a tracking and transport layer. SpaceX is under contract to launch several of these from Vandenberg and could make up a majority of the company’s customer launches from the west coast in the next year.