Double launch day in Florida complete with SpaceX, ULA successes

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel on Sep 25, 2025

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A busy week on Florida's Space Coast saw two rockets launch within hours of one another as both SpaceX and United Launch Alliance had missions to proliferate a pair of competing satellite constellations.

The second launch came amid clear, blue skies as a ULA Atlas V lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 8:09 a.m.

Its payload was 27 satellites for SpaceX competitor Amazon for its Project Kuiper constellation. It marked the third time ULA has flown operational satellites for Amazon.

It also marked ULA’s fourth mission of the year, with three Atlas V rockets for Project Kuiper as well as ULA’s new Vulcan rocket on its first national security mission in August.

ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno said the company looks to fly as many as nine launches before the end of the year and then ramping up operations to a twice-monthly cadence by the end of 2026.

It also became launch No. 83 on the year from all launch providers on the Space Coast.

Launch No. 82 lit up the skies before dawn when a SpaceX Falcon 9 carried 28 more satellites for that company’s own broadband internet constellation Starlink.

That rocket lifted off from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 4:39 a.m.

Its first-stage booster flew for the 22nd time making a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic.

SpaceX has also flown a pair of missions for Amazon this year, even though its Starlink and Project Kuiper will be competing for customers. Starlink has had more than 8,400 satellites launched while this new batch of satellites for Project Kuiper will bring its total to 129 among five launches so far.

Amazon has contracted with ULA, Blue Origin, Arianespace and SpaceX for send up nearly 100 launches by 2029 to get 3,232 satellites into low-Earth.

SpaceX has now flown 78 of the 83 missions from either Cape Canaveral or neighboring Kennedy Space Center this year. That includes its latest flight from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A on Wednesday when it sent up three space weather satellites for NASA and the NOAA.

The only other launch service provider to fly on the Space Coast this year is Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, which saw the debut flight of its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket in January.

Its second flight is targeted late October or early November carrying a pair of Mars-bound satellites for NASA’s ESCAPADE mission.

The three companies are on track to surpass 100 launches on the Space Coast besting 2024’s record of 93. At the offset of the year, Space Launch Delta 45, which oversees the Eastern Range and juggles launch the companies’ launch needs, said it was prepared to support 156 launches for the year.

With SpaceX’s recent approval to up its Falcon 9 launch limits from Cape Canaveral from 50 to 120 launches a year, and a similar approval in the wings for its KSC launch site coupled with increased pace from ULA and Blue Origin, 2026 could hit or even surpass that number.

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