On Sunday, SpaceX successfully launched its 60th Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.It was also the 500th successful launch for the rocket as a whole. The company remains unrivalled by its competitors.
Falcon 9 anniversary launch
On Sunday, July 13, the American company SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket as part of the GTO 1 mission. The launch took place at 1:04 a.m. It was still nighttime on the east coast of the United States. But the Israeli satellite had been successfully launched into orbit.
What makes this mission interesting is that it was the 60th launched by the company from the 40 complex at Cape Canaveral. At the same time, it was the 500th successful launch of Falcon 9 since its debut in 2010. In total, the company carried out 502 launches, but two of them ended in failure. In addition, the company launched its Falcon Heavy rocket once.
SpaceX and competitors
All this accurately describes the situation about which private companies dominate the so-called Space Coast, as Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center are often called. In the first half of 2025, all commercial launches except for three were carried out by Elon Musk’s company. One launch was carried out by Blue Origin and two by United Launch Alliance.
It is quite possible that the situation will change in the near future, as ULA has prepared its new Vulcan rocket for the first launch as part of the USSF-106 military mission. Blue Origin says that the engines for the second New Glenn are ready. However, in both cases, the launch date is still unknown.
The next launch from KSC by SpaceX is the Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station, which will take place no earlier than July 31. It is expected that the crew will be replaced during this period.
According to phys.org
