SpaceX Logs 165 Orbital Launches in 2025, Continues Bold Plan to Place Sky Behind Paywall

UNITED STATES ORBIT — SpaceX completed a record 165 orbital flights in 2025, further establishing itself as the dominant American launch provider and expanding the Starlink megaconstellation to more than 9,300 active satellites.

A majority of the year’s missions were dedicated to Starlink deployment, reflecting what industry watchers described as a modern business strategy: launch frequently, scale aggressively, and turn the night sky into an infrastructure layer you can invoice.

The company also marked major booster recovery milestones, including its 500th successful booster landing and reuse events, with at least one booster reportedly completing 32 missions, a level of reusability praised by supporters as efficient and criticized by others as “a little too comfortable with orbital consequences.”

SpaceX has indicated plans to shift certain operations toward Falcon Heavy and increase Starship testing into 2026, continuing the industry’s overall push toward higher launch cadence—an era in which access to space grows cheaper, and the cleanup bill becomes a philosophical concept for someone else’s decade.