SpaceX’s Epic 48 Hours: Astronauts Blast Off, Starship Roars & Starlink Soars (Aug 1–2, 2025)
SpaceX packed a whirlwind of headline-grabbing developments into the first two days of August 2025. From a triumphant crewed launch dodging storm clouds, to a fiery Starship engine test in Texas, to new milestones for the ever-growing Starlink satellite network – here’s your comprehensive roundup of everything SpaceX in the past 48 hours. Astronaut Launch: After a one-day weather delay, SpaceX successfully launched NASA’s Crew-11 mission on Friday, August 1. Nine Merlin engines thundered at 11:43 a.m. EDT from Kennedy Space Center, as the Falcon 9 rocket “threaded the clouds” and lifted Crew Dragon Endeavour into orbit spaceflightnow.com. On board were four crew members: NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, all embarking on a long-duration stay at the International Space Station nasa.gov. Despite gloomy Florida weather, the team beat the odds to blast off on schedule reuters.com, with the Dragon capsule separating cleanly from the second stage less than 10 minutes after liftoff spaceflightnow.com.