Space Industry Blastoff: Top Satellite & Space Developments (Sept. 2–3, 2025)
Starlink Surge: SpaceX kicked off September with back-to-back Starlink launches. On Sept. 2 at 8:51 p.m. Pacific, a Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg SFB in California carrying 24 Starlink internet satellites to polar orbit spaceflightnow.com space.com. Notably, this mission flew a brand-new first stage booster, a rarity for SpaceX’s now highly reflown fleet space.com. The booster – only the 7th new Falcon 9 introduced in over 100 launches this year spaceflightnow.com – successfully touched down on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship ~8½ minutes after liftoff spaceflightnow.com. “Reusability has fueled the growth for human spaceflight, for commercial launch and for government launch. And it’s also made a more reliable system,” SpaceX VP Kiko Dontchev said recently, adding “Falcon 9…has become the most reliable rocket in the history of the world” spaceflightnow.com spaceflightnow.com. The Vandenberg launch was SpaceX’s 109th Falcon 9 flight of 2025 and marked the 498th overall booster landing, underscoring that reliability and cadence spaceflightnow.com spaceflightnow.com.