Space Race Heats Up: Starlink Double Launches, Mars Mission Reveals & Australia’s Orbital Debut (July 27–28, 2025)
SpaceX conducted back-to-back Falcon 9 Starlink launches within 24 hours: July 26 from Cape Canaveral with 28 satellites and July 27 from California with 24 satellites, pushing the active Starlink constellation to 8,032. Crew-11 astronauts Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke, Kimiya Yui and Oleg Platonov are set to launch on July 31 aboard Dragon Endeavour to the ISS. Europe’s Vega C VV27 mission from Guiana Space Centre on July 25 placed four CO3D satellites into a 495 km sun-synchronous orbit and deployed CNES’s MicroCarb to a 650 km orbit. China unveiled Tianwen-3 Mars sample-return mission planned for a 2028 launch, aiming