Tag: 18 June 2025

SpaceX Completes 75th Falcon 9 Launch of the Year, Deploys 28 Starlink Satellites

Spaceflight Now reports, “SpaceX completed its 75th Falcon 9 rocket launch of the year with a mission that blasted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in the predawn hours of Wednesday. The mission, dubbed Starlink 10-18, included the 9,000th Starlink satellite launched to low Earth orbit to date.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)

Spaceflight Now Update: June 18, 3:15 a.m. EDT: SpaceX confirms deployment of the 28 Starlink satellites. 



 Video

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from Cape Canaveral at 1:55 a.m. EDT on June 18, 2025 (Launch at 1:00:05 mark)
(Spaceflight Now; YouTube)

SpaceX Starship Upper Stage Explodes While Being Prepped for Next Engine Test Firing

CBS News reports a SpaceX Starship upper stage exploded in a spectacular conflagration during ramp-up to an expected engine test firing at the company’s Starbase manufacturing facility on the Texas Gulf Coast late Wednesday, destroying the rocket in what appears to be a major setback for the Super Heavy-Starship vehicle Elon Musk says is critical to the company’s future. “Video from LabPadre, a company that monitors SpaceX activities at Starbase, showed the Starship suddenly exploding in a huge fireball just after 11 p.m. CDT, 10 to 15 minutes before the anticipated engine test firing,” sending flaming debris shooting away into the overnight sky from a churning fireball that engulfed the test stand.
Full Story (CBS News)



 Video

SpaceX’s Starship explodes at its test site on June 18, 2025
(Spaceflight Now; YouTube)