July 13, 2025 at 6:10 PM EDT An early Sunday morning SpaceX launch marked the 60th orbital mission from the Space Coast from all companies for the year, but also the 500th successful mission for the workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:04 a.m. carrying an Israeli communications satellite on the Commercial GTO 1 mission. The first-stage booster flew for the 13th time and made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. It was the 502nd launch of a Falcon 9 since its debut in 2010, with the company only losing the rocket on two missions — once in 2015 and then in July 2024. The company has also flown its larger Falcon Heavy 11 times since 2018, but not yet so far in 2025. SpaceX has launched all but three of the Space Coast missions in 2025, with Blue Origin’s New Glenn making its debut flight in January and United Launch Alliance having flown two Atlas V rockets on missions for Amazon’s Project Kuiper in April and June. ULA has its new Vulcan rocket lined up for its first national security launch, the USSF-106 mission for the Space Force, but its launch date has not been announced. Blue Origin this week announced the engines for its next New Glenn rocket are ready, but isn’t expected to fly until at least fall. Meanwhile, SpaceX will continue to launch regularly from both Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center. The next KSC launch from SpaceX is the Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station no earlier than July 31. The Commercial Crew Program flight will take up two astronauts from NASA, one for Japan’s JAXA and one cosmonaut for Roscosmos to relieve the Crew-10 crew that has been on the station since March. — Richard Tribou / Orlando Sentinel Share this: