SpaceX
This is how big SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and BFR rocket is in real life
An artist duo has published an impressive, unofficial look at the true size of SpaceX’s reusable rockets, using a brilliant combination of 3D modeling and animation to really compare Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and BFR with recognizable landmarks and cityscapes, lending an incredible sense of scale to the extraordinary feats of engineering that SpaceX routinely launches, lands, and relaunches every month.
In the video, posted on the Corridor YouTube channel on June 19, VFX artist Wren Weichman — known on social media as “sirwrender” — acts as the host of a brief clip where he tours viewers around an office and several cityscapes populated with scale-model 3D renders of all of SpaceX’s various rockets, both those currently operational and those under development. His point is undeniably true: human brains simply are not accustomed to or easily able to build accurate mental pictures of vast real-world objects. The reality almost invariably comes as a visceral shock to onlookers, even those that know better than to trust their perceptual instincts. Be it grand natural wonders or human constructs, humans are quite simply bad at estimating scale until they do so in person.
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- SpaceX technicians work at the base of Falcon 9 B1039 ahead of launch, CRS-14. (Tom Cross)
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- The scale of Falcon Heavy. (Photo: Tom Cross)
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- The hypersonic X-15 and Falcon 9 S1, with a common 737-800 airliner on the right. All vehicles are roughly to scale. (Wikipedia, SpaceX)
With the case of rockets and their launches, this is doubly true and further exaggerated by the fact that launch webcasts, videos, and photos often feature unfamiliar backgrounds of industrial equipment or a perfectly featureless skies, all while almost invariably excluding (for good reasons…) familiarly scaled features like people, cars, animals, or everyday buildings. In many cases, preparations for rocket launches are often the absolute best times available for photos that truly give a sense of scale, as it’s actually reasonably safe to be and work in close proximity to an unfueled rocket.
With the help of models of Falcon 9, Heavy, and BFR created by 3D design Reese Wilson (@AstroReeseW), Wren (@sirwrender) takes those scale shortcomings to task and does his best to create examples with the very cues that average fans and viewers rarely get to see alongside real-life rockets.
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- Wren’s example of a rough, uneducated estimate of Falcon 9 legs based on easily available images and livestreams. (sirwrender/astroreesew)
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- The full-sized Falcon 9 landing leg is just a smidge larger in reality. (sirwrender/astroreesew)
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- A handful of rather absurd cases also serve to illustrate just how huge SpaceX’s rockets are. (sirwrender/astroreesew)
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- Just your run-of-the-mill pile of Falcon Heavies in suburban New York City. (sirwrender/astroreesew)
The video really needs to be watched to be fully appreciated – my favorite segment is near the start, where Wren notes that viewers likely expect some of the seemingly insignificant components, projecting a layperson size-estimate of a Falcon 9 landing leg inside his workplace before expanding it all the way to full-scale, at which point the leg literally does not fit inside the office. Visualizations of BFR further show that the crewed Mars rocket will effortlessly dwarf the already massive Falcon 9 and Heavy.
Regardless of whether you were or were not intimately familiar with the actual scale of SpaceX’s many rockets, Wren and Reese make for a seriously entertaining (and educational) combination. Here’s to hoping the duo ventures into more spaceflight and SpaceX videos in the future! Enjoy the video below.
SpaceX is opening up its internet service, Starlink, to those impacted by Hurricane Melissa, as it made landfall in Jamaica and the Bahamas as a Category 5 storm.
Hurricane Melissa is expected to reach wind speeds of over 165 MPH over the next few days as it extends out into the Atlantic Ocean by Thursday and Friday.
Satellite imagery shows Hurricane #Melissa‘s growth from its formation on October 21 to a Category 5 hurricane through October 27, 2025. #HurricaneMelissa pic.twitter.com/goR3Hbgb9c
— The Weather Network (@weathernetwork) October 27, 2025
Citizens in Jamaica and the Bahamas have been preparing for the storm for the past week, getting necessary goods together and preparing for the massive storm to arrive. It finally did yesterday, and the first images and video of the storm are showing that it could destroy many parts of both countries.
Starlink is now being opened up for free until the end of November for those impacted by the storm in Jamaica and the Bahamas, SpaceX announced today:
For those impacted by Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica and the Bahamas, Starlink service is now free through the end of November to help with response and recovery efforts → https://t.co/fUko3xSviJ
— Starlink (@Starlink) October 28, 2025
It is a move similar to the one the company made last year as Hurricane Helene made its way through the United States, destroying homes and property across the East Coast. SpaceX offered free service for those impacted by the destruction caused by the storm.
The free Starlink service was available until the end of 2024.
Elon Musk’s companies have also made similar moves to help out those who are impacted by natural disasters. Tesla has offered Free Supercharging in the past, most notably during the California wildfires.
Tesla and SpaceX’s LA fire relief efforts: Cybertrucks, free Starlink and more
One major advantage of Starlink is that it is available for use in situations like this one, where power might be required to operate things like a modem and router.
Internet access is a crucial part of survival in these situations, especially as it can be the last leg some stand on to get in touch with emergency services or loved ones.
SpaceX has reached an incredible milestone with its Starlink program, officially surpassing 10,000 satellites launched into low Earth orbit since starting the program back in 2019.
Last Sunday, October 19, SpaceX launched its 131st and 132nd Falcon 9 missions of 2025, one from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and the other from Vandenberg, California.
The 10,000th Starlink satellite was aboard the launch from California, which was Starlink 11-19, and held 28 v2 mini optimized satellites.
The achievement was marked by a satellite tracker developed by Jonathan McDowell.
🚨 With its Falcon 9 launch last Sunday, SpaceX officially has 10,000 Starlink satellites in orbit pic.twitter.com/xS5RVZ4ix0
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 26, 2025
The first Starlink launch was all the way back on May 23, 2019, as SpaceX launched its first 60 satellites from Cape Canaveral using a Falcon 9 rocket.
Of the over 10,000 satellites in orbit, the tracker says 8,608 are operational, as some are intentionally de-orbited after becoming faulty and destroyed in the atmosphere.
SpaceX has truly done some really incredible things during its development of the Starlink program, including launch coverage in a global setting, bringing along millions of active subscribers that use the service for personal and business use, locking up commercial partnerships, and more.
Starlink currently operates in around 150 countries, territories, and markets and is available at least somewhere on all seven continents.
Additionally, Starlink has over 5 million subscribers worldwide, and 2.7 million have joined the program over the past year. It has revolutionized internet access on commercial aircraft as well, as several high-profile airlines like Qatar and United, among many others, have already installed Starlink on some of their planes to deliver more stable connectivity for passengers and crew.
SpaceX has the approval to launch 12,000 Starlink satellites from the FAA, but it plans to bring over 30,000 to its constellation, giving anyone the ability to have access to high-speed internet.
Elon Musk
SpaceX posts Starship booster feat that’s so nutty, it doesn’t even look real
The Super Heavy booster’s feat was so impressive that the whole maneuver almost looked like it was AI-generated.
SpaceX has shared a video of a remarkable feat achieved by Starship’s Super Heavy booster during its 11th flight test.
The Super Heavy booster’s feat was so impressive that the whole maneuver, which was captured on video, almost looked like it was AI-generated.
Super Heavy’s picture perfect hover
As could be seen in the video shared by SpaceX, Starship’s Super Heavy booster, which is nearly 400 feet tall, smoothly returned to Earth and hovered above the Gulf of America for a few seconds before it went for its soft water landing. The booster’s picture-perfect maneuver before splashing down all but capped a near-flawless mission for Starship, which is about to enter its V3 era with Flight 12.
The booster’s balance and stability were so perfect that some users on X joked that the whole thing looked AI-generated. Considering the size of Super Heavy, as well as the fact that the booster was returning from space, the hovering display all but showed that SpaceX is dead serious about keeping its dominant lead in the spaceflight sector.
Starship V2’s curtain call
As noted in a Space.com report, Flight Test 11 achieved every major goal SpaceX had set for the mission, including deploying Starlink mass simulators, relighting Raptor engines in space, and executing a stable reentry for both the Starship Upper Stage and the Super Heavy booster. The feat also marked the second time a Super Heavy booster has been reflown, a milestone in SpaceX’s quest to make the entire Starship system fully reusable.
Starship’s V2 vehicle will now give way to the upgraded Starship V3, which is designed for faster turnaround and higher payload capacity. The Starship program is expected to pursue even more aggressive targets in the coming months as well, with Elon Musk stating on social media platform X that SpaceX will attempt a tower catch for Starship Upper Stage as early as spring 2026.
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