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Falcon Heavy Flight 2 has been completed successfully after marking SpaceX's first ever triple booster recovery. (SpaceX) Falcon Heavy Flight 2 has been completed successfully after marking SpaceX's first ever triple booster recovery. (SpaceX)

SpaceX

SpaceX Falcon Heavy just nailed a triple rocket landing for the first time

Falcon Heavy Flight 2 has been completed successfully after marking SpaceX's first ever triple booster recovery. (SpaceX)

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SpaceX has pulled off an incredible feat, successfully recovering all three of Falcon Heavy’s Block 5 boosters shortly after the rocket’s commercial launch debut. Followed about two minutes later by the center core’s bullseye drone ship landing, both side boosters once again performed a near-simultaneous recovery at SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral Landing Zones.

With this flawless triple recovery in hand, SpaceX now has plans to reuse both side boosters as early as June 2019, while the center core will likely support critical reusability analysis and may also launch again in the near future. Above all else, Falcon Heavy Flight 2 has demonstrated that SpaceX’s super heavy lift rocket is truly ready to offer routine commercial services for customers – both public and private – around the world. With a combination of reusability, affordability, and performance unlikely to be matched for a minimum of 2+ years, SpaceX and its Falcon Heavy rocket have the opportunity to create an entirely new market in the coming years.

Completed less than 35 minutes after launch, this mission included a wealth of major events and firsts, including the first launch of Falcon Heavy Block 5, the first successful triple booster recovery, and one of the highest orbital apogees yet seen during a SpaceX mission – >90,000 km (55,500 mi) above Earth.

The huge Arabsat 6A satellite – weighing around 6450 kg (14,200 lb) is not quite the heaviest individual spacecraft SpaceX has launched, but it is by far the highest energy orbit SpaceX has reached with a spacecraft anywhere close to its size. Known as a supersynchronous (perhaps ultrasynchronous?) transfer orbit, the extremely high apogee – almost three times higher than the nominal circular orbit Arabsat 6A is destined for – will help the satellite reach that orbit far sooner than it otherwise would. The sooner a spacecraft can begin nominal operations, the sooner it can begin making money for its owner/operator.

Falcon Heavy Block 5 lifts off for the first time, April 11th. (Tom Cross)

Around seven and a half minutes after launch, Falcon Heavy side boosters B1052 and B1053 nailed a flawless simultaneous landing at SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral-based Landing Zones (LZ-1 & LZ-2). Less than three minutes later, center core B1055 hit the bullseye on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You, wrapping up the first successful landing of the critical Falcon Heavy booster.

With three once-flown Block 5 boosters now in hand, SpaceX will attempt to turn around both side boosters – basically just Falcon 9 first stages with nose cones – for Falcon Heavy’s third launch, potentially as early as June 2019. Meanwhile, the center core will complete another 1000 km journey, this time back to the Florida coast before likely shipping to Hawthorne, California or a local hangar for analysis. Falcon Heavy’s center core, as is fairly visible, is dramatically different from the Falcon 9 boosters SpaceX is used to reusing, including a range of connection hardware that is absolutely flight-critical and protrudes rather aggressively into the rocket’s often-violent airstream.

In other words, Falcon Heavy center cores could get far more toasty than Falcon 9 or even their side booster companions, potentially damaging hardware that simply has to be perfect for Heavy launches to succeed and do so reliably. As such, SpaceX will likely be expecting to learn a fair bit of new information and gather critical data in the hopes of eventually optimizing Falcon Heavy center core refurbishment and reuse to Falcon 9’s current level of finesse.

SpaceX’s spectacular Arabsat 6A webcast can be watched in full below.

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Elon Musk

SpaceX’s next project will produce Starships at a level that sounds impossible

1,000 rockets per year is an insane number, especially considering Starship’s sheer size.

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Credit: SpaceX

Elon Musk has revealed bold plans for SpaceX’s newest Starbase facility in Texas, predicting it will become a birthplace for “so many spaceships.” The upcoming “Gigabay,” a massive $250 million production hub in Starbase, Texas, is designed to manufacture up to 1,000 Starship rockets per year.

That’s an insane number of rockets for a single facility, especially considering Starship’s sheer size. 

One of the world’s largest industrial structures

SpaceX’s Gigabay is expected to stand roughly 380 feet tall and enclose 46.5 million cubic feet of interior space, making it one of the largest industrial structures to date. The facility will feature 24 dedicated work cells for assembling and refurbishing Starship and Super Heavy vehicles, complete with heavy-duty cranes capable of lifting up to 400 U.S. tons, as noted in a Times of India report.

Construction crews have already placed four tower cranes on-site, with completion targeted for December 2026. Once operational, the Gigabay is expected to boost SpaceX’s launch cadence dramatically, as it would be able to build up to 1,000 reusable Starships per year, as noted in a report from the Dallas Express. Musk stated that the Gigabay will be “one of the biggest structures in the world” and hinted that it represents a major leap in Starbase’s evolution from test site to full-scale production hub.

A key step toward Mars and beyond

Starship is SpaceX’s heavy-lift rocket system, and it remains a key part of Elon Musk’s vision of a multiplanetary future. The vehicle can carry 100–150 tonnes to low Earth orbit and up to 250 tonnes in expendable mode. With several successful flights to date, including a perfect 11th test flight, the Starship program continues to refine its reusable launch system ahead of crewed lunar missions under NASA’s Artemis initiative.

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Starship is unlike any other spacecraft that has been produced in the past. As per Elon Musk, Starship is a “planet-colonizer” class rocket, as the magnitude of such a task “makes other space transport task trivial.” Considering Starship’s capabilities, it could indeed become the spacecraft that makes a Moon or Mars base feasible. 

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Cybertruck

Tesla Cybertruck fleet takes over at SpaceX’s Starbase

Interestingly, the Cybertruck uses the same exterior, a stainless steel alloy, as SpaceX rockets. This synergy between the two companies and their very different products shows a very unified mentality between Musk companies.

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Credit: @derek1ee | X

Tesla Cybertrucks have taken over at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas, as hundreds of the all-electric pickup trucks were spotted late last week rounding out a massive fleet of vehicles.

The Cybertruck fleet is geared toward replacing gas vehicles that are used at Starbase for everyday operations. The only surprise about this is that it was not done sooner:

Deliveries have been going on for a few weeks, as Cybertrucks have made their way across the state of Texas from Austin to Starbase so they could be included in SpaceX’s fleet of vehicles at the facility.

Interestingly, the Cybertruck uses the same exterior, a stainless steel alloy, as SpaceX rockets. This synergy between the two companies and their very different products shows a very unified mentality between Musk companies.

However, there are some other perspectives to consider as SpaceX is utilizing such a massive fleet of Cybertrucks. Some media outlets (unsurprisingly) are seeing this as a move of weakness by both Tesla and SpaceX, as the aerospace company is, in a sense, “bailing out” lagging sales for the all-electric pickup.

It’s no secret that Tesla has struggled with the Cybertruck this year, and deliveries have been underwhelming in the sense that the company was anticipating between 1 million and 2 million orders for the vehicle before it was widely produced.

A lot of things changed with the Cybertruck between its 2019 unveiling and 2023 initial deliveries, most notably, price.

The price of the Cybertruck swelled significantly and priced out many of those who had pre-ordered it. Some have weighed the option of whether this purchase was a way to get rid of sitting inventory.

However, it seems more logical to consider the fact that SpaceX was likely always going to transition to Teslas for its fleet, especially at Starship, at some point.

It doesn’t seem out of the question that one Musk company would utilize another Musk company’s products, especially considering the Cybertruck has been teased as the vehicle that would be present on Mars.

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News

SpaceX successfully launches 100th Starlink mission of 2025

With 100 Starlink missions completed for 2025, space enthusiasts have noted that SpaceX has successfully launched 2,554 Starlink satellites so far this year.

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(Credit: Starlink)

SpaceX achieved its 100th Starlink mission of the year on Friday, October 31, marking another milestone for 2025. 

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 28 Starlink broadband satellites successfully lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 4:41 p.m. ET, carrying another 28 Starlink satellites to Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

Falcon 9 booster’s 29th flight

Roughly 8.5 minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9’s first stage touched down on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean. This marked the booster’s 29th flight, which is approaching SpaceX’s reuse record of 31 missions.

This latest mission adds to SpaceX’s impressive 138 Falcon 9 launches in 2025, 99 of which were dedicated to Starlink, according to Space.com. The company’s focus on reusing boosters has enabled this breakneck pace, with multiple launches each week supporting both Starlink’s expansion and external customers.

Starlink’s network continues massive global expansion

Starlink remains the largest active satellite constellation in history, with more than 10,000 satellites launched, nearly 8,800 of which are currently active. SpaceX recently achieved Starlink’s 10,000-satellite milestone. With 100 Starlink missions completed for 2025, space enthusiasts have noted that SpaceX has successfully launched 2,554 Starlink satellites so far this year.

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Starlink, which provides high-speed, low-latency internet connectivity even to the world’s most remote areas, has been proven to be life-changing technology for people across the globe. The service is currently operational in about 150 countries, and it currently has over 5 million subscribers worldwide. From this number, 2.7 million joined over the past year.

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