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SpaceX continues rocket fleet shuffle as Falcon 9 arrives for next CA launch

A rare view of Falcon 9 upper stage transport (left) and first stage delivery (right). (Instagram: @keeplookingup247)

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Strengthening the odds that SpaceX’s first Block 5 rocket will soon become the first Falcon 9 to launch three times, a SpaceX booster arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) on 10/25 ahead of Spaceflight Industry’s SSO-A rideshare mission, scheduled for launch no earlier than November 19th.

Notably, a flurry of spottings posted on social media offers a unique glimpse into the major logistical infrastructure SpaceX has built up over years of transporting massive Falcon rockets across the continental US.

Barely 24 hours after SpaceX successfully launched SAOCOM 1A, a Falcon 9 upper stage was seen traveling north just a few miles away from Vandenberg, wasting no time at all to fill the momentarily empty SLC-4 integration hangar. Two weeks after the second stage arrived, a Falcon 9 booster was spotted heading through Santa Maria towards VAFB, approximately on schedule for SSO-A’s targeted Nov 19 launch date.

Traveling from Hawthorne, CA, the identity of this particular booster is especially ambiguous. Due to a lack of on-base space at SpaceX’s Vandenberg facilities, there simply isn’t enough room for multiple boosters to be worked on in the SLC-4 hangar, meaning that the arrival of one rocket necessitates the departure of another. After landing for the first time at SpaceX’s West Coast LZ-4, Falcon 9 B1048 seems to have remained at the launch pad (assuming it didn’t manage to depart without being spotted). As such, the arrival of a booster on Oct 25 is firm evidence that B1048 is either not going to launch SSO-A or was refurbished at SpaceX’s Hawthorne factory a few hundred miles south of VAFB.

Neither outcome would be shocking: to be ready in time to launch SSO-A, B1048 would have had barely five weeks to go from landing at LZ-4 after its second flight to being ready for the rocket’s third flight. According to COO and President Gwynne Shotwell, Falcon 9 Block 5 boosters have apparently lowered the amount of time needed for post-launch refurbishment to four weeks – presumably the minimum value for the time being. On the opposite coast, the first Falcon 9 Block 5 booster to be built and launched – B1046 – completed its second successful mission on August 7, leaving a comparatively luxurious three months for refurbishment and flight readiness review.

Whether B1046 or B1048 rolls out of SpaceX’s Vandenberg hangar next month, the fact that a Falcon 9 booster was deemed ready for its third launch at all will be a huge achievement for the company and its ultimate goal of realizing aircraft-like reusability for orbital-class rockets.

SpaceX’s Vandenberg launch complex (SLC-4) and Falcon 9 B1048.2, October 6. (Eric Ralph)

It’s raining rockets!

Including the Falcon 9 booster that arrived at Vandenberg late last week, the sheer number of SpaceX rockets photographed mid-transport in the last week alone is – from a public perspective – quite possibly a record. The same night as that mystery booster arrived at SpaceX’s West Coast launch site, SpaceX announced that it had completed a static fire of Falcon 9 B1051 – assigned to Crew Dragon’s uncrewed launch debut – in McGregor, Texas. On October 28, a SpaceX fan observed a separate Falcon 9 booster heading east through Arizona, either a new booster being shipped from Hawthorne to Texas or B1048 on its way to Texas or Florida for refurbishment and launch #3.

A Falcon 9 booster was spotted east of McGregor on Oct 30, headed to Florida. (Instagram @ldm9132)

Finally, yet another Falcon 9 was spotted eastbound a few miles east of SpaceX’s McGregor rocket test facilities on October 30. While most likely the same booster spotted in Arizona on the 28th, the restless pace of SpaceX’s cross-country hardware transport almost defies the tracking abilities of those watching from the outside.


For prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket recovery fleet check out our brand new LaunchPad and LandingZone newsletters!

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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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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.

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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.

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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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SpaceX

SpaceX checks off 49 lunar lander milestones in push toward Artemis III

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX has revealed that it has completed 49 major milestones for NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) program, marking significant progress in the development of the Starship lunar lander that will deliver astronauts to the Moon. 

The updates were detailed in SpaceX’s new blog post To the Moon and Beyond, which was recently posted on the private space company’s official website.

As noted by SpaceX, the 49 milestones that were completed by its HLS team were “tied to developing the subsystems, infrastructure, and operations” needed to safely land humans back into the lunar surface. SpaceX noted that it has only received funding on contractual milestones that have been successfully completed, the vast majority of which have been achieved on time or ahead of schedule.

Following are highlights of SpaceX’s completed milestones, as per the company’s post. 

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  • Lunar environmental control and life support and thermal control system demonstrations, using a full-scale cabin module inhabited by multiple people to test the capability to inject oxygen and nitrogen into the cabin environment and accurately manage air distribution and sanitation, along with humidity and thermal control. The test series also measured the acoustic environments inside the cabin
  • Docking adapter qualification of the docking system that will link Starship and Orion in space, an androgynous SpaceX docking system capable of serving as the active system or passive system and based on the flight-proven Dragon 2 active docking system
  • Landing leg drop test of a full-scale article at flight energies onto simulated lunar regolith to verify system performance and to study foot-to-regolith interaction
  • Raptor lunar landing throttle test demonstrating a representative thrust profile that would allow Starship to land on the lunar surface
  • Micrometeoroid and orbital debris testing of shielding, insulation, and window panels, analyzing different material stackups that will be used to protect Starship from impact hazards and harsh thermal conditions
  • Landing software, sensor, and radar demonstrations testing navigation and sensing hardware and software that will be used by Starship to locate and safely descend to a precise landing site on the Moon
  • Software architecture review to define the schematic of major vehicle control processes, what physical computers they will run on, and software functions for critical systems like fault detection, caution and warning alerts, and command and telemetry control
  • Raptor cold start demonstrations using both sea-level and vacuum-optimized Raptor engines that are pre-chilled prior to startup to simulate the thermal conditions experienced after an extended time in space
  • Integrated lunar mission operations plan review, covering how SpaceX and NASA will conduct integrated operations, develop flight rules and crew procedures, and the high-level mission operation plan
  • Depot power module demonstration, testing prototype electrical power generation and distribution systems planned to be used on the propellant depot variant of Starship
  • Ground segment and radio frequency (RF) communications demonstration, testing the capability to send and receive RF communications between a flight-equivalent ground station and a flight-equivalent vehicle RF system
  • Elevator and airlock demonstration, which was conducted in concert with Axiom to utilize flight-representative pressurized EVA suits, to practice full operation of the crew elevator which will be used to transfer crew and cargo between Starship and the lunar surface
  • Medical system demonstration covering the crew medical system on Starship and the telemedicine capability between the ground and crew
  • Hardware in the loop testbed activation for the propellant transfer flight test which uses a testbed with flight representative hardware to run simulations for the upcoming propellant transfer flight test

Ultimately, SpaceX’s message is clear. With its plans for a simplified architecture, the timeframe of the first crewed lunar landing of the current century could happen sooner than expected.

Musk definitely seems determined to prove skeptics wrong, with the CEO declaring on X that Starship will be the vehicle that would pave the way for the buildout of a base on the Moon. “Starship will build Moonbase Alpha,” Musk wrote.

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