SpaceX tackles Space Coast’s first launch of the year

After a record year of launches, SpaceX kicked things off again with the first mission of 2025 on Friday night.

A Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:27 on the Space42 Thuraya 4 mission carrying a communications satellite to a geosynchronous transfer orbit for a commercial company based in the United Arab Emirates.

The first-stage booster for this mission made its 20th flight and made a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

SpaceX in 2024 flew 88 times from its Space Coast pads at Canaveral and neighboring Kennedy Space Center, accounting for all but five of the Space Coast’s 93 total launches for the year.

It flew another 46 from California setting a new company record of 134 orbital missions for the year, although it was shy of the company’s projected target of 12 launches a month, or 144 total.

The pace for 2025 is expected to be greater, according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

“Probably >180 Falcon launches in 2025,” he posted on X in December.