Video: Falcon 9 rocket fires engines in pre-launch test (members only)

Despite a growing number of rocket options, the availability of on-time launch services remains a key factor in getting BlackSky’s constellation of Earth-imaging smallsats into orbit. SpaceX’s rideshare launch service will give BlackSky a chance to add two more spacecraft to its fleet on a Falcon 9 rocket with the next batch of Starlink Internet payloads.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket climbed into space Monday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center atop a column of gleaming exhaust, shooting a commercial resupply vessel toward the International Space Station with research projects looking into cosmic rays, the origin of Parkinson’s disease, the utility of small satellites and an experimental radiation-tolerant supercomputer.

The Starlink 11-5 mission was the 95th flight in 2025 supporting the low Earth orbit internet constellation. Liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base happened at 7:16 a.m. PDT (10:16 a.m. EDT / 1416 UTC).