Florida Today
Forget 'days of old.' Florida's Space Coast preps for 6 launches in a weekRick Neale, Florida Today
Mon, December 8, 2025 at 8:50 AM EST
2 min read
Six rocket launches within 6½ days? The busiest week of a record-shattering year of liftoffs from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center is upon us.
“The days of old, when we go back 10, 15 years with launch capability here off the Eastern Range — when we were putting up 10, 15, maybe 20 launches in a calendar year — are behind us,” Space Launch Delta 45 commander Col. Brian Chatman said last month during a media teleconference.
The annual orbital rocket launch record on Florida's Space Coast has already fallen by the wayside for the fourth consecutive year. The former record of 93 launches was broken by Nov. 10. And the 2025 tally has climbed to 103 launches thus far this year, with No. 104 slated to lift off this afternoon from KSC.
That's when SpaceX's Starlink 6-92 mission — which got scrubbed Sunday, Dec. 7, amid persistent rainy weather — is rescheduled with a 4:14 p.m. launch time.
Assuming that Falcon 9 rocket launches without further delays, the Space Coast's jam-packed upcoming launch schedule looks like this:
Tuesday, Dec. 9: A SpaceX Falcon 9 will launch the NROL-77 national security mission for the Space Force's Space Systems Command and the National Reconnaissance Office at 2:16 p.m. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Sonic booms from the descending SpaceX rocket booster are expected.
Thursday, Dec. 11: A SpaceX Falcon 9 will launch 29 Starlink internet satellites into low-Earth orbit between 1:59 p.m. and 5:59 p.m. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Sunday, Dec. 14: A SpaceX Falcon 9 will launch 29 Starlink satellites between 8:37 a.m. and 12:37 p.m. from KSC.
Sunday, Dec. 14: A second SpaceX Falcon 9 will embark on another Starlink mission between 9:43 p.m. and 1:43 a.m. Monday, Dec. 15, from the Space Force installation.
Monday, Dec. 15: A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will lift the next batch of Amazon Leo (formerly Project Kuiper) broadband satellites into low-Earth orbit. That launch window opens at 3:35 a.m. at the Space Force station.
If SpaceX's Starlink 6-92 mission launches at 4:14 p.m. this afternoon and ULA's Amazon Leo mission lifts off at 3:35 a.m. Dec. 15, then the slate of six launches will occur within six days, 11 hours and 21 minutes.
Live FLORIDA TODAY Space Team coverage of each mission will kick off 90 minutes before liftoff at floridatoday.com/space.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Six rocket launches slated within 7-day span on Florida's Space Coast
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