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Today is Friday, Nov. 21, the 325th day of 2025. There are 40 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Nov. 21, 1985, U.S. Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard was arrested and accused of spying for Israel. (Pollard later pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to life in prison, but was released in 2015.)

Also on this date:

In 1920, on “Bloody Sunday,” the Irish Republican Army killed 14 suspected British intelligence officers in the Dublin area; British forces responded by raiding a soccer match, killing 14 civilians.

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In 1964, New York City’s Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, at the time the longest suspension bridge in the world, was opened to traffic.

In 1980, 85 people died, most from smoke inhalation, after a fire broke out at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The same day, an estimated 83 million TV viewers tuned in to the CBS prime-time soap opera “Dallas” to find out “who shot J.R.” (The shooter turned out to be J.R. Ewing’s sister-in-law, Kristin Shepard.)

In 1990, junk-bond financier Michael R. Milken, who had pleaded guilty to six felony counts related to violating U.S. securities laws by selling junk bonds, was sentenced by a federal judge in New York to 10 years in prison. (Milken served two.)

In 1995, Balkan leaders meeting in Dayton, Ohio, initialed a peace plan to end 3 1/2 years of ethnic fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In 2017, Zimbabwe’s 93-year-old president, Robert Mugabe, resigned; he was facing impeachment proceedings and had been placed under house arrest by the military. His resignation ended a 37-year rule beginning with Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.

In 2021, an SUV sped through barricades and into marchers in a Christmas parade in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, killing six people and injuring several others. A judge the following year sentenced Darrell Brooks Jr. to life in prison without parole for his conviction on first-degree intentional homicide and other counts.

In 2022, a powerful earthquake killed at least 162 people and injured hundreds on Indonesia’s main island of Java, sending terrified residents into streets covered with debris.

Also in 2022, NASA’s uncrewed Orion capsule reached the moon, whipping around the far side and buzzing the lunar surface on an orbit that broke the record for distance traveled by a spacecraft designed to carry humans. The mission marked the first time an American capsule visited the moon since NASA’s Apollo program ended a half-century earlier.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor Marlo Thomas is 88.
• Basketball Hall of Famer Earl Monroe is 81.
• Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois is 81.
• Actor Goldie Hawn is 80.
• Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana is 74.
• Journalist Tina Brown is 72.
• Actor Cherry Jones is 69.
• Gospel musician Steven Curtis Chapman is 63.
• Musician Björk is 60.
• Football Hall of Famer Troy Aikman is 59.
• Baseball Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. is 56.
• Football Hall of Famer-TV host Michael Strahan (STRAY’-han) is 54.
• Actor Jena Malone is 41.
• Actor-comedian Ronny Chieng is 40.
• Pop singer Carly Rae Jepsen is 40.

The Space Coast surpassed the record 93 launches seen in 2024 with the 94th launch of 2025 on Nov. 10. With SpaceX’s continued pace, more launches from United Launch Alliance and the debut of Blue Origin’s New Glenn, the Space Force had said it could support as many as 156 launches in 2025. It’s on track to at least surpass 100.

Check back for the latest information on upcoming launches.

By The Numbers:

2025: 100 Space Coast orbital launches, 1 hypersonic missile (updated Nov. 20) | 77 from Cape Canaveral, 23 from KSC | 93 from SpaceX (93 Falcon 9), 5 from ULA (4 Atlas V, 1 Vulcan), 2 from Blue Origin (New Glenn on NG-1, NG-2) | 4 human spaceflights (Crew-10, Fram2, Ax-4, Crew-11)

2024: 93 Space Coast launches | 67 from Cape Canaveral, 26 from KSC | 88 from SpaceX (86 Falcon 9, 2 Falcon Heavy), 5 from ULA (2 Vulcan, 1 Delta IV Heavy, 2 Atlas V) | 5 human spaceflights (Axiom Space Ax-3, SpaceX Crew-8, Boeing Crew Flight Test, Polaris Dawn | Crew-9)

2023: 72 Space Coast launches | 59 from Cape Canaveral, 13 from KSC | 68 from SpaceX (63 Falcon 9s, 5 Falcon Heavy), 3 from United Launch Alliance (1 Delta IV Heavy, 2 Atlas V), 1 from Relativity Space | 3 human spaceflights (Crew-6, Ax-2, Crew-7)

Details on past launches can be found at the end of file.

MOST RECENT LAUNCHES

Nov. 20: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-78 mission carrying 29 satellites from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A at 10:38 p.m. This was the 23rd flight of the first stage booster, which made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic. This was the 100th orbital launch from the Space Coast in 2025. Read more.

UPCOMING: 2025

Nov. 22: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-79 mission carrying 29 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 during launch window that runs from 1:59-5:59 a.m. This will be the ninth flight of the first stage booster, which will aim for a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic.

TBD, 2025 (Delayed from 2024): United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur on USSF-87, the rocket’s second planned Department of Defense mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41. USSF-87 is the one of two NSSF Phase 2 contracts awarded to ULA in 2021 originally targeting a launch by the fourth quarter of FY23 with the other launch, USSF-112 originally targeting a launch by the third quarter of FY23. Combined, the two mission task orders had an original contract value of $225 million.

TBD, late 2025: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Intuitive Machines IM-3 mission with Nova-C lander for NASA’s CLPS task order. Also called PRISM to carry four NASA payloads to the Reiner Gamma region of the Moon, as well as a rover, a data relay satellite, and secondary payloads to be determined. Scientific objectives include gaining an understanding of the Reiner Gamma swirl mini-magnetosphere region and its magnetic and plasma properties.

TBD, 2025: Blue Origin New Glenn carrying Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1), a single-launch, lunar cargo lander that remains on the surface. Will fly one scientific instrument awarded under NASA’s CLPS initiative.

UPCOMING: TBD IN 2026

TBD, no earlier than early 2026: Boeing Starliner-1 on ULA Atlas V from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Space Launch Complex 41. Two of the four spots assigned to this mission were reassigned to SpaceX Crew-11. This Starliner previously flew on Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 mission. Read more.

TBD, As early as Feb. 5, no later than April 2026: NASA Artemis II mission to send four crew on 10-day orbital mission to the moon from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-B. Read more.

TBD: Spring 2026: Blue Origin New Glenn mission on payload Blue Ring’s first mission with initial injection into Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO), with additional services performed in Geostationary Orbit (GEO).  Scout Space to integrate one of its flagship next-generation space domain awareness (SDA) Owl sensors onboard the first mission of Blue Ring,

TBD: Early 2026: SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost lander and Elytra Dark orbiting transfer vehicle on Blue Ghost Mission 2 to land on the far side of the moon and take advantage of the radio-quiet environment to deploy an array of antennas, comprising a low-frequency (0.1 to 50 MHz) radio telescope. The telescope will be used to observe the radio sky at frequencies below 50 MHz and will measure the low-frequency foreground of the universe. It will also help evaluate the far side of the moon as a radio-quiet environment, test the hypothesis of the late heavy bombardment of the moon, and test the hypothesis that a major rearrangement of planet distances and the beginning of life on Earth occurred at about the same time. The mission consists of the Blue Ghost lunar lander, the Elytra Dark orbital vehicle, and the Lunar Surface Electromagnetic Explorer Night system (LuSEE Night). Elytra Dark will serve as a transfer vehicle to bring the Blue ghost lander to the moon. Blue Ghost will land on the lunar far side carrying LuSee Night, which will deploy directly from the spacecraft.

TBD, No earlier than May 2026: SpaceX Falcon 9 with Vast Haven-1 uncrewed space station.

TBD, No earlier than June 2026: SpaceX Falcon 9 with Crew Dragon spacecraft with commercial customers for Vast.

TBD, no earlier than July 2026: SpaceX Falcon Heavy flying Astrobotic’s Griffin lunar lander as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. No longer taking the canceled VIPER rover mission. The Griffin lander will demonstrate its ability to land with no official NASA payload, but will touch down on Mons Mouton near the western rim of Nobile crater close to the lunar south pole. As of October 2026, the payloads are Astrolab’s FLIP (FLEX Lunar Innovation Platform) rover, Astrobotic’s own CubeRover, and several additional payloads to the moon.

TBD, 2026: SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying the Draper Lunar Lander headed for the moon’s Schrödinger basin on the lunar far side. It will carry three NASA-sponsored science payloads to make geophysical measurements as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. Draper Laboratories provides the launch and lander and is partnering with ispace with its APEX 1.0 lander which also will deploy relay satellites into orbit in order to allow communication with Earth from the far side of the moon. Schrodinger basin, a large impact crater near the moon’s south pole, shows evidence of geologically recent volcanic activity. The science payload to be landed there includes seismometers, a drill to allow emplacement of heat flow and electrical conductivity probes, and instruments to study the magnetic field and surface weathering.

TBD, no earlier than late 2026: United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur on the first Sierra Space Dream Chaser flight to the International Space Station. Mission slipped into 2025 because ULA needed more Vulcan rocket hardware beyond Cert-2 and the two USSF missions that took priority over the Dream Chaser flight. Still on NASA’s manifest for 2025 as of June, but not mentioned on ISS manifest before the end of the year. Read more.

UPCOMING: TBD IN 2027 and Beyond

TBD, Summer 2027: NASA Artemis III mission to send four crew on lunar landing mission to the moon from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-B. Read more.

TBD, No earlier than 2027: Intuitive Machines on IM-4 mission with Nova-C lander under NASA CLPS initiative with a lander headed to the south pole region of the moon, currently planned for the Mons Mouton region. It will carry a suite of six science payloads, with a total mass of 79 kg, to the surface. These include the Compact Infrared Imaging System, which is an imaging radiometer to make mineralogical and thermophysical measurements on the lunar surface; the Surface and Exosphere Alterations by Landers (SEAL) instrument designed to study the chemical response of the lunar regolith to the lander, as well as to characterize the lunar exosphere at the surface; the Fluxgate Magnetometer (MAG) to characterize the magnetic field of the Moon at low altitudes and on the surface; and a laser retroreflector. It will also carry the Lunar Explorer Instrument for space biology Applications (LEIA) science suite, which will study the biological response of yeast to the lunar environment and measure the radiation levels at the lunar surface. In addition, there is a European Space Agency payload, the Package for Resource Observation and in-situ Prospecting for Exploration, commercial exploration and Transportation (PROSPECT), designed to assess the potential use of resources for human exploration.

TBD: Firefly Aerospace with Blue Ghost lander under NASA CLPS initiative. Will feature an orbital transfer vehicle and rover headed to the Gruithuisen Domes on the moon. The objective is to study the composition and origin of the domes and surroundings. It will have a Sample Acquisition, Morphology Filtering & Probing of Lunar Regolith (SAMPLR) robotic arm. The mission will carry a suite of instruments, the Lunar Vulkan Imaging and Spectroscopy Explorer (Lunar-VISE). Lunar-VISE includes three instruments on the rover, the Visible Near-InfraRed (VNIR) Imaging Camera, the Compact InfraRed Imaging System, and the Gamma Ray and Neutron Spectrometer. It also has two cameras on the lander, the Context Camera and the Descent Camera. It will also carry the Heimdall imaging suite, a Radio-wave Observations at the Lunar Surface of the photoElectron Sheath (ROLSES) radio telescope, the Photovoltaic Investigation on the Lunar Surface (PILS), and the Neutron Measurements at the Lunar Surface (NMLS).

LAUNCHED IN 2025

Jan. 3: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Thuraya-4 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:27 p.m. The first-stage booster made its 20th flight and made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

Jan. 6: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-71 mission with 24 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 3:43 p.m. The first-stage booster made its 17th flight, having previously launched the Crew-5 human spaceflight and 15 other missions. It made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. Read more.

Jan. 8: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-11 mission from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 10:27 a.m. The first-stage booster made its third flight with a landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

Jan. 10: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-12 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 2:11 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for a record 25th time with landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

Jan. 13: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-4 mission with 21 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 11:47 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 15th time with landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

Jan. 15: SpaceX Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 1:11 a.m. with both the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost moon lander on Blue Ghost Mission 1, the third of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) missions, and the Japanese company ispace’s Hakuto-R Mission-2 lunar lander. Blue Ghost is designed to deliver 10 NASA payloads. Blue Ghost is slated to arrive to the moon 45 days after launch for a 14-day mission on the moon. The ispace lander named Resilience won’t arrive for 4 1/2 months after launch. On board is a micro rover built by ispace called Tenacious as well as several commercial payloads. Read more.

Jan. 16 (Delayed from Jan. 10, 12, 13): First launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket on the NG-1 Blue Ring Pathfinder mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 36 at 2:03 a.m. This would be the first of two certification flights for NSSL missions required by the Space Force. Payload will be Blue Origin Blue Ring pathfinder. Originally targeted to be 2nd launch of new rocket. New Glenn’s first launch was planned to be NASA’s Mars-bound ESCAPADE twin satellite mission, but that has been delayed to potentially spring 2025 or later. New debut launch then targeted November, but FAA only gave launch license on Dec. 27, same day as the rocket’s first test hot fire on the pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 36. Jan. 10 and 12 launch windows were waved off because of high seas for booster recovery, and then Jan. 13 attempt scrubbed “to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue” with no new launch date announced. Read more.

Jan. 21: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 13-1 mission with 21 Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 12:24 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 8th time landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

Jan. 27: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-7 mission with 21 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:05 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 20th time with a landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

Jan. 29: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the SpainSat NG 1 mission from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 8:34 p.m. The first-stage booster made a successful 21st liftoff, but was expended to get the satellite to a geosynchronous transfer orbit. Read more.

Feb. 4: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-3 mission with 21 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:15 a.m. This was the 21st launch for the first-stage booster, which made a  landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic. Read more.

Feb. 4: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Maxar Digital Globe 3 mission from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A with a pair of satellites headed to min-inclination orbit at 6:13 p.m. This was the fourth launch of the first-stage booster that made a recovery landing on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 1. It was the first LZ-1 landing of the year after 12 in 2024 and 6 in 2023. Read more.

Feb. 8: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-9 mission carrying 21 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 2:18 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 17th time and made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. Read more.

Feb. 11: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-18 mission with 21 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:53 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 18th time and made a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

Feb. 15: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-8 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 targeting at 1:14 a.m, This was a record 26th launch for the first-stage booster, which made a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. Read more.

Feb. 18: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-12 mission carrying 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 6:21 p.m. The was the 16th launch of the first-stage booster, which made a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in Exuma Sound off the coast of the Bahamas. SpaceX has warned that residents in the Bahamas may hear one or more sonic booms during the first-stage landing. Read more.

Feb. 21: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-14 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 10:19 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 21st time and made a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

Feb. 26: Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:16 p.m. Flying is the company’s second Nova-C lander named Athena featuring NASA’s PRIME-1 drill, to land a drill and mass spectrometer near the south pole of the moon in order to demonstrate the feasibility of in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) and measure the volatile content of subsurface samples. Also flying is the Lunar Trailblazer, a mission selected under NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program, a small satellite designed to provide an understanding of the form, abundance, and distribution of water on the moon, as well as the lunar water cycle. A secondary payload is the AstroForge Odin spacecraft headed for a a near-Earth asteroid named 2022 OB5. The first-stage booster made its ninth flight landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas, marking its 100th booster catch. Read more.

Feb. 26: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-13 mission with 21 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 10:34 p.m. The first-stage booster flew its debut launch and made a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

March 2: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-20 mission with 21 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 9:24 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the fifth time landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. A fire after landing, though, caused the booster to tumble and be destroyed.

March 12: SpaceX Falcon on the Starlink 12-21 mission with 21 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 targeting 10:35 p.m.  The first-stage booster made its 22nd flight with a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. Read more.

March 14 (delayed from March 12): SpaceX Crew-10 mission on SpaceX Falcon 9 in the Crew Dragon Endurance at 7:03 p.m. from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A. Delayed from a planned February launch because of more time needed for a new Crew Dragon from SpaceX, but then the decision to switch to Endurance moved up the mission by about two weeks. The Crew-10 and a planned summer launch of Crew-11 were awarded in lieu of the now-delayed Boeing Starliner-1 mission after issues with 2024’s Boeing Crew Flight Test mission. Booster flew for the second time with landing at Canaveral’s Landing Zone 1. Scrubbed March 12 attempt. Read more.

March 15: SpaceX Falcon on the Starlink 12-16 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:35 a.m. The launch came just two days, eight hours, 59 minutes since the previous launch at SLC-40, setting a turnaround record. The first-stage booster flew for the 18th time landing on the Just Read the Instructions droneship.

March 18: SpaceX Falcon on the Starlink 12-25 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 3:57 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 19th time and made a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

March 24: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the classified NROL-69 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:48 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the second time with recovery landing at Canaveral’s Landing Zone 1. This was the 25th launch of the year. Read more.

March 31 (delayed from March 30) SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-80 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 3:52 p.m. The first-stage booster made its 17th flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

March 31: SpaceX Falcon 9 with Crew Dragon on the Fram2 private human spaceflight mission from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A in the Crew Dragon Resilience at 9:46 p.m. It marks the first time humans have flown on a polar orbital mission. Named Fram2 in deference to the ship “Fram” built in Norway that helped explorers get to the Arctic and Antarctica. The crew includes Chinese-born Chun Wang of Malta, an entrepreneur who made a fortune in cryptocurrency and an avid adventurer. Along for the ride will be fellow adventurers Eric Philips of Australia, Jannicke Mikkelsen of Norway and Rabea Rogge of Germany. Mikkelsen will take the role of mission commander and Philips the role of pilot. The first-stage booster made its sixth flight with a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. Resilience is on its fourth trip to space and will land off the coast of California. Read more.

April 5: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-72 mission with 28 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 11:07 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 19th time landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions.

April 12 (Delayed from April 11): SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 12-17 mission with 21 Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A during at 8:54 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 10th time. It previously flew crewed missions Crew-8, Polaris Dawn and IM-2. It made a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

April 14: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-73 mission carrying 27 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 12 a.m. This marked the fleet-leading 27th launch of the first-stage booster that made a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean. This was the 30th launch of the year.

April 21: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the CRS-32 resupply mission to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 4:15 a.m. The first-stage booster made its third flight with a recovery landing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 1. This was the fifth flight on the Dragon spacecraft. It will dock with the ISS after a 28-hour flight targeting 8:20 a.m. Tuesday. Read more.

April 21: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Bandwagon-3 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:48 p.m. On board this mission were ADD’s 425Sat-3, Tomorrow Companies Inc.’s Tomorrow-S7, and Atmos Space Cargo’s PHOENIX re-entry capsule. This was the third flight for the first-stage booster and it made a recovery landing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 2. Read more.

April 24: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-74 mission with 28 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 9:52 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for its 23rd time landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

April 25: The Army and Navy performed a test launch of the hypersonic missile defense system Dark Eagle from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 46. Read more.

April 27: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-23 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 10:09 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 20th time making a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions.

April 28 (Delayed from April 9, 14): United Launch Alliance Atlas V from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 on the Kuiper 1 at 7:01 p.m. on the inaugural launch of Amazon’s Project Kuiper with 27 satellites for the constellation headed for low-Earth orbit. ULA has only 14 more Atlas V rockets including seven more set aside for Amazon. This was ULA’s first launch of the year and the Space Coast’s 35th overall. Read more.

April 28: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-10 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39-A at 10:34 p.m. The first-stage booster made its first flight with a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic.

May 1: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-75 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 9:51 p.m. The first-stage booster made its 18th flight with a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic.

May 4: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-84 mission with 29 Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39-A  4:55 a.m. The first-stage booster made its 20th flight making a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

May 6: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-93 mission with 28 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 during four-hour launch window from 8:22 p.m. to 12:22 a.m. May 7, and backup later on May 7 from 7:56-11:56 p.m. This is the seventh flight for the first-stage booster that will attempt a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

May 10: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-91 mission with 28 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 2:28 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 11th time landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. This was the 40th launch of the year.

May 13 (Delayed from May 11): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-83 mission with 28 Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39-A at 1:09 a.m. Scrubbed May 11 because of high winds. This was the record-leading 28th launch of the first-stage booster, which flew the Crew-3 and Crew-4 missions among 27 previous. It made a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. This also marked the 100th Falcon 9 launch from 39-A.

May 14: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-67 mission with 28 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 12:38 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the fourth time landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

May 20: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-15 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 At 11:19 p.m. This was the debut flight of the first-stage booster that made a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship Just Read the Instructions.

May 24: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-22 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40  at 1:19 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 24th time landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

May 28: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-32 mission with 27 Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 9:30 a.m. The first-stage booster made its 19th flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic. This was the 45th launch of the year. Read more.

May 30: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the GPS III-7 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40  at 1:37 p.m. This is one of the missions originally awarded to United Launch Alliance under the NSSL Phase 2 contracts, but shifted to SpaceX after delays in ULA’s Vulcan certification. The first-stage booster flew for the fourth time and made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. Read more.

June 3: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 12-19 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 12:43 a.m. The first-stage booster flew its 21st time with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic.

June 7: SpaceX Falcon 9 on SiriusXM-10 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 12:54 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the eighth time landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

June 10: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 12-24 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 9:05 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 12th time with a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

June 13: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-26 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 11:29 a.m.  The first-stage booster made its 21st launch with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. This was the 50th orbital launch of the year from the Space Coast. Read more.

June 18: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-18 mission with 28 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:55 a.m. The mission included the 9,000th Starlink flown since the first operational mission in 2019. The first-stage booster flew for the fifth time landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions.

June 23 (Delayed from June 16): United Launch Alliance Atlas V on the Kuiper 2 mission with 27 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41. at 6:54 a.m. Launch was ULA’s 2nd of the year following the April 28 launch of Kuiper 1 to put 27 satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper into space, the first of dozens of launches lined up to help build out a constellation of more than 3,200 satellites by 2028 and compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service. Read more.

June 23: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-23 mission with 27 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 targeting the opening of window from 1:58 a.m. The first-stage flew for the 25th time with a landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

June 25 (delayed from June 10, 11): SpaceX Falcon 9 with unnamed Crew Dragon on Axiom Space Ax-4 mission to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 2:31 a.m. The crew assigned to Ax-4 includes Commander Peggy Whitson, Mission Pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of India, Mission Specialist Sławosz Uznański of ESA/Poland, and Mission Specialist Tibor Kapu of Hungary. This would be Whitson’s second trip on an Axiom mission to the ISS, and part of NASA’s requirement that former NASA astronaut command commercial mission visits to the ISS. The commercial flight brings four crew for a short stay on the ISS. This mission is targeting a 14-day stay, and will fly up the fifth SpaceX Crew Dragon, which was named Grace once on orbit. This was the second flight of the first-stage booster, which made a recovery landing back at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 1. Read more.

June 25: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-16 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 3:54 p.m. carrying 27 more Starlink satellites to orbit. The first-stage booster flew for the 20th time landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. This was the 55th launch of the year.

June 28: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-34 mission with 27 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 12:26 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the fifth time and made a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortffall of Gravitas. The launch set a pad turnaround record for SpaceX, coming two days, eight hours, 31 minutes after the Starlink 10-16 launch on June 25.

July 1: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the MTGS1 mission with the second of EUMETSAT’s third generation of weather satellites from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 5:04 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for its ninth flight with a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. MTG-S1 will sample the atmosphere at hyperspectral resolution. Its core instrument, the Infrared Sounder, collects temperature profiles and humidity profiles. The satellite also hosts the European Union’s Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission, which aims to monitor key air quality trace gases and aerosols over Europe in support of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) at high spatial resolution and with a fast revisit time. The mission is part of the European Earth Observation Program “Copernicus” which is run by the European Union together with the European Space Agency (ESA) in cooperation with the European Environment Agency (EEA). Read more.

July 2: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-25 mission with 27 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 2:28 a.m. This marked the 500th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket and the fleet-leading 29th launch of the first-stage booster that landed on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

July 8: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-28 mission with 28 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 4:21 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 22nd time making a landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

July 13: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Commercial GTO 1 mission with an Israeli communications satellite called Dror 1 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:04 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 13th time and made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. It marked the 500th successful Falcon 9 launch, with only two failures from 502 missions flown since 2010. Those were in 2015 and 2024. This was the 60th launch on the Space Coast in 2025. Read more.

July 16: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the KF-01 mission to bring up 24 more satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 during at 2:30 a.m. This was the third launch of operational satellites for Amazon’s broadband internet constellation, which is seeking to become a competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink service. The previous two launches were on ULA Atlas V rockets with 27 satellites each. This was the first launch of the booster for this mission, which made a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

July 22 (Delayed from July 21): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the mPOWER-D mission with two more communication satellites for Luxembourg-based SES from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:12 p.m. The July 21 attempt aborted with just under 15 seconds on the clock ahead of a 5:27 p.m. liftoff attempt. These are the ninth and 10th O3b mPOWER satellites built by Boeing Space for the company. The are headed to medium-Earth orbit at about 5,000 miles altitude. This was the sixth flight of the first-stage booster, which made a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

July 26: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-26 mission with 28 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:01 a.m. This was the 22nd flight of the first-stage booster, which made recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic.

July 30: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-29 mission with 27 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 11:37 p.m. This was the 26th flight of the first-stage booster, which made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic.

Aug. 1 (Delayed from July 31): SpaceX Crew-11 mission on SpaceX Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 11:43 a.m. Crew is NASA astronauts Commander Zena Cardman and Pilot Mike Fincke, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Mission Specialist Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Mission Specialist Oleg Platonov. This is the first spaceflight for Cardman and Platonov, the fourth trip for Fincke, and the second for Yui, to the orbiting laboratory. The first-stage booster made its third flight having previously flown on a Starlink mission and the Ax-4 mission It made SpaceX’s final landing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 1 (although SpaceX may still use LZ-2 before new landing sites are created at its SLC-40 and LC-39A sites). This is a record sixth flight for Crew Dragon Endeavour, which made SpaceX’s debut human spaceflight in May 2020 on the Demo-2 mission. This was the 65th launch of 2025. Read more.

Aug. 4: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 10-30 mission with 28 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 during launch window at 3:57 a.m. The first-stage booster made its 21st flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. It was the 450th reuse of a first-stage booster.

Aug. 11 (Delayed from Aug. 7, 8, 9, 10): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the KF-02 mission to send up next batch of Amazon Project Kuiper satellites, the second of three contracted missions for SpaceX with its Starlink competitor, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:35 a.m. This was the first flight of the first-stage booster, which made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. Scrubbed initially for rocket checkouts. Aug. 9 attempt scrubbed because of weather at the launch site. Aug. 10 attempt scrubbed for weather at booster recovery site. This was the 50th CCSFS orbital launch of the year. Read more.

Aug. 14: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 10-20 mission with 28 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:29 a.m. The first-stage booster made its 10th flight and made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions.

Aug. 12 (Delayed from 2024): United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur on USSF-106, the rocket’s first Department of Defense mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 8:56 p.m. Payload is two satellites, including the Navigation Technology Satellite-3 headed to geostationary orbit. Built by L3Harris, it’s funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory and potential replacement technology for GPS. USSF-106 is the 2nd of two NSSF Phase 2 contracts awarded to ULA in 2020 originally targeting a launch by the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2022 (FY22). The first, USSF-51, launched in summer 2024, originally slated to be on Vulcan, but moved to Atlas V, and originally to have been launched  by the second quarter of FY22. Combined, the two mission task orders had an original contract value of $337 million. Read more.

Aug. 21: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the USSF-36 mission with the Boeing X-37B Orbital Test Vehcile (OTV-8) spacecraft on its eighth mission to space from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 11:50 p.m. The X-37B program, which first launched in April 2010, has accrued 4,208 days in operation. The first-stage booster flew for the sixth time and made a recovery landing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 2. This was the 70th launch of the year. Read more.

Aug. 24: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the CRS-33 resupply mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 2:45 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for its seventh time with a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. This is the third flight of the cargo Dragon that will be outfitted with reboost capacity for the International Space Station for the first time. Read more.

Aug. 27: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-56 mission with 28 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 during launch window at 7:10 a.m. The first-stage booster made its 2nd flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions.

Aug. 28: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 10-11 mission with 28 satellites from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 1:12 a.m. The first-stage booster made its fleet-leading 30th flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

Aug. 31: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-14 mission with 28 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:49 a.m. The first-stage booster made its 23rd flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. It was SpaceX’s 70th launch of the year from the Space Coast. Read more.

Sept. 3: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 10-22 mission with 28 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:56 a.m. The first-stage booster made its 14th flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.This was the 75th launch of the year

Sept. 5: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 10-57 mission with 28 satellites from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 8:32 a.m. The first-stage booster made its 27th flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. It marked the 500th recovery of a Falcon booster. .

Sept. 11 (Delayed from Sept. 8, 9, 10): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Nusantara Lima mission headed to geosynchronous transfer orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 9:56 p.m. The first-stage booster made its 23rd flight with a planned recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

Sept. 14: Northrop Grumman Cygnus on NG-23 resupply mission to the ISS on SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 6:11 p.m. This was the fourth flight of the first-stage booster, making a recovery landing at Canaveral’s Landing Zone 2. Read more.

Sept. 18: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-61 mission carrying 28 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:30 a.m. The first-stage booster made its seventh flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic. This was the 75th launch from SpaceX on the Space Coast for the year and 60th from CCSFS from all providers.

Sept. 21: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-27 mission carrying 28 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 6:53 a.m. The first-stage booster made its 11th flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. This was the 80th launch of the year on the Space Coast and 20th of the year from KSC. Read more.

Sept. 24: SpaceX Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 7:30 a.m. with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Follow On–Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) Observatory and two NASA observatories: the IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) and Carruthers Geocorona Observatory spacecraft.  The first-stage booster made its second flight to space with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic.  Read more.

Sept. 25: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-15 mission carrying 28 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 4:39 a.m. The first-stage booster made its 22nd flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. Read more.

Sept. 25: United Launch Alliance Atlas V on the Kuiper 3 mission with 27 more satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 8:09 a.m. Read more.

Oct. 7: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-59 mission carrying 28 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 2:46 a.m. The first-stage booster made its eighth flight and recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. Read more.

Oct. 13 (Delayed from Oct. 9): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the KF-3 mission to launch 24 more satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper constellation lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 9:58 p.m. This was the third of three contracted Project Kuiper flights Amazon has with SpaceX, and sixth overall flight to put operational satellites into orbit. The other three have been from ULA Atlas V launches this year. This batch would bring Amazon’s satellite total to 153 of the planned 3,236 total needed to be in orbit by July 2029 (Half of which are supposed to be in orbit by July 2026). The first-stage booster flew for second time with a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. This was the 85th launch from the Space Coast in 2025. Read more.

Oct. 16: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-52 mission carrying 28 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:27 a.m. The first-stage booster made its third flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic. It marked the 500th successful landing of a Falcon 9 booster. This marked a record turnaround at SLC-40 coming two days, seven hours, 29 minutes since a launch on Oct. 13. Read more.

Oct. 19: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-17 mission carrying 28 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 targeting at 1:39 p.m. The first-stage booster made its fleet-leading 31st flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. Read more.

Oct. 23: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the SpainSat NG II Mission flying a communications satellite to geosynchronous transfer orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 9:30 p.m. This was the 22nd flight for the first-stage booster, but had no recovery because of extra power needed to get the payload to its destination. Read more.

Oct. 26: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-21 mission carrying 29 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 11 a.m. The first-stage booster made its 24th flight with recovery landing downrange on droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. Read more.

Oct. 29: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-37 mission carrying 29 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 12:36 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 15th time with a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic. This was the 90th Space Coast launch of the year, with all but five coming from SpaceX. Read more.

Nov. 2: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Bandwagon-4 mission at 1:09 a.m. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40. Carrying 18 payloads for KOREA ADD, Exolaunch, Fergani, Tomorrow Companies Inc., Starcloud, and Vast. This was the third flight for the first stage booster with a land recovery at Canaveral’s Landing Zone 2. Read more.

Nov. 5: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-81 mission carrying 29 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:30 p.m. This was the fifth flight of the first stage booster that made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic. Read more.

Nov. 9 (Delayed from Nov. 8): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-51 mission carrying 29 satellites from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A at 3:10 a.m. This was the 28th flight of the first stage booster with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. The Saturday launch attempt scrubbed under a minute before liftoff because of bad weather in the booster recovery area. This was the 93rd launch of the year, tying the record on the Space Coast. It’s also the 21st launch from KSC. Read more.

Nov. 10: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-87 mission carrying 29 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 10:21 p.m. This was the third flight of the first stage booster that made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic. This marked a record 94th orbital launch for 2025. Read more.

Nov. 13: (Delayed from Oct. 13, 2024, Nov. 9, 12 2025): Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket of the twin spacecraft for ESCAPADE, which stands for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, for NASA and the University of California Berkeley’s Space Science Laboratory. Launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 36 at 3:55 p.m. The first-stage booster named “Never Tell Me The Odds” made a successful landing downrange in the Atlantic on recovery vessel Jacklyn. Read more.

Nov. 13: (delayed from Nov. 5,6): ULA Atlas V on the ViaSat-3 F2 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 10:04 p.m. After this launch, all remaining Atlas V rockets are set aside for Amazon’s Project Kuiper (5) or Boeing’s Starliner (6). Read more.

Nov. 14: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-89 mission carrying 29 satellites from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A. at 10:08 p.m. This was the eighth flight of the first stage booster, which made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. Read more.

Nov. 15: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-85 mission carrying 29 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:44 a.m.  This was the third flight of the first stage booster, which made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic. Read more.

Nov. 18: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-94 mission carrying 28 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:12 p.m. This was the 12th flight of the first stage booster, which made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. This was the 99th orbital launch from the Space Coast in 2025.

LAUNCHED IN 2024

Jan. 3: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Ovzon 3 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 6:04 p.m. This was the first launch of 2024. The 3,968-pound Ovzon 3 satellite is the first privately funded and developed Swedish geostationary satellite ever to be launched, headed for a geostationary transfer orbit where it will then propel itself to its geostationary orbit over 3-4 months at 59.7 degrees east at 22,236 miles altitude. The first-stage booster flew for the 10th time with a recovery landing at Canaveral’s Landing Zone 1. Read more.

Jan. 7: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-35 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:35 p.m. The first-stage booster made its 16th flight having previously flown on two crewed and two cargo missions to the International Space Station among others. It managed its recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

Jan. 8 (Delayed from May 4, Dec. 24-26): First-ever launch of United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur on Certification-1 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 2:18 a.m. Primary payload was commercial company Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander headed to the moon. Also flying will be another human remains payload for Celestis Inc., this time brining the ashes of more than 200 people to space including “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry and actor James Doohan who played “Scotty” on the TV series. Read more.

Jan. 14 (Delayed from Jan. 13): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-37 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 with 23 Starlink satellites at 8:52 p.m. The first-stage booster flew its 12th mission and with a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas downrange in the Atlantic. This was the fourth launch from the Space Coast in 2024. Read more.

Jan. 18 (Delayed from Jan. 17): SpaceX Falcon 9 with a Crew Dragon Freedom for Axiom Space’s Axiom-3 mission launched at 4:49 p.m. from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A. The crew includes one astronaut each from Italy, Turkey and Sweden while the mission is led by Axiom’s chief astronaut Michael López-Alegría who is making his sixth trip to space. The customers are Italian Air Force Col. Walter Villadei, who will act as pilot. In the two mission specialist roles are Alper Gezeravcı of Turkey and ESA project astronaut Marcus Wandt of Sweden. All three have served in their respective nations’ air forces. The commercial flight brings four crew for a short stay on the ISS. This mission is targeting a 14-day stay with docking planned for Saturday at 5:15 a.m. The first-stage booster made a landing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 1. Read more.

Jan. 28: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-38 mission with 23 Starlink satellites at 8:10 p.m. liftoff on a southerly trajectory from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39-A. The first-stage booster made its 18th flight, with past missions including the crewed flights of Inspiration4 and Ax-1, and had a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

Jan. 30: SpaceX Falcon 9 with Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft on the NG-20 mission to resupply the International Space Station at12:07 p.m.. This was the first ISS launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40, which SpaceX has been redeveloping to support future crewed missions in addition to KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A. This was the first of at least three SpaceX flights of Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft as part of a deal after its 10-year run of launches atop Antares rockets ended with the Aug. 1 launch from Wallops Island, Virginia because of issues with Russian- and Ukrainian-made rocket engines and first stage parts that are being redeveloped with Firefly Aerospace for a future Antares rocket not expected until at least 2025. Following launch, the space station’s Canadarm2 will grapple Cygnus no earlier than Thursday, Feb. 1, and the spacecraft will attach to the Unity module’s Earth-facing port for cargo unloading by the Expedition 70 crew. The first-stage booster made its 10th flight and returned for a touchdown at Canaveral’s Landing Zone 1. Read more.

Feb. 8 (Delayed from Feb. 6, 7): NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol Cloud Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:33 a.m. PACE will advance the assessment of ocean health by measuring the distribution of phytoplankton, tiny plants and algae that sustain the marine food web, as well as clouds and aerosols in the atmosphere. The first-stage booster flying for the fourth time made a recovery landing at Canaveral’s Landing Zone 1. Read more.

Feb. 14: A SpaceX Falcon 9 on the USSF-124 mission launching from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:30 p.m. Payloads included two satellites for the Missile Defense Agency to track hypersonic missiles and four more satellites for the Tranche 0 constellation for the Space Development Agency. The first-stage booster flew for the seventh time with a recovery landing at Canaveral’s Landing Zone 2. Read more.

Feb. 15 (Delayed from Nov. 14, Jan. 12, Feb. 14): SpaceX Falcon 9 for the Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission with the company’s Nova-C lunar lander Odysseus from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A at 1:05 a.m. This could end up being the first NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mission to land on the moon after the failure of Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander. The IM-1 has a suite of six NASA payloads as part of a CLPS delivery and another six privately organized payloads. Landing would take place Feb. 22.Read more.

Feb. 20: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Merah Putih 2 mission, a communications satellite for Telkom Indonesia, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Space Launch Complex 40 at 3:11 p.m. into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. This was the 11th launch from the Space Coast in 2023 and 300th successful Falcon 9 launch since its debut in 2010, having only had one mid-launch failure in 2015. This was the 17th launch of the first stage booster, and it made a recovery landing downrange on the Just Read the Instructions droneship in the Atlantic Ocean. Read more.

Feb. 25 (delayed from Feb. 24): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-39 mission sending up 24 Starlink satellites launching from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:06 p.m. This was the 12th launch from the Space Coast in 2024. The first-stage booster for the mission flew for the 13th time and made a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas downrange in the Atlantic. Read more.

Feb. 29: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-40 mission with 23 Starlink satellites launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 10:30 a.m. This was the 13th launch from the Space Coast in 2024. The first-stage booster for the mission flew for the 11h time and made recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions downrange in the Atlantic. Read more.

March 3 (delayed from Feb. 22, 28, March 1, 2): SpaceX Crew-8 on Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A  at 10:53 p.m. Bad weather on the ascent corridor took the first three launch options on March 1 and 2 off the table. It’s the eighth SpaceX operational mission under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Its four crew members are NASA astronauts Commander Matthew Dominick, Pilot Michael Barratt, Mission Specialist Jeanette Epps and Roscosmos cosmonaut Mission Specialist Alexander Grebenkin. They flew up in the Crew Dragon Endeavour making its fifth trip to space. The first-stage booster made its first flight. The mission had originally been targeting Feb. 22, but that was the target day for the Intuitive Machines attempt to land on the moon, and NASA chose to move the launch to “deconflict” NASA support operations that day. Read more.

March 4: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-41 mission sending up 23 more Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 6:56 p.m. The first stage booster flew for the 13th time and made a recovery landing on the droneship  A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

March 10: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-43 mission sent up 23 more Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:05 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 11th time with a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions downrange in the Atlantic. This was the 16th launch from the Space Coast in 2024. Read more.

March 15 (Delayed from March 13, 14): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-44 mission sending up 23 more Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A at 8:21 p.m. after scrubbing launches on both Wednesday and Thursday with about 2 minutes on the countdown clock. The booster flew for a record-tying 19th time and made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

March 21: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the CRS-30 resupply mission with a Cargo Dragon to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 4:54 p.m. This was the first Dragon launch from SLC-40 since the addition of a crew access arm to support Dragon launches from more than one Space Coast pad and augment normal launches from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A. The first-stage booster made a recovery landing at Canaveral’s Landing Zone 1. Read more.

March 23 (delayed from March 22): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-42 mission sending up 23 more Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A at 11:09 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for 19th time.

March 25: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-46 mission sending up 23 more Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:42 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the eighth time and landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship.

March 30: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Eutelsat-36X mission from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A at 5:52 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 12th time with a landing on the Just Read the Instructions droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. This was 20th SpaceX launch from the Space Coast in 2024 and 21st among all companies. Read more.

March 30: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-45 mission carrying 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 9:30 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 18th time with a landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. Read more.

April 5: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-47 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:12 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 14th time landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas downrange in the Atlantic. It was the 275th recovery of a Falcon 9 booster for SpaceX. Read more.

April 7: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the the Bandwagon-1 mission from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 7:16 p.m, The first-stage booster flew for the 14th time and made a recovery landing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 1. The 11 satellites on board are flying to a mid-inclination orbit. This is the first of a new type of rideshare program flying to that orbit that augments SpaceX’s Transporter program that flies to SSO. Read more.

April 9 (Delayed from March 28): United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy on the NROL-70 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 37 at 12:53 p.m. This was the final Delta IV Heavy rocket launch ever, and last of any Delta rocket, which has been flying for more than 60 years. The Space Force has one more launch on a ULA Atlas V rocket before future missions transition to ULA’s new Vulcan Centaur. Read more.

April 10: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-48 mission carrying 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:40 a.m. The first-stage booster made its second flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions.

April 12: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-49 mission carrying 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 9:40 p.m. The launch set a turnaround record for launches from SLC-40 at two days and 20 hours since the Aug. 10 launch. The previous record was Aug. 3-6, 2023 at three days, 21 hours, 41 minutes. The first-stage booster also flew for a record 20th time making a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

April 17: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-51 mission with 23 Starlink satellites launched from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A at 5:26 p.m. The first-stage booster made its 12th flight and landed downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

April 18: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-52 mission carrying 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 6:40 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the seventh time and made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

April 23 (Delayed from April 22): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-53 mission carrying 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 6:17 p.m. This was the 30th Space Coast launch of the year, with all but two coming from SpaceX. It also marked the 300th successful recovery of a first-stage booster among Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. Of note, the launch came 16 minutes ahead of a Rocket Lab launch from New Zealand. Read more.

April 27: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Galileo L12 mission carrying satellites for the European Commission from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 8:34 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for a record-tieng 20th time, but was expended getting the payload to medium-Earth orbit. Read more.

April 28: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-54 mission carrying 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 6:08 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 13th time with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic. Read more.

May 2: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-55 mission carrying 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 10:37 p.m. This was the 19th flight of the first-stage booster, which launched both Crew 3 and Crew 4 human spaceflight missions. It’s recovery landing was on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic.

May 6: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-57 mission carrying 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 2:14 p.m. The first-stage booster for the flight made its 15th trip to space with a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic Ocean on SpaceX’s droneship Just Read the Instructions.  Read more.

May 8 (Delayed from May 7): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-56 mission carrying 23 Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 2:42 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the third time having launched Crew-8 and a Starlink mission. It made a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. Read more.

May 12: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-58 mission carrying 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:53 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 15th time with a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

May 17: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-59 mission carrying 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral SLC-40 at 8:32 p.m. This marked the 21st flight for the first-stage booster, the most in the booster fleet, having previously flown on human spaceflight missions Inspiration4 and Axiom Space’s Ax-1 among others. It made another recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. Read more.

May 22: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-62 mission carrying 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral SLC-40 at 10:35 p.m. This was the eighth flight of the first-stage booster, which made a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

May 23: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-63 mission carrying 23 Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A at 10:45 p.m. This was the 13th flight of the first-stage booster, which made a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship Just Read the Instructions.

May 28 (Delayed from May 27): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-60 mission carrying 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral SLC-40 at 10:24 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 10th time and made a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. Read more.

May 31: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-64 mission carrying 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral SLC-40 at 10:37 p.m. The booster flew for the 14th time making a landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas, a record turnaround for droneship recovery coming less than 84 hours since the previous recovery landing on May 28. Read more.

June 4: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink g8-5 mission carrying 20 Starlink satellites including 13 with direct-to-cell capabilities from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 10:16 p.m.  This was the 20th flight of the first-stage booster that made a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean. Read more.

June 5 (Delayed from June 1, May 6, 17, 21, 25 2024; July 21, 2023; April 22, 2024): Boeing CST-100 Starliner atop United Launch Alliance Atlas V from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 10:52 a.m. on the Crew Flight Test (CFT) carrying NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams on an eight-day mission to the International Space Station followed by a parachute-and-airbag-assisted ground landing in the desert of the southwestern United States. The May 6 attempt was scrubbed two hours before liftoff because of valve on ULA’s upper Centaur stage that teams continue to investigate. Teams deemed the valve needed to be replaced and the rocket needed to be rolled back from the pad to Boeing’s Vertical Integration Facility. A helium leak in the Starliner capsule further delayed it from a planned May 17 target to May 21 and then May 25. A June 1 attempt scrubbed with less than 4 minutes on the countdown clock. Read more.

June 7: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-1 mission carrying 22 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 9:56 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 16th time landing on the droneship  A Shortfall of Gravitas. It also marked the 300th landing of a Falcon 9 booster.

June 20 (Delayed from June 18, 19): SpaceX Falcon 9 on SES 24 mission flying the ASTRA 1P communication satellite for Luxembourg-based communications company SES for TV markets in Germany, Spain and France from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:35 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the ninth time making another recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions, the 250th time SpaceX had used a droneship for a successful recovery. Read more.

June 23 (Delayed from June 12,13,14): SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 10-2 mission with 22 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:15 p.m. An abort at T-0 on June 14 forced SpaceX to delay its launch nine days and change out the first-stage booster. The new booster made its 11h flight with a landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas downrange in the Atlantic. Read more.

June 25: SpaceX Falcon Heavy on its 10th launch ever with payload of the GOES-U satellite for the NOAA from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 5:26 p.m. The two side boosters returned for a land landing at Landing Zones 1 and 2 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station while the center core stage fell into the ocean. Read more.

June 27: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 10-3 mission with Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:14 a.m. The booster for the flight made a record 22nd launch with a landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

July 3: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 8-9 mission carrying 20 Starlink satellites including 13 with direct-to-cell capabilities from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 4:55 a.m. This was the 16th flight of the first-stage booster, which was previously on the pad for the Starlink 10-3 mission, but was changed out after an issue when it hit T-0 during a launch attempt. It made a landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. Read more.

July 8: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Turksat 6A mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:30 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 15th time and made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

July 27: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-9 mission launching 23 Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 1:45 a.m. The first-stage booster made its 17th flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic. The launch was the first since a California Starlink launch that ended up with a second-stage failure that grounded the Falcon 9. Read more.

July 28: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-4 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:09 a.m. This was the 14th flight of its first-stage booster, which made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. This marked the 300th successful reflight of a booster. Read more.

July 30: United Launch Alliance Atlas V on USSF-51 with classified payload from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 6:45 a.m. One of 16 remaining Atlas V rockets for ULA. Read more.

Aug. 2: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-6 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 1:01 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 12th time with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. It was SpaceX’s 50th launch from the Space Coast for the year. Read more.

Aug. 4 (Delayed from Aug. 3): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the NG-21 resupply mission taking up the Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft with cargo to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Space Launch Complex 40 at 11:03 a.m, The first-stage booster flew for the 10th time and made a land recovery at Canaveral’s Landing Zone 1. This was the 2nd time SpaceX has flown the Cygnus spacecraft. Weather led to a scrub of the Aug. 3 attempt, but SpaceX was able to launch despite Tropical Storm Debby churning off Florida’s southwest coast. Read more.

Aug. 10 (Delayed from Aug. 9): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-3 mission with 21 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:50 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 21st time, one of four boosters with more than 20 flights among the SpaceX fleet. It landed on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Was scrubbed from Friday because of bad weather in the launch recovery zone in the Atlantic.  Read more.

Aug. 12 (Delayed from Aug. 10, 11): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-7 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 6:37 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 17th time landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

Aug. 15: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Maxar 2 mission flying two of Maxar Techologies’ WorldView Legion Earth-observation satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 lifting off at 9 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 16th time with a recovery at Canaveral’s Landing Zone 1. This was the 199th Falcon 9 launch from SLC-40. Read more.

Aug. 20: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink g10-5 mission carrying 22 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit, launching from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 9:20 a.m. This was the first flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. Read more.

Aug. 28: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 8-6 mission carrying 21 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 targeting at 3:48 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for a record 23rd time, but did not make a successful landing. Its previous missions included the Inspiration4 and Axiom Space Ax-1 crewed launches. It tipped over during its recovery landing attempt downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. The FAA grounded Falcon 9 pending a SpaceX investigation. Read more.

Aug. 31: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 8-19 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 with 21 Starlink satellites at 3:43 a.m. Its first-stage booster made its 18th flight and stuck the landing without issue on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean. Read more.

Sept. 5 (Delayed from Sept. 4): SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 8-11 launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 11:33 a.m. The first-stage booster made its 15th flight with a landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. A Sept. 4 launch attempt was scrubbed because of poor weather conditions downrange for the booster recovery. Read more.

Sept. 10: (Delayed from Aug. 28, Aug. 27, July 31, summer 2023): Polaris Dawn mission on a SpaceX Falcon 9 topped with the Crew Dragon Resilience from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A at 5:23 a.m. The private orbital mission will bring billionaire Jared Isaacman to space for a second time after 2021′s Inspiration4 mission. It’s the first of up to three planned Polaris missions, and will feature a tethered spacewalk. Also flying are Scott Poteet, given the title of mission pilot, specialist Sarah Gillis, and specialist and medical officer Anna Menon. Both Gillis and Menon are SpaceX employees. Read more.

Sept. 12: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the BlueBird mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 4:52 a.m. on a mission to place five BlueBird satellites for Midland, Texas-based AST SpcaeMobile. The satellites are part of a space-based cellular broadband network in low-Earth orbit to be accessible by everyday smartphones for both commercial and government use across the U.S. and in select global markets. Beta test users will be for AT&T and Verizon. The first-stage booster flew for the 13th time making a return landing at Canaveral’s Landing Zone 1. This was the 60th Space Coast launch of the year for SpaceX. Read more.

Sept. 17: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Galileo L-13 mission for the European Commission headed to medium-Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 6:50 p.m. The payload’s MEO orbital needs required a previous mission to expend its booster back in April, but SpaceX has adjusted design to recover this mission’s booster making its 22nd flight with a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

Sept. 28: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Crew-9 mission flying aboard the Crew Dragon Freedom, flying for its fourth time, on the first human spaceflight from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:17 p.m.  Crew was only two to make room for Boeing Starliner CFT crew astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on the return flight next February. Commander is NASA astronaut Nick Hague, the first active Space Force member to launch to space on his third launch, and Roscomos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov making his first flight. Original crew members, NASA astronauts Zena Cardman, who was originally slated to be commander but would have been making her first spaceflight, and Stephanie Wilson, a veteran of three space shuttle flights, were pulled from the mission. This is Hague’s third launch, although his first was an aborted Soyuz mission. This is Gorbunov’s first spaceflight. They mission is slated to return with four in February 2025. Of note, this will also be the first human spaceflight from SLC-40 as KSC’s pad will be in preparation for the Europa Clipper launch in October. The first-stage booster made a recovery landing on land at Canaveral’s Landing Zone 1. Read more.

Oct. 4: United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur on the Cert-2 mission at 7:25 a.m. Originally supposed to fly Sierra Space Dream Chaser test flight, but payload switched to an inert mass simulator because of potential Dream Chaser delays beyond October launch date. Launch was from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41. Read more.

Oct. 7: SpaceX Falcon 9 to launch the Hera mission for the European Space Agency (ESA) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 10:52 a.m. Hera will visit the asteroid Didymos and its moon Dimorphos as part of the NASA/ESA Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) collaboration. The initial mission of the collaboration, the NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) will have visited the asteroids earlier and impacted Dimorphos with sufficient momentum to effect a measurable change in its orbit. The first-stage booster flew for a record-tying 23rd time, but it did not attempt a landing as it was expended to get Hera into an interplanetary transfer orbit. Read more.

Oct. 14 (Delayed from Oct. 10): SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 12:06 p.m. on the Europa Clipper mission to travel 1.8 billion miles to investigate Jupiter’s moon Europa to determine whether there are places below Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, that could support life. The mission’s detailed investigation of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet. NASA and SpaceX stood down from Oct. 10 opportunity to allow for Hurricane Milton to pass. The first-stage boosters made their 6th and final flights with no recovery. Read more.

Oct. 15: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 10-10 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 2:10 a.m. The booster flew for the 11th time and landed on A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

Oct. 18: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 8-19 mission with 20 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:31 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 17th time landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

Oct. 23 (Delayed from Oct. 22): SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-61 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:47 p.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 18th time landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. The mission marked the 72nd from all launch service providers on the Space Coast in 2024, tying the record set in 2023. Read more.

Oct. 26: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 10-8 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:47 p.m. The first-stage booster made its 19th launch with a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. It was the record-setting 73rd launch from the Space Coast for the year. Read more.

Oct. 30: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 10-13 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:10 p.m. The first-stage booster for the mission made its 14th launch with a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic Ocean on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. This was a record 69th launch for SpaceX from the Space Coast for the year, although not a record for SLC-40, which had 55 launches in 2023, and only 51 so far in 2024.  Read more.

Nov. 4: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the CRS-31 mission flying up a Cargo Dragon with supplies to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 9:29 p.m. The first-stage booster made its fifth flight (Flew Crew-8, Polaris Dawn, 2 Starlink missions) and with a recovery landing on land back at Canaveral’s Landing Zone 1. This is fifth flight of the Dragon spacecraft having flown CRS-21, CRS-23, CRS-25 and CRS-28. It has a 13-hour flight to the ISS with plans to dock Nov. 5 at 10:15 a.m. It’s carrying 6,000 pounds of food, supplies and equipment along with new experiments including the solar wind Coronal Diagnostic Experiment, Antarctic moss to observe cosmic radiation and microgravity on plants, a device to test cold welding of metals in microgravity, and an investigation that studies how space impacts different materials. Read more.

Nov. 7: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-77 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 3:17 p.m. The first-stage booster made its third flight with a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

Nov. 11: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Koreasat-6A mission from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 12:22 p.m. This was the 23rd mission for the first-stage booster, which made a record recovery return to nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 1. It became the first SpaceX booster to successfully make 23 landings, although two previous boosters launched 23 times. One of those blew up on its landing attempt while another was purposefully expended to get its payload to a higher orbital insertion. Read more.

Nov. 11 (delayed from Nov. 10): SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-69 mission with 24 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 4:28 p.m. The first-stage booster for this mission made its 12th flight and made a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. The launch came 4 hours and 6 minutes after the Koreasat-6A mission at neighboring KSC. Read more.

Nov. 14: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-68 mission with 24 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:21 a.m. The first-stage booster for the mission made its 18th flight with a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

Nov. 17: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Optus-X mission to launch a geostationary communication satellite built by Northrop Grumman for the Australian company Optus from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A during window at 5:28 p.m. This was the 16th mission for the first-stage booster, which was used on Crew-5, CRS-28 and NG-20 among other missions, making another recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. Read more.

Nov. 18: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the GSAT-20 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:31 p.m. The first-stage booster for the mission flew for the 19th time and made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic. Read more.

Nov. 21: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-66 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 11:07 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 20th time and made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

Nov. 25: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starliner 12-1 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:02 a.m. with 23 Starlink satellites including 12 with Direct to Cell capabilities. The first-stage booster made its 13th flight landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. The booster turnaround from its last flight set a record for SpaceX coming at 13 days 12 hours 44 minutes.

Nov. 26 (Delayed from Nov. 25): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-76 mission from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 11:41 p.m. This was the 15th flight for the first stage booster with a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

Nov. 30: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-65 mission with 24 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 12 a.m. First-stage booster flew for the 6th time making a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions.

Dec. 4: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-70 mission with 24 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:13 a.m. This was the record 24th launch of the first-stage booster, which made a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Read more.

Dec. 5: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Sirius XM-9 mission from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 11:10 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 19th time landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions, which had its 100th booster landing. The mission was the 3rd in less than 30 hours for SpaceX among its 2 Florida and 1 California launch pads. Read more.

Dec. 8: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-5 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 12:12 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the second time having been one of the two used on the GOES-U Falcon Heavy mission. It made a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

Dec. 12: Army and Navy hypersonic missile launch test from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 46. Read more.

Dec. 16 (Delayed from Dec. 13): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the RRT-1 mission of a GPS III satellite under a National Security Space Launch contract that switched from United Launch Alliance because of delays in Vulcan rocket certification. Launch occurred from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:52 p.m. This was the fourth launch of the first-stage booster that made a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. The mission was one of five awarded in 2023 to ULA under the NSSF Phase 2 task orders worth $566 million, but the individual value was not released by the DOD. SpaceX that year had been awarded three missions worth $280. With the switch, the five years’ worth of orders under NSSF Phase 2 have ULA with 25 missions ordered to SpaceX’s 23 missions, for what was originally targeted to be a 60% to 40% order ration in favor of ULA. Read more.

Dec. 17 (Delayed from Dec. 15): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the mPower-E Mission with two telecom satellites for Luxembourg-based SES from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 5:26 p.m. This was the first launch of the first-stage booster with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic. It marked the 90th launch in 2024 from all providers on the Space Coast. Read more.

Dec. 23: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-2 mission from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 12:35 a.m. First-stage booster made its 14th flight landing on the drone ship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic.

Dec. 29 (Delayed from Dec. 20, 22): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Astranis MicroGeo mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at midnight. The first-stage booster that had been tapped during the original attempts was discarded for a new booster. The new one flew for the 7th time, having also flown on the Crew-8, Polaris Dawn, CRS-31 and three Starlink missions. It made a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic. This was the 92nd launch of the year on the Space Coast. Read more.

Dec. 31 (Delayed from Dec. 30): SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 12-6 mission with 21 Starlink satellites including 13 with Direct to Cell capabilities from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 12:39 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 16th time having previously flown the Crew-6 mission among its 15 other flights. It made a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic. This was the 93rd and final launch of the year on the Space Coast. Read more.

LAUNCHED IN 2023

Jan. 3: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on the Transporter-6 mission carrying 114 payloads for a variety of customers blasted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 9:56 a.m. Read more.

Jan. 9: A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off carrying 40 satellites for OneWeb at 11:50 p.m. Monday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40. Read more.

Jan. 15: The fifth-ever flight of SpaceX’s powerhouse Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off at 5:56 p.m. from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A on a mission for the Space Force dubbed USSF-67. Read more.

Jan. 18: A SpaceX Falcon 9 on the GPS III Space Vehicle 06 mission for the Space Force rose through the pink, orange and blue horizon at 7:24 a.m. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40. Read more.

Jan. 26: SpaceX Falcon 9 Starlink 5-2 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 launched at 4:32 a.m. sending up 56 Starlink satellites. Read more.

Feb. 2: Falcon 9 on Starlink 5-3 from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A at 2:43 a.m. 200th successful flight of Falcon 9 on mission to send up 53 Starlink satellites. Read more.

Feb. 6: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Amazonas-6 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 lifted off at 8:32 p.m. Payload is communications satellite for Hispasat known also as the Amazonas Nexus. Read more.

Feb. 12: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 5-4 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Space Launch Complex 40 launched 55 Starlink satellites at 12:10 a.m. This set a then-record turnaround between launches from the same pad for SpaceX coming just five days, three hours, and 38 minutes since the Feb. 6 launch. Read more.

Feb. 17: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Inmarsat’s I-6 F2 satellite launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Space Launch Complex 40 at 10:59 p.m. The second of six planned communication satellite launches, the first of which came in 2021 with the final coming by 2025. Read more.

Feb. 27: SpaceX Falcon 9 Starlink 6-1 launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 6:13 p.m. carrying 21 of the second-generation Starlink satellites. Read more.

March 2: Crew-6 mission on a SpaceX Falcon 9 launching Crew Dragon Endeavour from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39-A at 12:34 a.m. A Feb. 27 attempt was scrubbed with less than three minutes before liftoff. Flying were NASA astronauts mission commander Stephen Bowen and pilot Woody Hoburg, United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, heading to the International Space Station for around a six-month stay. It’s the sixth SpaceX operational mission under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Read more.

March 9: A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off carrying 40 satellites for OneWeb launched at 2:13 p.m. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40. The first-stage booster flew for the 13th time landing at Canaveral’s Landing Zone 1. Read more.

March 14: After arrival of Crew-6 and departure of Crew-5 to make room for a cargo Dragon, SpaceX Falcon 9 launched a cargo Dragon spacecraft on CRS-27, the 27th resupply mission to the International Space Station from KSC’s Launch Complex 39-A at 8:30 p.m. Read more.

March 17: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the SES 18 and 19 mission, a pair of communication satellites set to launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40. Set a record for SpaceX mission turnaround with launch only four hours and 17 minutes after a Starlink launch from California. Read more.

March 22: Relativity Space Terran-1, a 3D-printed rocket awaiting company’s first-ever launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 16 at 11:25 p.m. While first stage successfully separated, the second stage engine did not get it into orbit. Read more.

March 24: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 5-5 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 11:43 a.m. carrying 56 Starlink satellites to orbit. The booster made its 10th flight. Read more.

March 29: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 5-10 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station launched at 4:01 p.m. The booster making its fourth flight landed on Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic. Read more.

April 7: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Intelsat 40e mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 12:30 a.m. Read more.

April 19: SpaceX Falcon 9 launch on Starlink 6-2 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 10:31 a.m. with 21 Starlink satellites. The first-stage booster made its eighth flight with a recovery on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. Read more.

April 28: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the SES 03b mPOWER-B mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 6:12 p.m. Read more.

April 30: SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch of ViaSat-3 Americas’ communications satellite from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39-A at 8:26 p.m. All three boosters were expended, so no sonic boom landings. Also flying were payloads for Astranis Space Technologies and Gravity Space headed for geostationary orbits. It’s the sixth-ever Falcon Heavy launch. The launch pad endured a lightning strike on April 27, but SpaceX said the rocket was healthy for the attempt. Read more.

May 4: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 5-6 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station with 56 Starlink satellites at 3:31 a.m. The first-stage booster making its eighth flight was recovered once again on the droneship called A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. Read more.

May 14: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 5-9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 launnched at 1:03 a.m. Read more.

May 19: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-3 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 2:19 a.m. carrying 22 second-gen Starlink satellites. The first-stage booster made its fifth flight and landing on droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in Atlantic. Read more.

May 21: Axiom 2 mission with four private passengers launched to the International Space Station for an eight-day visit flying on a SpaceX Falcon 9 topped with Crew Dragon Freedom from KSC’s Launch Complex 39-A at 5:37 p.m.  The first-stage booster flew for the first time with a return to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 1. This is only the second crewed mission from the U.S. in 2023 following March’s Crew-6 mission. The second Axiom Space private mission to the International Space Station following 2022′s Axiom 1 mission. Axiom Space’s Director of Human Spaceflight and former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson is the mission commander with aviator John Shoffner as pilot and two mission specialist seats paid for by the Saudi Space Commission, Rayyanah Barnawi and Ali AlQarni. Read more.

May 27: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the ArabSat BADR-8 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 12:30 a.m. The first-stage booster made its 14th flight with a landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic. Read more.

June 4: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-4 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 with 22 second-generation Starlink satellites at 8:20 a.m. The first-stage booster made its third flight and was able to land down range on droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean. The launch came 13 years to the day since the first Falcon 9 launch in 2010. It was the 229th attempt of a Falcon 9 launch with 228 of the 229 successful. Read more.

June 5 (Delayed from June 3, 4): SpaceX Falcon 9 on CRS-28 launched a cargo Dragon spacecraft, the 28th resupply mission to the International Space Station from KSC’s Launch Complex 39-A at at 11:47 a.m. The first-stage booster made its fifth flight and SpaceX recovered it downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. This is the fourth flight of the crew Dragon, which will be bring up nearly 7,000 pounds of supplies, dock to the station 41 hours after launch and remain on the station for three weeks. Read more.

June 12: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 5-11 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 with 53 of the company’s internet satellites at 3:10 a.m.  The first stage booster flew for the ninth time with a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. Read more.

June 18: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the PSN MSF mission to launch the Satria communications satellite for the Indonesian government and PSN, an Indonesian satellite operator. This satellite will provide broadband internet and communications capability for public use facilities in Indonesia’s rural regions. Liftoff was at 6:21 p.m. with the first-stage booster making its 12th flight and once again landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. Read more.

June 22: United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy on NROL-68 for the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command and the National Reconnaissance Office from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 37B lifted off at 5:18 a.m. This was the second-to-last Delta IV Heavy launch with the final one expected in 2024. Read more.

June 23: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 5-12 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 carrying 56 Starlink satellites at 11:35 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the ninth time and landed on a droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. Read more.

July 1: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the ESA Euclid space telescope mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 11:12 a.m. The European Space Agency telescope is designed to make a 3D map of the universe by looking at billions of galaxies up to 10 billion light years away across one third of the sky. Read more.

July 9: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-5 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 11:58 p.m. The booster made a record 16th flight and was recovered again downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

July 15: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 5-15 mission with 54 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 11:50 p.m. (early Friday scrubbed 40 seconds before launch, and early Saturday option passed over) Booster made a record-tying 16th fligh landing on droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. Read more.

July 23: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-6 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:50 p.m. carrying 22 of its v2 mini Starlink satellites. The booster flew for the sixth time and made a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

July 28: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-7 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 12:01 a.m. with 22 Starlink satellites. Booster flew for the 15th time including crewed launches Inspiration4 and Ax-1, and made recovery landing on droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. The launch set a record for turnaround time for the company from a single launch pad coming four days, three hours, and 11 minutes since the July 23 launch. The previous record was set from Feb. 6-12 at five days, three hours, and 38 minutes. Read more.

July 28: SpaceX Falcon Heavy from KSC’s Launch Complex 39-A that launched a telecom satellite for Hughes Network Systems called the Jupiter 3 EchoStar XXIV at 11:04 p.m. The two side boosters were recovered at Landing Zone 1 and Landing Zone 2 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. This was the third Falcon Heavy launch of 2023 and seventh overall. Read more.

Aug. 3: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Intelsat G-37 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1 a.m. The first-stage booster made its sixth flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. Read more.

Aug. 6: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-8 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 10:41 p.m. with 22 Starlink V2 minis. The first-stage booster made its fourth flight with another recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas downrange in the Atlantic. The turnaround time between the Aug. 3 Intelsat G-37 mission and this mission broke SpaceX’s previous record for time between launches from a single launch pad. Previous record was from July 24-28 with a turnaround of four days, three hours, and 11 minutes. This one came in at three days, 21 hours, 41 minutes. Read more.

Aug. 11: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-9 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:17 a.m. Payload is 22 of the V2 mini Starlink satellites. First-stage booster flew for the ninth time with a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic. Read more.

Aug. 16: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-10 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 with 22 of the V2 mini Starlink satellites. The first-stage booster made its 13th flight and SpaceX was able to recover it again on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas downrange in the Atlantic. Read more.

Aug. 26: SpaceX Crew-7 mission on a Falcon 9 launching the Crew Dragon Endurance from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39-A lifted off at 3:27 a.m. liftoff. It’s the seventh SpaceX operational mission under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Flying are NASA astronaut and mission commander Jasmin Moghbeli, ESA astronaut and pilot Andreas Mogensen, mission specialist JAXA astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and mission specialist Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov. This will be Endurance’s third spaceflight after having been used on the Crew-3 and Crew-5 missions. The launch will use a new first-stage booster. The crew will arrive at 8:50 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 27. with hatch opening about two hours later. It will stay docked about 190 days. Read more.

Aug. 26: SpaceX Falcon 9 Starlink 6-11 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 9:05 p.m. with 22 Starlink satellites. The first stage flew for the third time and landed on the Just Read the Instructions droneship in the Atlantic Ocean.

Aug. 31: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-13 mission carrying 22 of the v2 Starlink minis from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 10:21 p.m. It was SpaceX’s ninth launch of the calendar month matching the record nine launches it had in May. It was the company’s 60th orbital launch of the year. The first-stage booster flew for the seventh time and made a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. Read more.

Sept. 3: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-12 mission carrying 21 of the v2 Starlink minis from Kennedy Space Center’s Space Launch Complex 39-A at 10:47 p.m. It marked the 62nd SpaceX orbital launch in 2023 besting the 61 launches the company performed in 2022. The first-stage booster on the flight made its 10th launch and was able to make its recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean. Read more.

Sept. 8: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-14 mission carrying 22 of its Starlink satellites, flying from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 took off at 11:12 p.m. The first-stage booster made its seventh flight with a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas downrange in the Atlantic. Read more.

Sept. 10 (delayed from Aug. 29): United Launch Alliance Atlas V on the SILENTBARKER/NROL-107 for the National Reconnaissance Office and Space Force from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 8:47 a.m.. Delayed because of Tropical Storm Idalia. This was the second ULA launch of 2023. SILENTBARKER’s classified mission is to improve space domain awareness to support national security and provide intelligence data to U.S. senior policy makers, the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense. It will provide the capability to search, detect and track objects from space-based sensors for timely custody and event detection. Read more.

Sept. 15: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-16 mission, carrying 22 of its Starlink satellites, flying from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 launching at 11:38 p.m. The first-stage booster for the mission made its fifth flight with a landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic. It marked SpaceX’s 65th orbital launch of the year including missions from Canaveral, KSC and California. Read more.

Sept. 19: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-17 mission, carrying 22 of its Starlink satellites, flying from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 launching at 11:38 p.m. This was a record reuse flight for the first-stage booster flying for a 17th time with a recovery landing on the droneship A Short Fall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. Read more.

Sept.23: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-18 mission, carrying 22 of its Starlink satellites, flying from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 11:38 p.m. The first-stage booster made a record-tying 17th flight with a recovery landing down range on droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean. Read more.

Sept.29: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-19 mission, carrying 22 of its Starlink satellites, flying from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 10 p.m. The booster on this flight made its 10th launch having flown on CRS-24, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13F, OneWeb 1, SES-18 and SES-19 and five Starlink missions. It made a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. This was SpaceX’s 69th launch of the year, its 49th from the Space Coast, 39th from Cape Canaveral and the other 10 from KSC. With only three non-SpaceX flights this year, it was the Space Coast’s 52nd overall. Read more.

Oct. 5: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-21 mission with 22 of its Starlink satellites launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:36 a.m.  The booster made its eighth flight with a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean. This was SpaceX’s 70th launch of the year, its 50th from the Space Coast, 40th from Cape Canaveral. With only three non-SpaceX flights this year, it is the Space Coast’s 53rd overall. Read more.

Oct. 6: United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 2:06 p.m. Payload was Amazon’s two test Project Kuiper satellites that were set to fly on ULA’s first Vulcan Centaur rocket, but switched to one of the nine Atlas rockets Amazon had previously purchased from ULA as Vulcan had been delayed to no earlier than the fourth quarter of 2023. Read more.

Oct. 13 (Delayed from Oct. 12): A SpaceX Falcon Heavy launched NASA’s Psyche probe into space launch from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39-A at 10:19 a.m. The probe was delayed from 2022, and headed for the asteroid Psyche, using a Mars-gravity assist and not arriving until August 2029. Psyche is a nickel-iron core asteroid that orbits the sun beyond Mars anywhere from 235 million to 309 million miles away. The two side boosters returned for a land landing at Landing Zone 1 and Landing Zone 2 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Read more.

Oct. 13 (Delayed from Oct. 8): SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-22 mission with 22 of its Starlink satellites launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:01 p.m. The first-stage booster for the mission is making its 14th flight, and made another recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas down range in the Atlantic. The launch came 8 hours and 42 minutes after the Falcon Heavy launch from nearby KSC earlier in the day. Read more.

Oct. 17: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-23 mission with 22 of its Starlink satellites launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:36 p.m. This is the first-stage booster made its 16th flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic. This marked the Space Coasts’ 57th launch of the year, which matched the total it had in 2022. Read more.

Oct. 21: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-24 mission with 23 of its Starlink satellites launching from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 10:17 p.m. The first-stage booster made its fourth flight with a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. This became the record 58th launch from the Space Coast for the year. Read more.

Oct. 29: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-25 mission with 23 of its Starlink satellites launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:20 p.m. This was the 59th launch from the Space Coast for the year. The first-stage booster flew for the eighth time and made a  recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed down range in the Atlantic. Read more.

Nov. 3: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-26 mission with 23 of its Starlink satellites launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:37 p.m. This was the 60th launch from the Space Coast for the year. The first-stage booster flew for a record 18th time and made a  recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed down range in the Atlantic. Read more.

Nov. 8: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-27 mission with 23 of its Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 targeting 12:05 a.m. The first-stage booster made its 11th flight with a landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions downrange in the Atlantic. This was the 61st launch from the Space Coast for the year. Read more.

Nov. 9: SpaceX Falcon 9 with cargo Dragon on the CRS-29 mission to carry supplies to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-B at 8:28 p.m. It’s the 29th resupply mission for SpaceX with its cargo Dragon filled with 6,500 pounds of supplies for the Expedition 70 crew with an expected arrival to the ISS about 5:20 a.m. Saturday. It includes NASA’s Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) science experiment to measure atmospheric gravity waves and how it could affect Earth’s climate and the Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Low-Earth-Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal (ILLUMA-T), a technology demonstration for laser communications among the ISS, an orbiting relay satellite and a ground-based observatory on Earth. The first-stage booster flew for the second time and landed back at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 1. Read more.

Nov. 12: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the SES O3b mPOWER mission to medium-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40  at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 4:08 p.m. First stage made its 9th flight with a recovery landing on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship in the Atlantic Ocean. Read more.

Nov. 18: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-28 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 12:05 a.m. with 23 Starlink satellites. First-stage booster flew for the 11th time and landed on the droneship Just Read the Instructions This was the 64th launch from the Space Coast in 2023. This launch came hours ahead of the Starship and Super Heavy launch attempt in Texas. Read more.

Nov. 22: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-29 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 2:47 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the 15th time and landed on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. This marked the 65th launch from the Space Coast in 2023. Read more.

Nov. 27: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-30 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40at 11:20 p.m. This was a southerly trajectory launch. The booster flew for the 17th time (3rd booster to do so) and landed on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. It was the 66th launch of the year from the Space Coast, 62nd from SpaceX in Florida, and 87th orbital launch from SpaceX including California missions. Read more.

Dec. 2: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-31 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 11 p.m. First stage booster flew for the sixth time and landed on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. It marked the 67th launch of the year from the Space Coast, 63rd from SpaceX in Florida, and 89th orbital launch from SpaceX including California missions.

Dec. 7: SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-32 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 12:07 a.m. The first-stage booster flew for the ninth time with a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed downrange in the Atlantic. This was the 68th launch from the Space Coast in 2023. Read more.

Dec. 18 (Delayed from Dec. 11, 12, 13) SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-34 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 11:01 p.m. Read more.

Dec. 23: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-32 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 12:33 a.m.  This was a record 19th flight for the first-stage booster having flown previously on Crew Demo-2, ANASIS-11, CRS-21, Transporter-1, Transporter-3 and 13 Starlink missions. It made a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions downrange in the Atlantic. This was the 70th Space Coast launch of the year. Read more.

Dec. 28 (Delayed from Dec. 10, 11, 13): SpaceX Falcon Heavy from KSC’s Launch Complex 39-A on USSF-52, the third mission for the Space Force, launching the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle on its seventh trip to space at 8:07 p.m. The side boosters flew for the fifth time, previously used on the Psyche mission, two Space Force missions and one commercial flight with another double land landing at Landing Zone 1 and Landing Zone 2 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Read more.

Dec. 28: SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink 6-36 mission with 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 targeting 11:01 p.m. This was the 12th flight for the first-stage booster with a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas downrange in the Atlantic. This was a record turnaround among SpaceX launches from Space Coast launch pads at 2 hours and 54 minutes besting October’s double launch that saw a Falcon 9 launch at CCSFS just eight hours, 42 minutes after a Falcon Heavy launch at KSC. Read more.

Follow Orlando Sentinel space coverage at Facebook.com/goforlaunchsentinel.

Which model airplane kit is best?

Model airplane kits come in a vast variety of styles and detailed constructions. They aren’t just a few wooden planks that click together and barely float anymore. They can be almost exact to scale replicas that can be radio-controlled. Model airplane kits are for all ages and can be a wonderful bonding experience when putting them together with family and friends.

The best model airplane kit is the Guillow P-51 Mustang, perfect for those seeking a touch of challenge and plenty of detail in their builds.

What to know before you buy a model airplane kit Who it’s for

There are all sorts of different model airplane kits, some of which are better suited to certain intended uses.

If the model airplane is intended for a child, you’ll want to consider selecting a kit with fewer parts and more manageable sizes, so the result is not only easier to reach but quicker to be reached as well.

If you’re purchasing a model airplane kit for yourself, you can open up your possibilities much wider. Before purchasing, try and consider what level of detail and realism you’re looking for. Will your model be for display only or actively used? You may also want to consider the size of the fully built model for proper display or storage.

If you intend on actually flying this model plane one way or another, consider how it does so. Do you want to throw it by hand, sling it with rubber-band drives or actually pilot it by wire or even radio control? You can even find competitive events, like races, in your local area to test your model airplane against other enthusiasts’ builds.

Model airplane kit types

There are four main types of model airplane kits: scale replicas, historical models, flyable planes and simple models.

• Scale replicas: Scale replica model airplanes typically come in 1:72, 1:48 or 1:32 sizes. They have hundreds of parts, though they do also have varying levels of complexity. Scale replicas and historical models are best for sealed displays of highly detailed model airplanes.
• Historical: A popular model type for collectors and enthusiasts, historical models can replicate any kind of plane from any point in history. However, WWII planes of various countries are certainly one of the most popular types of model airplane kit.
• Flyable: If you thought this would be the most complex model airplane type, you’d be wrong. Flyable airplane models are frequently constructed from extra-light balsa wood and plastics. This is a fantastic option for most any skill level or age.
• Simple: This is the easiest, quickest and most basic kind of model airplane. This is the type of three-piece construction you may remember picking up at a museum gift shop and accidentally breaking after a few tosses.

What to look for in a quality model airplane kit Size

Do not confuse size and scale. Scale refers to how small the model compares to the real thing. Size is the total size of the model itself. For example, two planes at 1:32 scale could be vastly different sizes if their real counterparts are different sizes as well.

Clubs

If you really enjoy model airplanes, you may want to see if there are any model airplane clubs in your area. Connecting with fellow enthusiasts is a great way to learn even more about model airplanes. There may also be races and other activities you and your model airplane can enter in your area.

How much you can expect to spend on a model airplane kit

Model airplane kits can be incredibly realistic or fairly simple recreations of their actual counterparts, and the cost can likewise be as great or small. Most midrange model airplane kits are sold for around $20-$60, though you can find less expensive kits or spend upward of several hundred dollars for something minutely detailed.

Model airplane kit FAQ Are there any restrictions when it comes to flying radio-controlled model airplanes?

A. Yes, there are. Radio-controlled model airplanes are regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration and are required to adhere to the rules for Unmanned Aircraft Systems. These regulations are subject to change, so visit the FAA website for the most recent laws before you fly your model airplane.

Are the paints used in model airplane kits toxic?

A. It depends on the type, so the short answer is maybe. The long answer is that water-based acrylics are typically nontoxic, while cheaper oil-based enamels are likely to be toxic. Manufacturers will generally make it known if their paints are nontoxic, and if you can’t be sure, you may want to look for a different paint.

What’s the best model airplane kit to buy? Top model airplane kit

Guillow P-51 Mustang

What you need to know: A perfect model airplane kit for those who seek a little extra challenge.

What you’ll love: Each component is precision cut for the best possible fit.

What you should consider: Be extra careful with this model airplane, as the plastic and balsa wood construction can break easily.

Top model airplane kit for the money

Academy Models WWII U.S. Navy F6F-3/5

What you need to know: This is a budget-buy model airplane kit that nonetheless looks authentic to its full-size inspiration.

What you’ll love: This easy-to-assemble and very durable model airplane comes with a detailed cockpit area.

What you should consider: The decal stickers frequently peel and fall from the model after application.

Worth checking out

Tamiya Models Vought F4U-1D Corsair

What you need to know: This is a highly realistic model for those searching for maximum authenticity in their model airplane kits.

What you’ll love: This model airplane is larger than other airplane models with working flaps and wings to boot.

What you should consider: Depending on the color of your model, the detailing on certain areas can be hard to fully see and appreciate.

Prices listed reflect time and date of publication and are subject to change.

Check out our Daily Deals for the best products at the best prices and sign up here to receive the BestReviews weekly newsletter full of shopping inspo and sales.

BestReviews spends thousands of hours researching, analyzing and testing products to recommend the best picks for most consumers. BestReviews and its newspaper partners may earn a commission if you purchase a product through one of our links.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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By TIM REYNOLDS

SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 31 shots, Sam Reinhart scored in the opening period and the Florida Panthers beat the New Jersey Devils 1-0 on Thursday night.

It was Florida’s first 1-0 regulation win in the regular season since Dec. 23, 2017, against Ottawa. The Panthers had a 1-0 overtime win at Columbus last season.

Bobrovsky has 51 shutouts, tied for 28th in NHL history. The Devils were blanked for the first time this season, wasting a 23-save effort from Jake Allen.

Reinhart collected the puck around the blue line, got around New Jersey’s Luke Hughes before beating Allen over the shoulder. It was Reinhart’s 11th goal of the season, and Bobrovsky made it stand up — staving off a flurry in the final minute to seal the win.

It marked the second time this season New Jersey failed to get a standings point in back-to-back games. The Devils lost at Tampa Bay on Tuesday; they also had consecutive regulation losses in Colorado and San Jose on Oct. 28 and 30.

The Panthers celebrated defenseman Jeff Petry’s 1,000th game — a milestone reached earlier this week — in a pregame ceremony.

Petry’s four children wore the sweaters of his four previous teams, Edmonton, Montreal, Pittsburgh and Detroit, and the family was presented with a number of gifts from both the Panthers and the NHL. Every player on the Panthers warmed up for the game wearing a sweater bearing Petry’s No. 2 on the back instead of their own; those will be auctioned for charity.

The game was the NHL debut for Panthers rookie Jack Devine, a two-time national champion at Denver who was called up with Florida now missing seven would-be regulars in the lineup because of injuries.

Up next

Devils: At Philadelphia on Saturday night.

Panthers: Host Edmonton on Saturday night in a rematch of the last two Stanley Cup Finals.

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

You’ll score great deals at these popular retailers

With can’t-miss sales on everything from socks to smart TVs, Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days of the year. It falls on Nov. 28 this year, offering exciting deals from nearly every retailer under the sun. However, not all Black Friday sales are created equal. To score the best deals, there are definitely some retailers you’ll want to keep an eye on.

Check out some of our favorite retailers with Black Friday sales — and some early deals you can take advantage of right now.

Best Amazon early Black Friday deals

It’s no surprise that Amazon, one of the largest and most popular online retailers, offers such excellent Black Friday deals. Whether you’re shopping for holiday gifts for your little ones or kitchen appliances to make cooking easier, Amazon has got you covered.

Apple Air Tag 4-Pack 34% OFF

Forget about losing your keys or bag ever again with these easy-to-use smart tags. They are easy to set up with your iPhone or iPad and feature a built-in speaker that plays a chime when you need to locate the item. You can share a tag with up to five people, so the entire family can find shared items.

KitchenAid Artisan Series 5-Quart Tilt Head Stand Mixer 30% OFF

Power through all your holiday baking with this premium stand mixer. It features durable metal construction and 10 speeds that can handle nearly any kitchen task. Its 5-quart stainless steel bowl is also large enough to mix dough for up to nine dozen cookies at a time.

Melissa & Doug Wooden Scoop & Serve Ice Cream Counter 49% OFF

This fun 28-piece wooden set lets kids pretend to serve up their favorite ice cream treats. It includes a countertop that doubles as a storage box, an ice cream scooper, scoops, cones, toppings, utensils and more. It can inspire hours of imaginative play for kids ages 3 and up, providing the perfect break from screen time.

Waterpik Aquarius Water Flosser 50% OFF

This easy-to-use water flosser has a large water reservoir that provides over 90 seconds of flossing time without refills. It offers 10 settings to help clean and massage your gums, as well as a timer to ensure you floss for as long as you should. It even comes with 10 tips, so the entire family can use it.

Best Walmart early Black Friday deals

Walmart is known for its everyday low prices, but it raises that bar for Black Friday. You can score great discounts on toys, TVs, vacuums and more.

Dyson V12 Detect Slim Cordless Vacuum 45% OFF

This cordless vacuum provides up to 30% more power, so it rivals corded models. Its battery also provides up to 60 minutes of cleaning time, and the power button means there’s no trigger you need to hold down during vacuuming. It also features a special light to reveal hidden dirt and dust, ensuring your floors are as clean as possible.

Qunler Nugger Ice Maker 68% OFF

You won’t need to head to the drive-thru for chewable nugget ice with this convenient countertop ice maker. It can make ice in as little as 10 minutes and produce up to 44 pounds per day. It doesn’t make too much noise either, operating at just 45 decibels.

TCL 98″ Class Q6 4K UHD HDR QLED Smart TV 44% OFF

Enjoy your favorite TV shows and movies in stunning clarity with this 4K smart TV. It features Dolby Atmos Audio and DTS Virtual:X immersive audio, which brings media and video games to life. It also includes a hands-free voice remote that allows you to easily search for movies and TV shows.

Best Target early Black Friday deals

Target is another big box retailer that offers exciting discounts for Black Friday. You’ll find deals on countertop kitchen appliances, toys, holiday decorations and more.

Ninja Flip Toaster Oven & Air Fryer 28% OFF

This versatile air fryer oven frees up space on your counter by flipping up to store against your backsplash. It supports eight cooking functions, including air fry, roast, broil, bake, pizza, toast, bagel and dehydrate, and is large enough to cook for up to four people. Best of all, it cooks 50% faster than a traditional oven.

Barbie Dream House Pool Party Doll House 15% OFF

Any Barbie fan on your holiday shopping list will love unwrapping this 75-piece dollhouse. It can inspire hours of play with 10 different areas for Barbie to play, including a working elevator, a three-story slide and a balcony. There’s enough room to sleep up to four dolls, and it even includes accessories for Barbie’s furry friends, including a pet bed, a doggie door and a pet house.

Wondershop 36″ Christmas Bottle Brush Sculpture 30% OFF

This fun, glittery Christmas tree instantly adds festive cheer to any room. It features an attached base that allows you to set it on a floor, console table, or sideboard. You can choose from four colors, including a classic green and a fun pink.

Prices listed reflect time and date of publication and are subject to change.

Check out our Daily Deals for the best products at the best prices and sign up here to receive the BestReviews weekly newsletter full of shopping inspo and sales.

BestReviews spends thousands of hours researching, analyzing and testing products to recommend the best picks for most consumers. BestReviews and its newspaper partners may earn a commission if you purchase a product through one of our links.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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A Broward County man who portrayed himself as an international financial advisor for decades pleaded guilty last week to wire fraud and money laundering after amassing more than $94 million by misappropriating investor funds and orchestrating a Ponzi scheme, federal prosecutors said.

Andrew Hamilton Jacobus, 64, of Fort Lauderdale, founded two companies, Finser International Corporation and Kronus Financial Corporation, that he purported to use to invest funds to “various lucrative investments,” including Certificates of Deposit and shares of companies, for well above market averages, according to a factual proffer, the facts of the case agreed on by the defense and government.

“In reality, Jacobus forged account statements, falsified documentation, and diverted client funds to luxury personal expenditures and Ponzi payments,” the United States Attorney’s Office Southern District of Florida said in a news release Thursday.

He gave investors information booklets and presentations that included above average rates of return on the fund since 2012 and used some of the investors’ money to pay back others, the factual proffer said. He also managed investors already existing accounts and used some of the money for himself or to pay back other clients.

One victim was a nonprofit group in Venezuela that supports Venezuelan Catholic Church priests with health benefits and retirement funds, which Jacobus worked with since at least 2006, according to the factual proffer. The group invested more than $4 million with Jacobus, and he diverted that for his own use and to repay other clients.

A few months later, he resigned as the nonprofit’s financial advisor, admitting in a resignation letter that he owed them more than $6 million.

“This is just one example of Jacobus’ mismanagement of victim funds over the years,” the factual proffer said.

Jacobus entered a plea agreement Nov. 14 and faces up to 20 years in federal prison for each count. He will be sentenced in February.

The No. 13 Hurricanes have been hit hard by the injury bug in recent weeks, but some players may get back on the field when UM travels to play Virginia Tech this weekend.

Running back Mark Fletcher Jr. was not on Thursday’s injury report, cornerback OJ Frederique Jr. is probable and defensive tackle David Blay Jr. is listed as questionable for Saturday’s game. However, linebacker Kellen Wiley Jr. was listed as out.

Fletcher has missed UM’s previous two games, and Frederique has missed the previous three games. Blay suffered an injury against Syracuse and did not play last week.

Additionally, wide receiver CJ Daniels, who has missed the last three games, was not listed on the injury report. Daniels was not listed on last week’s game-day injury report, but UM held him out of the game anyway.

Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said it was his call to keep Daniels out another week, but he expects him to play Saturday.

“I feel great about his availability this week,” Cristobal said.

Nickelback Keionte Scott is listed as out for the game, as expected. Cristobal said Monday that he did not think it was likely Scott would return this season.

“I don’t know,” Cristobal said. “Like we mentioned, it is a more significant injury. You certainly hope and pray for (him to come back). But it doesn’t look like it’s very likely. But I hate to rule it out completely because you just never know.”

The ACC is mandating its football, men’s and women’s basketball and baseball teams report which players are available prior to each conference game. Football teams are required to submit an initial report two days before the game, an updated report one day before the game and a game day report no later than two hours before the game starts. Teams “must act in good faith to comply with this policy,” according to the conference.

The conference mandates teams announce which players meet certain designations.

-Available: Available to play

-Probable: likely to play or greater than 50 percent chance to play

-Questionable: uncertain to play or less than 50 percent chance to play

-Out: will not play or 0 percent chance to play

On game day reports, players can be listed as available, “game time decision” or out.

Here is the Hurricanes’ initial availability report before facing Virginia Tech on Saturday:

OUT

-DB Keionte Scott

-DE Hayden Lowe

-TE Brock Schott

-TE Jack Nickel

-LB Malik Bryant

-WR Tony Johnson

-LB Kellen Wiley Jr.

QUESTIONABLE

-DT David Blay Jr.

PROBABLE

-DB OJ Frederique Jr.

By REBECCA BOONE

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A federal judge has ordered the release of 16 people detained by immigration officials during an FBI-led raid at a rural Idaho racetrack last month.

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U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled Wednesday that keeping the migrants jailed without bond violated their due process rights, and he ordered that they be released while they wait for their immigration cases to be resolved. Many of them have lived in the U.S. for decades and lacked any criminal history, Winmill noted. Some are married to U.S. citizens or have children who are U.S. citizens, according to court documents.

In an e-mailed statement to The Associated Press, the Department of Homeland Security said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents lawfully arrested the detainees during the raid, and added that “an activist judge is ordering lawbreakers to roam free.”

“The Trump administration is committed to restoring the rule of law and common sense to our immigration system, and will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country,” the department said.

The Oct. 19 raid at the privately operated outdoor track in Wilder was led by the FBI as part of an investigation into suspected illegal gambling. More than 200 officers from at least 14 agencies, including U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, participated in the raid, detaining around 400 people for hours, including many U.S. citizens.

Witnesses described aggressive tactics, including zip-tying children or separating young kids from their parents for an hour or more. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency oversees Border Patrol and ICE, denied that children were zip-tied. FBI spokesperson Sandra Barker initially said no restraints or rubber bullets were used on children but later amended that statement, replacing “children” with “young children.”

The raid resulted in only a handful of gambling-related arrests, while 105 people were arrested on suspicion of immigration violations. Many of them signed voluntary agreements to leave the country before they were able to talk to immigration lawyers, said Nikki Ramirez-Smith, an immigration attorney whose firm is representing 15 of the people released this week.

Just 18 people detained in the raid have sought their release in the federal courts in Idaho, according to online court records. One of them had that request initially dismissed after a judge found that they did not include enough detail in their court filing, but the judge also gave them 30 days to try again. Another person is now pursuing release through a different federal court after they were transferred to a detention facility in a different state.

The federal judge in Idaho said that nearly all of his colleagues who have faced similar requests from immigration detainees have come to the same conclusion: That non-citizens who are detained while already present in the United States are entitled to due process rights.

“Treating the detention of noncitizens stopped at or near the border differently from noncitizens who reside within the country is not an anomaly. Instead, it reflects the long-recognized distinction in our immigration laws and the Constitution that due process protections apply to noncitizens residing within the country but not those stopped at or near the border,” Winmill wrote.

Ramirez-Smith said Winmill’s release orders do “a great job of putting into perspective what the issues are.”

“They’ll just stay home with their families, and we’ll file the applications for relief in immigration court, and they’ll get a court hearing. Those trial dates will probably be years out,” she said, because of a hefty backlog of more than 3 million cases in immigration courts.

Still, President Donald Trump has taken steps to reduce the backlog, instructing judges during his first term to deny entire categories of asylum claims such as for victims of gang or domestic violence.

During his current term, the Trump administration has fired dozens of immigration judges, and authorized about 600 military lawyers to work as temporary immigration judges. The administration has also frequently turned what would normally be routine immigration hearings into deportation traps, with government lawyers quickly dismissing asylum cases so the migrants who sought asylum can be immediately arrested in the courthouse halls.

By GARY D. ROBERTSON

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Federal judges on Thursday upheld several U.S. House districts that North Carolina Republicans drew in 2023 that helped the GOP gain additional seats the following year. They rejected accusations the lines unlawfully fractured and packed Black voters to weaken their voting power.

The order by three judges — all of whom were nominated to the bench by GOP presidents — didn’t rule on changes made last month to the 1st Congressional District that are designed to unseat Democratic Rep. Don Davis in 2026.

That alteration, completed at the urging of President Donald Trump as part of an ongoing national mid-decade redistricting fray, is still being considered by the panel. The judges heard arguments in Winston-Salem but didn’t immediately rule on whether they would block now the use of the 1st District and the adjoining 3rd District for next year’s election while more legal arguments are made. Candidate filing for the 2026 elections is set to begin Dec. 1.

Many allegations made by the state NAACP, Common Cause and voters cover both 2023 and 2025 changes, in particular claims of voter dilution and racial discrimination violating the U.S. Constitution and Voting Rights Act.

The 2023 map helped turn a 7-7 North Carolina delegation into one in which Republicans won 10 of the 14 seats in 2024. Three Democrats chose not to seek reelection, saying it was essentially impossible to get reelected under the recast lines.

Thursday’s ruling by 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Allison Rushing and District Judges Thomas Schroeder and Richard Myers rejected claims that GOP legislators drew lines in 2023 so skewed for Republicans that many Black voters could not elect their preferred candidates.

“We conclude that the General Assembly did not violate the Constitution or the VRA in its 2023 redistricting,” they wrote in a 181-page order.

The judges convened a trial several months ago hearing testimony for a pair of lawsuits that challenged portions of maps redrawn in 2023. Thursday’s decision focused on five congressional districts: three in the Greensboro region and two in and around Charlotte, as well as three state Senate districts. The judges also upheld the Senate districts.

The plaintiffs argued Republicans split and weakened the Greensboro region’s concentrated Black voting population within multiple U.S. House districts. Then-Rep. Kathy Manning, a Greensboro Democrat, decided not to run again last year because her district shifted to the right. They also cited what they called packing Black voting-age residents into a Charlotte-area congressional district that in turn helped Republican Tim Moore win an adjoining district.

Attorneys for Republican leaders argued that lawfully partisan — and not racial — considerations helped inform decision-making on the 2023 map. They pointed out that no information on the racial makeup of regions were used in drawing the lines. A 2019 U.S. Supreme Court decision essentially neutered federal legal claims of illegal partisan gerrymandering going forward.

The judges’ order favoring the GOP lawmakers said “the circumstances surrounding the plans’ enactment and the resulting district configurations and composition are consistent with the General Assembly’s non-racial motivations, which included traditional districting criteria, North Carolina law, and partisan performance.”

The ruling can be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Spokespeople for Republican legislative leaders didn’t immediately respond late Thursday to emailed requests for comment. A lawyers group representing the state NAACP and others said it was disappointed with the ruling.

Still at issue are the changes made to the 1st and 3rd Districts that GOP legislators said are designed to create an 11-3 seat majority in 2026. Davis continues a line of Black representatives elected from the 1st District going back more than 30 years. But he won his second term by less than 2 percentage points.

North Carolina is among several states where Trump has pushed for mid-decade map changes ahead of the 2026 elections. This week, a federal court blocked Texas from using a GOP-engineered map.

By VALERIE GONZALEZ

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — A federal judge issued an order Wednesday requiring the Trump administration to again consider granting protection from deportation to certain vulnerable young immigrants.

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U.S. District Judge Eric Komitee ordered U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to again consider granting deportation protection under a 2022 program the agency rescinded in June. The decision will allow the program to continue while the lawsuit brought by plaintiffs in July continues.

Children and youth affected are those who have been abused, neglected, or abandoned by a parent and given Special Immigrant Juvenile status through a state court and the federal government.

SIJS, as it’s known, was created through congressional bipartisan support in 1990, and though it does not it grant legal status, it lets qualifying young people apply for a visa to become legal permanent residents and obtain a work permit. It can take years for a visa to become available due to annual caps. Under the Biden administration, USCIS could consider shielding designees from deportation while waiting for a visa.

Without the deferred action program, young people do not qualify for a work permit, face deportation and would no longer be eligible to become legal permanent residents if they’re returned to their country of origin.

“The crux of the court’s decision is that the government can’t just pull the rug out from under hundreds of thousands of young people like it did without considering how they built their entire lives around the policy that existed,” Stephanie Ellie Norton, an attorney for the plaintiffs working for the National Immigration Project.

USCIS and DHS did not immediately respond to a request for a statement.

Under the judge’s orders, applicants who had the protection as well as new applicants will be able to submit applications for consideration of this protection. USCIS will also be required to make decisions on the work permit requests for new applicants and designees with existing deferred action status.

The judge has not ruled on the certification of the class but litigation will resume.

Today is Thursday, Nov. 20, the 324th day of 2025. There are 41 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Nov. 20, 1945, 22 former Nazi officials went on trial before an international war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany. (Almost a year later, the International Military Tribune sentenced 12 of the defendants to death; seven received prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life; three were acquitted.)

Also on this date:

In 1910, Francisco Madero led a revolt against Mexican President Porfirio Díaz, marking the beginning of the decade-long Mexican Revolution.

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1947, Britain’s future queen, Princess Elizabeth, married Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey.

In 1969, Native American activists began an occupation of Alcatraz Island that would last 19 months before they were forcibly removed by federal authorities.

In 1982, the University of California, Berkeley, football team defeated Stanford University by scoring a touchdown on a lateral-filled kickoff return on the last play of the game, despite the Stanford marching band entering the field of play, thinking Stanford had already won. In college football lore, the bizarre finish is often referred to simply as “The Play.”

In 1992, fire seriously damaged Windsor Castle, the favorite weekend home of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.

In 2003, music producer Phil Spector was charged with murder in the shooting of actor Lana Clarkson at his California home. (After a first trial ended with a hung jury in 2007, Spector was convicted of second-degree murder in 2009 and sentenced to 19 years to life; he died in prison at age 81 on Jan. 16, 2021.)

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor Estelle Parsons is 98.
• Author Don DeLillo is 89.
• Comedian Dick Smothers is 87.
• Former President Joe Biden is 83.
• Broadcast journalist Judy Woodruff is 79.
• Musician Joe Walsh is 78.
• Actor Bo Derek is 69.
• Actor Ming-Na Wen is 62.
• Rapper Michael “Mike D” Diamond (Beastie Boys) is 60.
• Actor-comedian Joel McHale is 54.
• Country singer Dierks Bentley is 50.
• Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Dominique Dawes is 49.
• Rapper Future is 42.

Q: When we bought our house almost 20 years ago, it had a concrete partition wall running along the property line between our house and our neighbors. We’re getting ready to move, and our neighbor told us that the fence is actually a foot onto his property, and we needed to move it before we sold the house. Is this something I need to be concerned about? — Charles

A: Things like fences, driveways, or landscaping that run along the property lines often lead to disputes between neighbors.

In your situation, the concrete fence has been there for decades without incident. Selling your home is already stressful enough, without this added complication.

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to get through this dispute.

First, you need to verify the accuracy of your neighbor’s claim.

Property lines are usually established by a survey, which is a legal document that defines the features and boundaries of your land. If you don’t already have a copy of the survey from when you bought the house, you might need to hire a licensed surveyor to perform a new one.

This will help determine whether the fence is truly encroaching on your neighbor’s property.

Keep in mind that surveys are considered the most reliable evidence in boundary disputes, so having one is essential.

You should still get a survey of your own, even if your neighbor has one that seems to justify his complaint, as in my experience, I have seen different surveyors yield different results.

If the survey confirms that the fence is on your neighbor’s property, you will need to decide how to proceed.

It might make sense to come to an agreement without moving the wall.

If you and your neighbor cannot reach an agreement, it might make sense to take a pragmatic approach to your next step, factoring in the cost and time required to address the issue before selling your home.

If you decide it is worth the fight, consult a lawyer to see whether the fence’s placement has been legally “grandfathered” in. In some jurisdictions, if a structure has been in place for a certain number of years without objection, it may be protected under adverse possession or similar laws.

If you live in a community association, you will also want to check with the property manager to see whether your community’s documents address this issue.

Even if things quiet down with your neighbor, you should disclose the issue to potential buyers.

Transparency is key in real estate transactions, and failing to disclose a known boundary dispute could lead to legal trouble down the road.

Work with your real estate agent to determine the best way to address the situation in your listing and during the sale process.

Board-certified real estate lawyer Gary Singer writes about industry legal matters and the housing market. To ask him a question, email him at gary@garysingerlaw.com, or go to SunSentinel.com/askpro. 

Sunrise Mayor Mike Ryan’s op-ed essay as we approached America Recycles Day was excellent (“A winning game plan for Broward’s waste future,” Nov. 12).

Individuals need to recycle more, but there are two steps you can take first.

One, reduce the amount of stuff you buy. This is especially relevant this holiday season. Our emphasis on new things often overshadows creating moments that cost little and will be remembered long after the holidays are over.

Second, reuse what you have or give it to a charity to resell it. Your “trash” may be someone’s perfect holiday gift.

Monica Elliott, Southwest Ranches

Broward’s waste crisis

I appreciate the Sun Sentinel’s support for recycling in its full-page graphic in the Nov. 16 issue.

Unfortunately, many are confused about what to recycle or not, and many who originally were enthusiastic about recycling have become cynical, asking: “Is that fill-in-the-blank item actually recyclable? I hear it isn’t.”

In Broward, different cities have different rules that contradict each other.

There’s no denying that Broward has a waste crisis. We produce millions of tons of trash a year with fewer places to put it.

We all need to reduce the amount of waste we create, and Broward needs one unified recycling program with simple, clear recycling instructions countywide.

We have the potential to do this with the county Solid Waste Authority, a very unsexy, unheralded but critically important development. The county and most cities have worked hard to create this new authority and a master plan, and it’s important that all Broward cities join.

It can lead to a day when we reduce the literal mountains of trash we produce by reducing the amount of waste we create and effectively recycling much of the rest.

Bonnie Gross, Fort Lauderdale

‘Grim reaper’ DeSantis

I’m not complaining about the existence of the death penalty, which is the victim’s family’s final form of retribution to compensate for its loss.

Some wrongly claim that the death penalty deters violent crime. But it is highly unlikely that a mentally or emotionally damaged person is thinking about the ultimate penalty when he or she pulls the trigger, strangles or rapes.

Gov. Ron DeSantis seems to silently delight in signing death warrants while refusing to commute a death sentence to life without parole. One can’t help believe he’s in a contest with the malignant Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for unofficial title of America’s 21st Century “grim reaper.”

If this is DeSantis trying to prove he’s a law-and-order presidential candidate, it’s just another of his many misjudgments.

Maid Joy Kahn, Boca Raton 

‘Lauderdale County’? No way

It is so sad that state Rep. Chip LaMarca has no better ideas to put forward then to change the name of Broward County.

During these times with so many people struggling, the fact that this is the only thing he can come up with shows the lack of care and how out of touch the Republican Party is with the citizens of Broward and the state of Florida.

Could a proposal to change the name of Broward County to Lauderdale County succeed? (Staff illustration)

It would be difficult enough for everyone and every company to change the name of the county everywhere.

And to think that Major William Lauderdale (for whom Fort Lauderdale is named) was involved in removing Seminole Indians from their native lands (in the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842).

It’s a no in my book — a big fat NO!

Diane Miller, Plantation

Please submit a letter to the editor by email to letterstotheeditor@sunsentinel.com or fill out the online form below. Letters may be up to 200 words and must be signed with your email address, city of residence and daytime phone number for verification. Letters will be edited for clarity and length. 

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Here are the top stories for Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. Get the weather forecast for today here.

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American Heritage junior Sohan Patel and Dwyer senior Hampton Beebe both captured boys individual titles while the Dwyer and Benjamin boys and American Heritage girls each won team titles at the FHSAA golf state championship at Mission Inn Resort and Club in Howey-in-the-Hills.

The state championship featured a two-day, 36-hole format. The Class 3A championship was held Nov. 11-12, the Class 1A championship from Nov. 14-15 and the Class 2A competition from Nov 18-19.

Patel (70-69) captured his second consecutive Class 2A individual state title. He recorded a 139 total and won by one stroke.

“I have been really working hard on my game, which has led to a lot of good results this season,” Patel said. “It is always an honor to compete for a state title and I am proud to have gotten it done again.”

The Dwyer boys golf team (Courtesy, Dwyer Athletics)

Beebe (72-68) earned the Class 3A individual state title. He shot 4-under for a two-day total of 140. He trailed by one stroke after the first round and won the state title by two.

“Winning a state title has been on my list of things I wanted to accomplish before finishing high school,” Beebe said. “I finished fifth as an individual the last two years. Winning the individual and team title is something I will always have, and I am excited to also have pulled it off on the day I signed my commitment letter to play golf at Auburn University.”

Tsar, Woods Lift Benjamin to 1A Title

The Benjamin boys won the Class 1A state title with a 572 total (288-284). The Bucs won their fifth boys golf state championship and earned their second state title in the last three seasons.

Benjamin junior Andrew Tsar (68-71) finished as the Class 1A individual state runner-up as he stepped up with a 139 total.

“I am very proud of the way that I played to help the team win another state championship,” Tsar said. “We wanted to win the state championship very badly for us and our coaches. It was very rewarding to finish second to another great player. I am proud of my teammates and the season ending with this great win.”

The Benjamin boys golf team. (Courtesy/Benjamin Athletics)

Benjamin junior Charlie Woods (74-68) finished tied for fourth. He also finished tied for the lowest individual round on the final day. The Bucs were also led by junior Brooks Colton (72-72), who finished tied for ninth.  Freshman Clint Lewis (74-73) stepped up and finished tied for 17th. T

The Bucs finished with a 12-under rally on the back nine during the first day of competition to trail by just one stroke. They were able to set a record with a 4-under final round total of 284. The Bucs also previously won the district and regional title.

“I’m very proud of the season,” Benjamin coach Toby Harbeck said. “This team played with amazing confidence, poise and desire. They showed their true character on the last day at the state championship. Everyone was a star at some point during this season, but they always played as a team.”

Oxbridge Academy junior Joey Iaciofano (71-71) tied for fourth, senior AJ Colonna (74-72) tied for 14th and junior Ajax Lanasa (77-73) tied for 27th.

Dwyer Boys Capture 3A Title

The Dwyer boys finished with a 587 total (299-288) to earn the Class 3A state title for the first time in school history behind an impressive performance from Beebe. Dwyer senior Wylie Inman (75-72) tied for fourth, junior Tankhun Ritthisorn (76-73) tied for seventh) and sophomore William Cui (76-75) tied for 14th.

“Winning the state championship this year was a milestone,” Dwyer coach Eric Fasone said. “Not just for this team, but for the entire Dwyer golf program. We’re building something special here, a culture of excellence, and long-term success that will carry on beyond just this season.”

Boca Raton senior Henry Crowe (74-75) tied for seventh at the Class 3A state championship.

American Heritage Girls Earn 2A Title

The American Heritage girls won by 19 strokes at the Class 2A state championship. They led by one stroke after the first round and delivered an impressive second round for a 601 total (304-297). Sophomore Nicole Wu (73-74) placed eighth, senior Lilly Riegger (77-72) tied for ninth, junior Aryanah Ahmad (75-75) tied for 13th and sophomore Laura Monsalve (79-76) placed 21st.

“We overcame a lot of adversity this season with our kids injured and being sick,” American Heritage coach Mike Carlin said. “We needed to get our team back at full strength. We were building all season and learning from each tournament We put it together at the right time and everyone contributed.”

American Heritage girls golf team (Courtesy/American Heritage Athletics) FAU High’s Guertin Reaches Sudden Playoff

FAU High senior Valentina Guertin (69-68) finished tied for second with a 137 total at the Class 1A girls state championship. Guertin was among five players who reached the sudden playoff.

FAU High placed second at the state championship. Senior Kayla Bryant (70-69) placed seventh and sophomore Alexandra Phung (76-65) tied for ninth. Phung registered the lowest score during the final round of the tournament.

Benjamin freshman Reese McMillan (69-74) finished tied for 12th at the state tournament.

Dwyer’s Gram, West Boca’s Andino Lead 3A Girls

Dwyer sophomore Leah Gram and West Boca junior Catherine Andino both tied for fourth at the Class 3A girls state championship. Gram (75-70) and Andino (74-71) both finished with a 145 total.

The other top performers included Coral Glades senior Bianca Gibbs (74-73), who finished tied for eighth. Spanish River senior Gaelle Summers (75-75) and senior Jayden Loyacona (77-73) both tied for 16th.

Dr. Joaquin Garcia’s Baker and Mena Shine in 2A

Dr. Joaquin Garcia sophomore Jaime Baker (72-69) finished as the state runner-up with a 141 total at the Class 2A girls championship. Dr. Joaquin Garcia senior Daniel Mena (71-74) tied for fourth at the Class 2A boys championship.

Pompano Beach junior Liam Johnston (78-72) tied for 10th while Coral Springs Charter teammates Hudson Fee (76-77) and Bento Assis (72-81) both tied for 12th for the boys. Archbishop McCarthy’s Abigail Lee (79-73) tied for 17th for the girls.

By DAVID FISCHER

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of raping and fatally beating his former manager at a Florida convenience store in 1988 is scheduled to be executed Thursday evening.

Richard Barry Randolph, 63, is set to receive a lethal injection starting at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke. Randolph was convicted of murder, armed robbery, sexual battery and grand theft and sentenced to death in 1989.

It would be Florida’s 17th death sentence carried out in 2025, further extending the state record for total executions in a single year.

According to court records, Randolph attempted to break into the safe at the Handy-Way convenience store in Palatka, where he had previously worked, in August 1988. Randolph was spotted by the manager, Minnie Ruth McCollum, and the two began to struggle.

Randolph then beat, strangled, stabbed and raped McCollum before leaving the store and taking the woman’s car, the records show.

Three women witnessed Randolph leaving the store and called the sheriff’s office after seeing through the window that the store was in disarray. A deputy responded and found McCollum still alive. She was taken to a hospital in a coma and died six days later of severe brain injuries, according to doctors.

Randolph was arrested shortly after the attack at a Jacksonville grocery store while trying to borrow money and cash in lottery tickets stolen from the convenience store, according to deputies. Investigators said Randolph admitted to the attack and directed them to bloody clothing that he had discarded.

The Florida Supreme Court denied Randolph’s appeals last week. He had argued that a lower court had abused its discretion in denying him access to public records and that his own defense lawyers had acted without his consent. A final appeal was still pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

A total of 43 men have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S., and more than a dozen other people are scheduled to be put to death during the remainder of 2025 and next year.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, the highest previous annual total of Florida executions was eight in 2014. Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, followed by Alabama, South Carolina and Texas with five each. Two more executions are planned for next month in Florida under death warrants signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Mark Allen Geralds, 58, is scheduled for Florida’s 18th execution on Dec. 9. He was convicted of fatally stabbing a woman during home invasion robbery.

Frank Athen Walls, 58, is set for Florida’s 19th execution on Dec. 18. He was convicted of fatally shooting a man and woman during home invasion robbery, and he later confessed to three other killings.

Florida’s lethal injections are carried out with a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the state Department of Corrections.

___

Follow David Fischer on the social platform Bluesky: ‪@dwfischer.bsky.social‬

MIAMI — Observations and other notes of interest from Wednesday night’s 110-96 victory over the Golden State Warriors:

– Yes, what was left of the Warriors fought the good fight for longer than could have been expected.

– Far longer.

– So, yes, there was an NBA level of competition on Wednesday night at Kaseya Center.

– But in the personality-driven NBA, fans come for more.

– They come for Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green.

– They got none of that.

– Yes, rest matters.

– Yes, three games in four nights for an older roster is challenging.

– But the NBA knew Curry was unable to play in Miami last season, and still scheduled the Warriors for the second night of a back-to-back in Miami this time around.

– It is one thing with an Eastern Conference opponent, where there typically is a second time around to see an absent star.

– New York already visited twice, with the Kaseya Center able to see Jalen Brunson at least once.

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– Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley sat last Wednesday at Kaseya Center for the Cavaliers, but at least were on display with the Cavaliers two nights earlier in the building.

– That’s not the case with a Western Conference opponent.

– Those teams visit only once.

– So in 2025-26 at Kaseya Center . . .

– No chance to marvel at Steph.

– No opportunity to jeer Jimmy.

– No time to taunt Draymond.

– That part of the NBA experience lost for another season.

– Increasingly, the NBA has become a television league, a streaming league.

– Seemingly aware of what was coming, ESPN pulled the plug on Heat-Warriors a week in advance.

– But it’s not as if fans at Kaseya Center had the opportunity to change the channel from what the Warriors offered Wednesday night.

– Again, the effort was laudable.

– But the NBA allowing such a star-less moment nonetheless lamentable.

– With Bam Adebayo back after a six-game absence, the Heat opened with a lineup of Adebayo, Pelle Larsson, Andrew Wiggins, Noman Powell and Davion Mitchell.

– Before the game, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, “we’ll monitor it,” when it comes to Adebayo’s playing time as he returns.

– The hope was Adebayo picking up where he left off.

– “He just continues to evolve and improve every year, and that’s a credit to him being open minded, and then also his work ethic,” Spoelstra said.

– With Spoelstra of the belief the Heat’s rapid-movement system plays to Adebayo’s strengths.

– “This allows him to get to different parts of the menu, as a playmaker, as a scorer, as an attacker, as a facilitator, depending on what the possession calls for,” Spoelstra said.

– Nikola Jovic was an active scratch.

– Inactive were Tyler Herro (ankle), Terry Rozier (not with team), Kasparas Jakucionis (G League) and Myron Gardner (G League).

– With the Warriors giving the night off to Curry, Butler, Green, Al Horford and others, Golden State opened with the eclectic lineup of  Brandin Podziemski, Will Richard, Moses Moody, Gui Santos and Trayce Jackson-Davis.

– Jaime Jaquez Jr. again was first off the Heat bench.

– Kel’el Ware, Simone Fontecchio and Dru Smith followed together.

– This time without the emergency need for Keshad Johnson.

– Former Heat center Joel Anthony was among the faces in the crowd.

– Fontecchio made it six consecutive games with multiple 3-pointers, one game off the longest such streak of his career.

MIAMI — A week ago, the Cleveland Cavaliers returned to Kaseya Center risking that they could win while giving Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley the night off.

They did, the Heat losing by 14.

Wednesday night, the Golden State Warriors took the notion of opposing rest to a higher level, going without Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green and others on the second night of  their back-to-back set.

The expectations of victory might not have been there, but the fight was, arguably more than expected.

Until the Heat said enough was enough.

Trailing at the start of the final period after leading by 16 earlier, the Heat pushed to a 110-96 victory, lifting their home record to 7-1.

“I think it’s human nature,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of somewhat playing down to the competition. “We jumped out to an early lead and I think it creeps in that it’s going to be an easy game.”

With Bam Adebayo back in the mix, Spoelstra somewhat reshuffled the mix while mindful of Adebayo’s minutes after a six-game absence with a toe strain.

Adebayo closed with 20 points and seven rebounds in 29 minutes.

“I felt good, just trying to find a rhythm, let the game come to me, and it did at some point,” Adebayo said.

The Heat also got 25 points from Norman Powell, 17 from former Warriors Andrew Wiggins and seven points and 16 rebounds from Kel’el Ware, who shifted back to a reserve role.

“In the end,” Spoelstra said, “I thought we wore on them.”

Five Degrees of Heat from Wednesday  night’s game:

1. Game flow: The Heat moved to an early 16-point lead amid an 0-for-12 start from the field by the Warriors, before settling in for a 29-20 lead at the end of the opening period. The play remained ragged from there, with the Heat going into the intermission up 49-45.

The Warriors then took their first lead of the game at 60-59 in the third period, up 74-72 going into the fourth.

The Heat pushed back to a 90-78 lead with 5:17 to play after Powell and Adebayo were inserted.

“In the second half I thought our efforts were much better,” Spoelstra said.

But back came the Warriors, closing within 91-85 with 4:16 to play.

Three baskets by Adebayo then quelled the Warriors rally, with Powell and Adebayo combining for 26 of the Heat’s final 29 points.

“Down the stretch he was just really good,” Spoelstra said of Powell. “We put the ball in his hands and ran the pick and roll basically with him and Bam.”

Powell scored 17 in the fourth quarter.

“You saw a more energized group to close out the game,” Powell said. “Tonight, in the fourth quarter I was a recipient.”

2. Adebayo back: Adebayo’s return moved Ware back to the second unit, with Spoelstra otherwise staying with Powell, Wiggins, Davion Mitchell and Pelle Larsson as his starters.

It was the fourth time Ware played off the bench in his 15 appearances this season.

“Kel’el was really good tonight,” Spoelstra said. “I mentioned that to the team, that it’s not easy to be starting, playing really well, and then come off the bench and have an impact.

“But it was more about the mindset.”

Adebayo essentially picked up where he left off when he converted a 3-pointer early in the first quarter, another in the third and then one in the fourth.

Adebayo had converted at least one 3-pointer in a career-high 19 consecutive games, dating to last season, before he was limited by his toe sprain to just the opening 8:12 on Nov. 5 in Denver.

“We definitely missed him and glad to have him back,” Powell said.

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3. Jovic out: Even with Adebayo back, Spoelstra was able to stay with his base rotation, with Nikola Jovic sidelined by a hip impingement.

That essentially had Ware cast in the role that had been held by Jovic.

“It started hurting yesterday in the morning before practice,” Jovic said of Tuesday’s practice. “I went through the practice and it was kind of getting worse and worse. I finished the practice and played some extra, just to go through the reps and I thought it was going to be better. But during the day it got a little worse.

“And today, I felt good. I got some shots up to see how it felt and it did not feel good.”

Jovic said the expectation is just a one-game absence, with the Heat next playing Friday in Chicago.

“Probably just one game, hopefully,” he said.

4. The Golden State who?: With Curry, Butler and Green out, the Warriors also were without Jonathan Kuminga and De’Anthony Melton due to ongoing knee injuries, with Al Horford given off the second night of the back-to-back set.

That had Golden State opening with a lineup of Brandin Podziemski, Will Richard, Moses Moody, Gui Santos and Trayce Jackson-Davis.

The Warriors later cycled through the likes of Quinten Post and Pat Spencer.

Podziemski led Golden State with 20 points,

“I’m really proud of the guys, of the effort, of the fight,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.

5. On the road again: Next up is an NBA Cup game on Friday night in Chicago, with a loss eliminating the Heat from the opportunity to advance to the knockout round.

The two-game trip then concludes Sunday in Philadelphia.

Paul Rubelt stood staring at the blank whiteboard, pen in hand, and immediately knew he was in trouble.

As a freshman offensive lineman, Rubelt was asked by his UCF coaches to diagram the differences between an even and odd front. For someone born and raised in Germany, who didn’t grow up playing American football until his teens, it was all new to him.

“I was standing there thinking: I’m not going to last a year. I don’t know the simplest thing about football,” Rubelt said recently to the Sentinel.

Nearly six seasons later, Rubelt is one of 25 seniors to be honored as part of UCF’s Senior Day on Saturday before the Knights host Oklahoma State at Acrisure Bounce House Stadium in the home finale.

“I knew I wasn’t going to quit,” Rubelt recalled of those early days. “When I start a thing, I’m going to end it, but I did think I might get kicked off the team.”

Rubelt, 25, has gone from being a virtual unknown knocked on his backside in his first practice in 2020 to being a multi-year starter at tackle for the Knights. In an age when a player’s commitment to a school is more like a summer romance, Rubelt has been a cornerstone of the program, having played through three coaching changes and a move to a Power 4 conference.

Knightro may be UCF’s mascot, but Rubelt has been the face of the program throughout much of this season with a happy-go-lucky smile despite the hard times.

UCF offensive tackle Paul Rubelt poses for a photograph with his father, Andreas. Rubelt will be honored before Saturday's game against Oklahoma State as part of Senior Day. His parents and a dozen friends and family will be on hand to help him celebrate. (Photo courtesy of Paul Rubelt)

“He’s been a great anchor for us. He’s like an ambassador for UCF,” said coach Scott Frost. “I know the passion he has for UCF. He’s loved his time here, like most of the guys have, and we’ll be sad to see him go, but I think he has bright things ahead.”

“In the short time that I’ve known him, he’s almost like a brother to me,” said senior running back Myles Montgomery.

It’s hard to miss Rubelt.

At 6-foot-10, he typically stands a head taller than the rest of the UCF players on the practice field, and at 310 pounds, Rubelt is an imposing figure. Yet his cheery disposition and sense of humor also help him stand out.

When asked what fans will most remember him for, Rubelt said, “I’m tall,” followed by a bellowing laugh.

But he quickly gets serious.

“I don’t know what people will remember. Everybody’s different, but what I want people to remember me for is that I’m loyal to the program,” Rubelt said. “That I stand for my word and am a man of my word and I hope everybody thinks I’m a great guy.”

Rubelt’s athletic career began in his hometown of Frankfurt-Oder, where he joined a local swimming club. Eventually, he traded in the pool for the green grass of a football field, playing for the Red Cocks American football club.

He came to America and played his first tackle football at Hiawatha High School near Rockford, Illinois, before eventually earning an offer from former UCF coach Josh Heupel.

It was Heupel, who coached the Knights from 2018-20, who helped out Rubelt in those early days.

“He would give me confidence when I would talk to him,” Rubelt said.

A few years later, it would be head coach Gus Malzahn and offensive line coach Herb Hand who would trust him enough to make him a starter. Rubelt credits Hand’s tutelage for the player he is today.

On Saturday, Rubelt will celebrate his final home game with his parents and about a dozen family and friends who made the trip from Germany.

Rubelt’s father, Andreas, has been in Orlando over the past couple of weeks. He arrived in time to watch Rubelt play in UCF’s Space Game against Houston on Nov. 7. Since then, the 71-year-old musician has been taking in his son’s daily schedule, including watching practice and even enjoying a meal with the offensive line.

UCF offensive tackle Paul Rubelt poses for a photograph with his mother, Kerstin. Rubelt will be honored before Saturday's game against Oklahoma State as part of Senior Day. His parents and several family and friends will be on hand to celebrate the occasion. (Photo courtesy of Paul Rubelt)

“My dad’s not really big into smartphones and stuff like that,” said Rubelt. “I’ve sent him a couple of YouTube clips of game highlights that he can watch. Other than that, he can’t comprehend the game, but he wants to understand. He’s asking the right questions, but it’s hard.”

Still, Andreas remains a proud father.

“Am I the dad? Is this my son?” Andreas said with Rubelt translating. “I knew he was always athletic because he swam and had a pretty good time doing it. I was always with him when he had competitions and I noticed early on that he liked team sports.

“When he started playing football, you could see him starting to embrace it and it fit like a glove.”

Andreas, 71, participated in track and field before eventually choosing a musical career. He picked up a trumpet at 9 years old and has been playing ever since in a variety of bands.

“Because I know about embracing the grind, that’s how he knows I’m his son,” Rubelt added.

Rubelt’s mother, Kerstin, aims to arrive on Friday from Germany along with a group of nearly a dozen friends and family. She’ll be seeing her son play football for the first time, even though she previously attended the 2023 Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa against Georgia Tech; Rubelt didn’t play in that game.

“My mom knows [football] a little bit and my uncle is trying to get into it,” said Rubelt.

It’s been tough for his family and friends back home to watch his games. They can occasionally catch them on a streaming service, but it can be difficult given the 6-hour time difference between the East Coast and Germany.

Rubelt admits he’ll have goosebumps before kickoff on Saturday, especially when taking the field with his parents during the Senior Day celebration.

“For me, football is the greatest thing in the world,” said Rubelt. “People from Germany, not everybody knows about football like that, but I know that when they see it, they’ll think this is just awesome. Everybody’s told me afterward that this is amazing. So let’s hope that’s the case this Saturday.”

Please find me on X, Bluesky or Instagram @osmattmurschel. Email: mmurschel@orlandosentinel.com. Sign up for the Sentinel’s Knights Weekly newsletter for a roundup of all our UCF coverage.

By SEUNG MIN KIM, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed legislation Wednesday that compels his administration to release files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, bowing to political pressure from his own party after initially resisting those efforts.

Trump could have chosen to release many of the files on his own months ago.

“Democrats have used the ‘Epstein’ issue, which affects them far more than the Republican Party, in order to try and distract from our AMAZING Victories,” Trump said in a social media post as he announced he had signed the bill.

• Gary Rush, College Park, MD, holds a sign before a news conference on the Epstein files in front of the Capitol, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
• Sky Roberts, brother of prominent Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, speaks as his wife Amanda holds her photograph during a news conference as the House prepares to vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, R-Ga., and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., listen at right. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
• Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., leaves the U.S. Capitol after voting in favor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
• Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., speaks to reporters on the steps of the U.S. Capitol after voting in favor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
• FILE – In this July 30, 2008, file photo, Jeffrey Epstein, center, appears in court in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Uma Sanghvi/The Palm Beach Post via AP, File)

Show Caption1 of 5Gary Rush, College Park, MD, holds a sign before a news conference on the Epstein files in front of the Capitol, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib) Expand

Now, the bill requires the Justice Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein, as well as any information about the investigation into his death in a federal prison in 2019, within 30 days. It allows for redactions about Epstein’s victims for ongoing federal investigations, but DOJ cannot withhold information due to “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”

It was a remarkable turn of events for what was once a farfetched effort to force the disclosure of case files from an odd congressional coalition of Democrats, one GOP antagonist of the president, and a handful of erstwhile Trump loyalists. As recently as last week, the Trump administration even summoned one Republican proponent of releasing the files, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, to the Situation Room to discuss the matter, although she did not change her mind.

But over the weekend, Trump did a sharp U-turn on the files once it became clear that congressional action was inevitable. He insisted the Epstein matter had become a distraction to the GOP agenda and indicated he wanted to move on.

“I just don’t want Republicans to take their eyes off all of the Victories that we’ve had,” Trump said in a social media post Tuesday afternoon, explaining the rationale for his abrupt about-face.

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The House passed the legislation on a 427-1 vote, with Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., being the sole dissenter. He argued that the bill’s language could lead to the release of information on innocent people mentioned in the federal investigation. The Senate later approved it unanimously, skipping a formal vote.

It’s long been established that Trump had been friends with Epstein, the disgraced financier who was close to the world’s elite. But the president has consistently said he did not know of Epstein’s crimes and had cut ties with him long ago.

Before Trump returned to the White House for a second term, some of his closest political allies helped fuel conspiracy theories about the government’s handling of the Epstein case, asserting a cover-up of potentially incriminating information in those files.