Latest Developments

SpaceX closed out October 1 with a midnight Falcon Heavy launch from Kennedy Space Center, carrying the classified NROL-97 payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. The mission was the NRO’s first on Falcon Heavy after 22 flights on Falcon 9, and the first NRO launch purchased through the NSSL Phase 3 Lane 2 contract awarded in 2025. The two side boosters landed at Cape Canaveral, completing a four-booster-landing day for SpaceX, a single-day record. Separately, Rocket Lab signed its largest Electron launch contract to date: a 20-mission agreement with Japan’s Synspective, extending a partnership that has already put 13 StriX radar satellites into orbit since 2020.

Space Safety

Two Starlink-involved conjunctions appear in the current SOCRATES top-probability list, but both carry suspect upstream data (physically implausible miss distances or stale TLEs) and should not be treated as credible collision risks at this time. On the reentry side, nine Starlink satellites are actively tracked with predicted atmospheric reentry windows, consistent with SpaceX’s routine practice of deorbiting end-of-life vehicles from their low-deployment orbits.

Risk
Starlink Sat
Other Object
Status
Min Range (km)
Rel Speed (km/s)
Max Prob
Time of Closest Approach

HIGH
STARLINK-3259
STARLINK-37703
Operational
0.018
11.012
1 (suspect)
Oct 7, 04:17 UTC

HIGH
STARLINK-5756
STARLINK-30171
Operational
0.018
1.349
1 (suspect)
Oct 7, 04:07 UTC

Satellite
NORAD ID
Predicted Decay
Window (min)
Inclination
Lat
Lon

STARLINK-1797
46698
Oct 3, 19:45 UTC
600
53°
11.7°
116.3°

STARLINK-4390
53653
Oct 4, 12:28 UTC
540
97.6°
4.8°
331.2°

STARLINK-1433
45711
Oct 5, 08:21 UTC
1080
53°
-9.1°
103.4°

STARLINK-1856
47143
Oct 5, 13:04 UTC
840
53°
-29.6°
305.9°

STARLINK-4386
53649
Oct 5, 15:54 UTC
840
97.6°
-54°
292°

STARLINK-31495
59313
Oct 6, 04:53 UTC
1020
43°
0.2°
184.9°

STARLINK-1278
45408
Oct 6, 10:17 UTC
1080
53°
11.8°
161°

STARLINK-1672
46537
Oct 6, 18:10 UTC
1140
53°
44.6°
18.9°

STARLINK-4408
53206
Oct 6, 20:05 UTC
1080
97.3°
24.5°
22.5°

Detailed Coverage
Falcon Heavy’s First NRO Mission Caps a Four-Landing Day

Falcon Heavy lifted off from LC-39A at 11:54 p.m. ET on October 1, carrying NROL-97 to a high-energy orbit. Side boosters B1104 (second flight) and B1072 (fourth flight) landed at LZ-1 and LZ-2 at Cape Canaveral, both having last flown on August 30 for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launch. That 32-day gap makes NROL-97 the quickest turnaround between Falcon Heavy missions to date. Center core B1106, flying for the first time, was expended, and the payload fairing was reused from July’s NROL-95 mission.

The two landings brought SpaceX’s single-day booster recovery total to four, a company first. Earlier on October 1, Falcon 9 booster B1101 landed after a separate mission, and a third Falcon 9 booster touched down as well. As covered in our earlier coverage, the day also included multiple Falcon 9 flights, making it one of SpaceX’s busiest operational days ever.

Read the full story: Teslarati

Rocket Lab Locks In 20-Mission Synspective Deal

Rocket Lab signed its largest Electron launch service agreement to date, a 20-mission contract with Synspective to continue deploying the Japanese company’s StriX synthetic aperture radar constellation. Synspective has been one of Electron’s steadiest customers, with 13 StriX satellites launched since 2020, including the most recent on September 25. The deal solidifies Rocket Lab’s position in the dedicated small-sat launch market, where customers pay a premium for orbit-specific timing and parameters rather than ridesharing on a larger vehicle.

The same Ars Technica Rocket Report also noted that Starship Flight 14 earlier in the week delivered the first 26 Starlink V3 satellites to orbit, as we covered in our earlier coverage.

Read the full story: Ars Technica

Constellation Status

One satellite left the working constellation since the last update, dropping the active count to 11,142 out of 11,156 in orbit. The decayed total ticked up by one to 1,832. SpaceX has launched 12,988 Starlink satellites to date.

Total Launched: 12988
Total On Orbit: 11156
Total Working: 11142

Track Starlink satellites in real-time: Track Starlink

Wondering about the totals? See how many Starlink satellites are in orbit, updated daily.