Tonight's launch was SpaceX's 54th Falcon 9 mission of 2025 and 56th liftoff so far this year. The other two missions involved Starship, SpaceX's next-generation super-heavy-lift rocket. The company is gearing up for another Starship test flight — the vehicle's ninth overall — in the coming weeks.

In contrast, after last week's launch, Amazon now has just 27 operational Kuipersats. Weighing perhaps 1,260 pounds each versus 1,760 pounds for SpaceX's more robust V2 Minis, Amazon's satellites are presumably less capable than SpaceX's. But are they good enough to compete with Starlink?

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Florida's Space Coast on Tuesday night (May 6), carrying 28 Starlink broadband satellites into low Earth orbit.