SpaceX launches Sirius XM radio satellite to orbit, lands rocket on ship at sea (video, photos)
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SpaceX launched the SXM-10 satellite for SiriusXM early Saturday morning (June 7), adding another spacecraft to the company's broadcasting constellation.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying SXM-10 lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Saturday at 12:54 a.m. EDT (0454 GMT).
The rocket's first stage came back to Earth about 8.5 minutes later as planned, touching down on the SpaceX drone ship "A Shortfall of Gravitas," which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
It was the eighth launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description.
Among its previous missions were the Crew-9 and Fram2 astronaut flights and the liftoff on Jan. 15 of this year that sent two private moon landers — Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost and ispace's Resilience — toward Earth's nearest neighbor.
Blue Ghost aced its lunar touchdown on March 2, but Resilience crashed during its landing attempt on Thursday (June 5).
Related stories:
— SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches Sirius XM radio satellite (video)
— SpaceX completes 1st Starlink direct-to-cell constellation with launch from California (video)
— SpaceX: Facts about Elon Musk's private spaceflight company
The Falcon 9's upper stage carried SXM-10 to geosynchronous transfer orbit high above Earth on Saturday, deploying it there about 33 minutes after launch as planned.
The 14,100-pound (6,400 kilograms) satellite, which was built by Maxar Technologies, will now maneuver to join SiriusXM's radio constellation, adding its own capabilities to the mix.
Saturday's launch was SpaceX's second for SiriusXM in just six months; a Falcon 9 lofted the SXM-9 satellite in early December 2024.
SpaceX has now launched 69 Falcon 9 missions in 2025. Fifty-one of them have been dedicated to building out the company's Starlink broadband megaconstellation in low Earth orbit.
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