SpaceX to Launch 10 Communications Satellites Today: Watch Live

This image shows the first of eight scheduled launches by SpaceX for Iridium Communications. The second Iridium communications satellite launch is scheduled for June 25, and will send 10 satellites into orbit.
This image shows the first of eight scheduled launches by SpaceX for Iridium Communications. The second Iridium communications satellite launch is scheduled for June 25, and will send 10 satellites into orbit. (Image credit: SpaceX)

Elon Musk's private spaceflight company SpaceX is poised to launched 10 communications satellites into low-Earth orbit today (June 25), and you can watch it live here on Space.com.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the 10 satellites for Iridium Communications is scheduled to liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 1:25 p.m. PDT (4:25 p.m. EDT/2025 GMT). The live webcast is expected to begin about 1 hour before the opening of the launch window, and you can watch it on SpaceX's website, or here at Space.com.

This is the second of eight planned Iridium launches with SpaceX. The launches will deliver a total of 75 satellites into space for the $3 billion Iridium NEXT global communications network.

"Iridium NEXT will replace the company’s existing global constellation in one of the largest technology upgrades ever completed in space," according to a statement from Iridium. "It represents the evolution of critical communications infrastructure that governments and organizations worldwide rely upon to drive business, enable connectivity, empower disaster relief efforts and more."

On Friday (June 22) SpaceX launched the first-ever Bulgarian communications satellite into orbit, after about a week of delays. That satellite launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket that utilized a spent first stage booster. It was the second time that SpaceX has launched a commercial payload on a used booster.

The booster being used in today's launch is expected to land on a droneship called the "Just Read the Instructions" that will be stationed in the Pacific Ocean.

A backup launch window opens at 1:19 p.m. PDT (4:19 EDT/20:19 UTC) on Monday, June 26.

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Calla Cofield
Senior Writer

Calla Cofield joined Space.com's crew in October 2014. She enjoys writing about black holes, exploding stars, ripples in space-time, science in comic books, and all the mysteries of the cosmos. Prior to joining Space.com Calla worked as a freelance writer, with her work appearing in APS News, Symmetry magazine, Scientific American, Nature News, Physics World, and others. From 2010 to 2014 she was a producer for The Physics Central Podcast. Previously, Calla worked at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City (hands down the best office building ever) and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California. Calla studied physics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and is originally from Sandy, Utah. In 2018, Calla left Space.com to join NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory media team where she oversees astronomy, physics, exoplanets and the Cold Atom Lab mission. She has been underground at three of the largest particle accelerators in the world and would really like to know what the heck dark matter is. Contact Calla via: E-Mail – Twitter