SpaceX launches 15,000-pound TV satellite to orbit on its 30th mission of the year (photos)

a black and white rocket launches into a dark night sky — A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the EchoStar XXV TV satellite from Florida on March 10, 2026. (Image credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX's 30th launch of 2026 is in the books.

One of the company's Falcon 9 rockets lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday (March 10) at 12:19 a.m. EDT (0419 GMT), carrying the 15,000-pound (6,800-kilogram) EchoStar XXV TV satellite skyward.

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a black and white rocket stands on the deck of a ship at sea at night — The first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rests on the deck of a drone ship after launching the EchoStar XXV TV satellite from Florida on March 10, 2026. (Image credit: SpaceX)

Previous Booster 1085 missions

The Falcon 9's upper stage, meanwhile, continued carrying EchoStar XXV to distant geosynchronous transfer orbit, where the satellite was deployed on schedule 35 minutes after liftoff.

EchoStar XXV will make its own way to geostationary orbit, a circular path 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth. After a series of checkouts, the satellite will start beaming TV signals down for customers of the Dish Network, a subsidiary of Colorado-based EchoStar.

Tuesday's launch was a relative rarity for SpaceX these days — a mission that wasn't devoted to building out the company's giant Starlink broadband megaconstellation. Twenty-four of SpaceX's 30 orbital launches in 2026 have been Starlink missions.

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

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