Live: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to launch Starlink satellites and prototype 'Fabships' from Florida [1:26:20]

YouTube ^ | July 5, 2026 | Spaceflight Now

[SunkenCiv]

The first stage is carrying the first prototype 'Fabships' for Besxar, a semiconductor manufacturing company. These microwave-sized devices are designed to produce ultra-pure materials for semiconductors in the vacuum of space. The company has booked 12 Falcon 9 flights to test and refine these "Clipper-class" Fabships. Two of the devices have been integrated into the rocket for the Starlink 10-50 mission and will be returned to Besxar following booster recovery. Our live coverage with commentary from Spaceflight Now's Will Robinson-Smith will start about one hour prior to launch. [the time index is set to skip the first 59:56] 

Live: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to launch Starlink satellites and prototype 'Fabships' from Florida | 1:26:20 
Spaceflight Now | 12,462 views | July 5, 2026

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: besxar; elonmusk; fabships; spacex; starlink; willrobinsonsmith

[SunkenCiv]

YouTube transcript reformatted at textformatter.ai *may* follow.

[SunkenCiv]

sidebar — Fabships launch customer website:
https://www.besxar.com/

[SunkenCiv]

Transcript [excerpt]

And with that, let’s go ahead and turn to the mission stats as they currently stand.

Liftoff of this Falcon 9 rocket and a good landing that marked the 13th flight for Falcon 9 booster 1090 in the SpaceX fleet. This was SpaceX’s 660th Falcon 9 launch to date, the 78th of the year so far. This was also the company’s 79th orbital launch of 2026, including the one Falcon Heavy rocket launch so far. Looking forward to the launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope later this summer, which will be also on a Falcon Heavy rocket.

This was SpaceX’s 595th Falcon booster reflight, or the launch of a booster that has flown at least once. This was SpaceX’s 161st orbital launch within the last 365 days. The 335th orbital launch from pad 40 for the company and the 390th overall orbital flight from this pad as well.

Here’s a look at the bar chart representation of Falcon rocket launches from this and years past, getting pretty close to eclipsing the total number of launches that SpaceX completed in 2023.

Moving on to some recovery stats. This was the 159th landing on the drone ship called a shortfall of gravitas. This booster now passing the total number of landings completed on the now repurposed drone ship from SpaceX, just read the instructions. This was SpaceX’s 524th drone ship landing, the 633rd booster landing for the company, and the 635th overall landing of an orbital class rocket.

Finally, with some industry stats, this was the 45th orbital launch from the Sunshine State of Florida this year, the 89th from US soil, the 99th from a US rocket company, and the 160th overall orbital launch around the world. There have been six orbital failures so far this year. Here’s a look at the bar chart for Cape launches as things currently stand and a look at our pie chart as things exist right now.

[bigbob]

Will should drop the “Smith” for cripesake

[montag813]

Spacex’s revenue is going to absolutely explode once they have space tourism up and running.

[ComputerGuy]

That guy Musk - he thinks big.

[ridesthemiles]

AND BERNIE SANDERS DOESN’T THINK MUSK IS USEFUL

[sjmjax]

“Lost in Space” would have been vastly improved despite the silly costumes and even sillier “aliens” if Dr Smith had meet a gruesome and painful death by the second or third episode.

[hanamizu]

And AOC thinks he’s dumb.

[going hot]

Aoc thinks? Who knew?

[SunkenCiv]

Yup. Starlink is already big, and will be the main moneymaker after Starship is operational to the extent that the much higher capacity gen 2 sats can go up. The current constellation runs petabytes of data (42 pb per day) among the 10K or so satellites, using laser comm. 12 million subscribers worldwide, with about 25% of them having joined in the past six months or so. The gen 2 sats will make expansion into Earth-surface mobile telephony much easier.