The world's busiest spaceport is about to get a lot quieter, at least for now

SpaceX made Florida’s Space Coast home to the world’s busiest spaceport for a decade, but that will change this year. The company is significantly cutting the number of launches from Florida until Starship arrives, a senior SpaceX official confirmed Tuesday. The Falcon 9 rocket has been SpaceX’s workhorse, routinely launching batches of satellites for the company’s Starlink network, primarily from launch pads at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. There were 165 Falcon 9 launches last year—about three flights per week—and about 75 percent of them carried Starlink satellites. This year is different. SpaceX has launched more missions from its West Coast launch pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California since January, and this trend will amplify for the rest of the year. Tuesday’s launch was noteworthy for a couple of other reasons. First, it marked the 37th flight for SpaceX’s fleet-leading Falcon 9 first stage booster, a new record. The timing of the launch shortly before sunrise also allowed skywatchers up the East Coast to catch a glimpse of the Falcon 9 as it rocketed northeast from Cape Canaveral.