SpaceX launches most of the world’s payload

By 2025, SpaceX had achieved a level of dominance in spaceflight without precedent. It launched 165 times that year — a new world record and its sixth consecutive record-breaking year, up from 26 launches in 2020 — flying roughly every other day.

Even more striking is the tonnage. SpaceX lifted on the order of 2,200 metric tons to orbit in 2025, more than 80% of all the payload mass launched by every country and company on Earth combined. A single private company now carries the large majority of humanity's hardware to space.

This cadence is a direct dividend of reusability: routinely re-flying boosters and fairings lets SpaceX launch more often and more cheaply than any government program. It is also what makes Starlink — and the broader commercialization of space — physically possible.