SXM-10 Heads to Orbit as SpaceX Nails Another Nighttime Launch & Landing

SpaceX launched the SXM-10 satellite for SiriusXM early on Saturday morning, June 7. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 12:54 a.m. EDT, carrying the 14,100-pound (6,400-kg) spacecraft into an initial high orbit. About 8.5 minutes later, the rocket’s first stage returned to Earth and touched down safely on SpaceX’s drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas” in the Atlantic Ocean. This mission added another satellite to SiriusXM’s geostationary radio constellation and was part of SpaceX’s very busy launch schedule – it was already the company’s 69th Falcon 9 launch of 2025. (SpaceX has devoted dozens of those flights this year to deploying its own Starlink internet satellites.) SXM-10 is the second new SiriusXM radio satellite launched in six months, following SXM-9 in December 2024.

Falcon 9 Rocket Launch and Booster Recovery

According to a SpaceX mission description, for this flight SpaceX reused a Falcon 9 first-stage booster that had flown many times before. It was the eighth mission for that particular booster. Among its earlier flights were two astronaut missions (NASA’s Crew-9 and SpaceX’s Crew-3/4 “Fram2”) and a January launch carrying two privately built moon landers. After stage separation, the booster guided itself back for a vertical landing on the ocean-based droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. This marked the 112th Falcon booster landing on that droneship and the 458th booster landing overall, underscoring SpaceX’s extensive experience with routinely recovering and reusing its rockets.

SXM-10 Satellite and SiriusXM Network

SXM-10 is a heavy communications satellite built by Maxar Technologies under contract to SiriusXM. Weighing about 6,400 kg, it is part of SiriusXM’s next-generation fleet of radio broadcast satellites. (SXM-10 is a third-generation design, using Maxar’s proven 1300-series satellite bus.) Once in its final geostationary orbit, SXM-10 will join SiriusXM’s constellation of audio satellites, enabling the company to beam hundreds of radio channels (music, news and talk programming) to subscribers across North America.

The successful launch means SiriusXM can continue expanding and refreshing its space-based infrastructure – SXM-10 follows SXM-9 from December 2024 and more satellites (SXM-11 and SXM-12) are already planned – ensuring the radio network remains robust and up to date.