There is no doubt that 2024 will be a great year for SpaceX. The Elon Musk-led company became the world’s most valuable private company (valued at a whopping $350 billion), breaking annual launch records and making key progress in developing rockets of unprecedented size and power. Given Musk’s ties to the incoming Trump administration, SpaceX could benefit from a friendly federal face through lucrative government contracts and loose regulations.
Here are the aerospace company’s expectations for 2025:
Starship testing advances
SpaceX is currently authorized to conduct five Starship test launches per year. The company aims to increase that number to 25 by 2025, according to a draft environmental assessment released last month by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Frequent test launches were “critical” in the early stages of the Starship program, according to FAA documents. SpaceX’s proposed test would launch from its “Starbase” launch site in Boca Chica, Texas, and land at the same location or in the Gulf of Mexico, Pacific or Indian Ocean. Since 2022, SpaceX has conducted six Starship test flights.
SpaceX’s ultimate goal is to recover Starship’s upper capsule. Musk hopes to “own 25 [Starship] “100 missions a year, and it’s going to be 100 missions in the next few years,” Kathy Lueders, general manager of Space Fire it a few times,” she added.
Starlink revenue continues to grow
SpaceX’s Starlink business is expected to generate $11.8 billion in revenue next year, up from an estimated $7.7 billion in 2024, according to market research firm Quilty Space. Another $3 billion in sales came from government contracts.
SpaceX has deployed about 7,000 Internet-transmitting Starlink satellites in low-Earth orbit, and the company is reportedly seeking approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch an additional 30,000 satellites in the future.
That ambition is likely to run into headwinds, given the environmental concerns surrounding low-Earth orbit crowded with satellites. In October, a letter signed by 100 space researchers asked the FCC to suspend satellite launches to conduct an environmental review of the harm they cause to the atmosphere.
Starbase could become a city
Starbase is where SpaceX develops and tests rockets and has become home to hundreds of SpaceX employees. Next year, the company plans to turn it into an official company town covering just 1.5 square miles and staffed mostly by company employees. SpaceX employees recently submitted a petition calling for the election of Starbase’s first mayor and other officials, according to the New York Times, which noted that the new city will house about 500 residents.
“To continue to increase the workforce needed to rapidly develop and manufacture Starship, we need the ability to grow Starbase as a community,” SpaceX’s Lueders said in a letter attached to the petition. In her letter, she noted that SpaceX already has It performs various civil functions such as road management and providing education to residents. “The merger will transfer the management of some of these functions to more appropriate public agencies,” she said.
SpaceX-friendly federal policies
Musk has long been at odds with federal regulators such as the FAA, which he has often criticized for delaying SpaceX’s progress. That could change under the Trump administration due to Musk’s close relationship with the incoming president.
Musk himself has gained unprecedented political clout and will co-lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency to cut government spending. The billionaire has also reportedly asked Trump to bring some SpaceX employees into the federal government and hire them as government officials — a move that will undoubtedly benefit SpaceX as it competes for billions of dollars in NASA contracts.
Trump has appointed a Musk ally to head NASA. Jared Isaacman, the billionaire executive of payment processing company Shift4 Payments, was nominated for the position in early December. Isaacman, a private astronaut who has flown into orbit twice with SpaceX, is expected to prioritize the commercial space industry in the agency’s vision.
