Upcoming broadcasts of Starlink Group 6-12’s launch, Crew-6’s landing, and the astronaut rotation mission to the ISS as part of NASA’s SpaceX commercial flight program were removed from YouTube last weekend. Prior to this, the company demonstrated the docking and departure of the Crew-6 ship to the ISS, as well as the launch of self-developed satellites for the Space Development Agency. both on X and YouTube. The removal of the announcements was therefore unexpected.

SpaceX is avoiding social networks

Since the social network was acquired by Elon Musk, Increasing pressure on competing social networks: blocked and slowed connections to them, deleted their accounts, moved Twitter/X pages of other companies, etc. It also announced that it will implement various features that other services have, such as TikTok-like videos. Thus, the head of the company wants to attract more users to the updated service, which offers all the most popular features on one platform.

The transfer of SpaceX’s presence to X can be perceived as a kind of PR move, because users interested in space issues and following the launches will now have to register on the social network if they want to continue to be aware of the events. Well, Elon decides to lure people with privilege. Things have gone so far that a few days before the Starship spacecraft’s first flight test in April, Musk even deleted his Flickr photo account. It is possible that something similar awaits Musk’s other companies.

But what if you don’t want to sign up for X? Some of the company’s missions are still available to watch via another channel on YouTube. The truth is, some of these are partnered with NASA, and the agency posts all of their projects via NASA TV on YouTube, Facebook, and the agency’s website. But individual launches will likely need to be watched on X, if livestreams after the full launch won’t be public without registration.