SpaceX kicked off the last days of January with a frenzy of activity, launching two Falcon 9 rockets in under 24 hours to expand its massive Starlink constellation. On January 29, a booster took off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 9:53 a.m. PST, deploying 25 Starlink satellites from Group 17-19 into low Earth orbit, with the first stage landing flawlessly on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You after its sixth flight, Space Affairs reports. Just the next morning on January 30 at 2:22 a.m. EST from Cape Canaveral's SLC-40 in Florida, another Falcon 9 hurled 29 satellites from Starlink Group 6-101 skyward, marking the booster's fifth flight and a pinpoint droneship landing on Just Read the Instructions, as detailed by SpaceX updates and Spaceflight Now. These back-to-back successes pushed SpaceX's orbital Starlink fleet past 9,600 satellites, powering global broadband, in-flight WiFi, and direct satellite calls.

Amid the launches, SpaceX unveiled Stargaze, a groundbreaking free space situational awareness system using data from nearly 30,000 star trackers across its satellites to detect collision risks in minutes rather than hours, spotting 30 million transits daily and already proven in a nail-biting near-miss last year, according to the company's announcement on Spaceflight Now.

The real buzz electrifies around merger whispers shaking Elon Musk's empire. Reuters and Japan Times report SpaceX is in talks to merge with xAI ahead of a blockbuster IPO potentially valued at $1.5 trillion as early as June, folding rockets, Starlink, the X platform, and Grok AI under one roof to fuel orbital data centers in the AI arms race. Bloomberg and Times of India add Tesla could join the mix, linking energy storage to space infrastructure, with new Nevada merger entities filed January 21 hinting at big moves—investors are buzzing, and Tesla shares jumped 4.5% on the news. Social media erupts with speculation: X users hype Starship rates funding moon bases, while skeptics meme Musk's delay-prone timelines, but the empire-building vibe dominates.

SpaceX's blistering pace—13 launches this month alone—signals no slowdown toward Mars.

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