SpaceX launched one other batch of its Starlink web satellites this morning (Aug. 22) on a milestone mission for the corporate’s Falcon rocket household.
A Falcon 9 carrying 27 Starlink spacecraft lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California immediately at 3:25 a.m. EDT (0725 GMT; 12:25 a.m. native California time).
It was the 99th Falcon 9 liftoff of the 12 months, and the a hundredth Falcon mission of 2026 total. The opposite flight was carried out by a Falcon Heavy, which lofted the telecom satellite tv for pc Viasat-3 F3 in April.
Hitting the century mark at this level within the 12 months is spectacular. However SpaceX has a methods to go to equal its single-year Falcon launch record of 165, which was set in 2025. All of these had been Falcon 9 missions.
The Falcon 9’s first stage got here again to Earth immediately as deliberate. It touched down about 8.5 minutes after launch within the Pacific Ocean, atop the SpaceX droneship “Of Course I Nonetheless Love You.” It was the ninth flight for this explicit booster, which carries the designation B1100.
The 27 Starlink satellites, in the meantime, stored touring to low Earth orbit aboard the Falcon 9’s higher stage, deploying on schedule just below 62 minutes after launch.
Immediately’s launch makes the largest-ever satellite tv for pc constellation even larger: Starlink already consists of more than 11,000 operational spacecraft.
Earlier Booster B1100 launches
NROL-105 | 7 Starlink missions
As you would possibly count on, Starlink satellites are SpaceX’s most typical payload; 76 of this 12 months’s 99 Falcon 9 flights have been devoted Starlink missions.
And the variety of SpaceX satellites is predicted to rise significantly within the coming years. The corporate has stated it needs to launch 100,000 of its next-gen Starlink V3 satellites and function a constellation of one million data centers in Earth orbit. These spacecraft will fly atop SpaceX’s Starship megarocket, which stays in growth.
