SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 21 Starlink satellites on record-setting 26th flight (photos)
SpaceX has broken its rocket-reuse record yet again.
A Falcon 9 rocket launched 21 of the company’s Starlink broadband satellites to orbit early this morning (Feb. 15), rising off a pad at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 1:14 a.m. EST (0614 GMT).
It was the 26th liftoff for the rocket’s first stage, breaking a reuse mark that SpaceX set just last month. Fifteen of those 26 missions have sent Starlink satellites skyward, according to a company mission description.
Falcon 9 lands on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship, completing the first 26th launch and landing of an orbital class rocket pic.twitter.com/x18IxIGtNkFebruary 15, 2025
The booster came back to Earth as planned today, touching down on a platform in the Atlantic Ocean about eight minutes after liftoff.
“Falcon 9 lands on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship, completing the first 26th launch and landing of an orbital class rocket,” SpaceX wrote in a post on X this morning that shared video of the descent and landing.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage, meanwhile, deployed the 21 Starlink satelites, 13 of which have direct-to-cell capability, into low Earth orbit about 65 minutes after launch as planned.
Related: Starlink satellite train: how to see and track it in the night sky
This morning’s launch was the 20th Falcon 9 liftoff of the year, and the 14th devoted to building out the Starlink broadband constellation. Starlink is by far the largest spacecraft network ever assembled; it currently consists of nearly 7,000 operational satellites.
This same Falcon 9 first stage last flew just over a month ago, on Jan. 10. That launch, the booster’s 25th, was also a Starlink mission.
