Today, August 22, at 00:25 local time (10:25 Moscow time), a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 27 Starlink satellites was launched from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. This is the 99th launch of the Falcon 9 rocket this year and the 100th mission in the Falcon series – the Falcon Heavy made another flight in April, carrying the Viasat-3 F3 satellite into orbit.
Image source: x.com/SpaceX
There have been 100 rocket launches since the beginning of the year, an impressive feat, but SpaceX has more work to do to break its own record: Over the past year, the company has conducted 165 Falcon 9 launches. On its last mission, the Falcon 9’s first stage returned to Earth in normal mode – about 8.5 minutes later, it landed on SpaceX’s “Of Course I Still Love You” floating platform in the Pacific. This is already the ninth flight of this example, serial number B1100.
At the same time, 27 Starlink satellites continued to enter low-Earth orbit aboard the Falcon 9 upper stage and deployed normally less than 62 minutes after launch. Today’s launch further expands the world’s already largest satellite constellation: Starlink already contains more than 11,000 devices.
Starlink satellites are the most commonly used cargo on SpaceX rockets: 76 of the 99 Falcon 9 flights in 2026 were dedicated to these missions. The number of Starlink satellites is likely to increase even more in the coming years. The company announced its intention to put 100,000 new-generation Starlink V3 devices into orbit and deploy a constellation of 1 million space data center devices. They will be launched using the giant Starship rocket, which has yet to be developed and tested.
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