SpaceX launched a batch of 26 Starlink satellites from California on Friday, aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. With this mission, the company has now launched more than 1,000 of its broadband internet satellites this year.
According to the multibillionaire Elon Musk-owned-private-space company, the satellites were launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 6:43 a.m. Pacific Time, according to Space.
The agency said that this was the second flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched two Starlink missions.
Eight minutes later, the Falcon 9’s first stage came back to Earth as planned, touching down on the SpaceX drone ship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You,’ which was stationed in the Pacific Ocean, Space added.
The satellites will enable Starlink to deliver high-speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive, or completely unavailable, according to SpaceX.
This was the 130th landing on that vessel and the 448th booster landing to date.
The launch also marked the 59th Falcon 9 flight of the year, with 42 of those missions focused on assembling the Starlink network, the largest satellite constellation ever constructed.
Starlink, SpaceX’s ambitious satellite broadband project, now boasts well over 1,000 new satellites launched in 2025 alone.
According to astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, there are over 7,500 operational Starlink craft in LEO (Lower Earth Orbit) at the moment, and their number is ever increasing.
The project is engineered to provide fast, low-latency internet access, particularly in areas where connectivity has historically been slow, unreliable or entirely absent.
