Space Exploration Launches & Spacecraft
500 Falcon missions! SpaceX sends 26 Starlink satellites to orbit on landmark launch
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By Robert Z. Pearlman last updated 6 hours ago
“Falcon completes its 500th overall mission! Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team for making the impossible possible on the road to rapidly reusable rockets!”
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 26 Starlink satellites lifts off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Thursday, June 12, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX just notched another big launch milestone.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 26 of the company’s Starlink internet satellites lifted off from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base on Thursday (June 12) at 9:54 p.m. EDT (6:54 p.m. PDT local time, or 0154 GMT on June 13).
The satellites were deployed in low Earth orbit (LEO) about an hour later as planned, the company announced via X. And, with that success, SpaceX’s Falcon rocket family hit a very significant round number.
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“Falcon completes its 500th overall mission! Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team for making the impossible possible on the road to rapidly reusable rockets!” SpaceX said in another X post on Thursday night.
And speaking of reusability: The Falcon 9’s first stage, serial B1081, came back to Earth on Thursday night, touching down on the droneship “Of Course I Still Love You,” which was stationed off the coast of Southern California. It was the 15th launch and landing for the booster, according to SpaceX’s web page for the 15-6 mission.
SpaceX’s record for reusing a Falcon 9 first stage stands at 28 launches.
The first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is seen after touching down on an ocean-based drone ship in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, June 12, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)
The 26 newly launched spacecraft will soon join more than 7,600 active satellites in the Starlink megaconstellation, the largest satellite network ever assembled.
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SpaceX, led by billionaire Elon Musk, bills the Starlink service as “high-speed internet around the world” and its satellite megaconstellation does now reach around the planet. A growing number of the spacecraft support direct-to-cell capabilities, enabling texting and internet service from certain smart phones and service providers.
With Thursday’s launch in the books, SpaceX has now launched 72 Falcon 9 missions in 2025, of which 54 have been in support of the Starlink service.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 11:20 a.m. ET on June 13 with the news that this was the 500th completed Falcon mission overall for SpaceX.
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Robert Z. Pearlman
collectSPACE.com Editor, Space.com Contributor
Robert Pearlman is a space historian, journalist and the founder and editor of collectSPACE.com, a daily news publication and community devoted to space history with a particular focus on how and where space exploration intersects with pop culture. Pearlman is also a contributing writer for Space.com and co-author of “Space Stations: The Art, Science, and Reality of Working in Space” published by Smithsonian Books in 2018.In 2009, he was inducted into the U.S. Space Camp Hall of Fame in Huntsville, Alabama. In 2021, he was honored by the American Astronautical Society with the Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History. In 2023, the National Space Club Florida Committee recognized Pearlman with the Kolcum News and Communications Award for excellence in telling the space story along the Space Coast and throughout the world.
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