SpaceX will hit two major milestones with the Falcon 9 launch alone today (October 19), and you’ll be able to watch the action live.
A Falcon 9 is planned to launch 28 of SpaceX Star link Florida broadband satellites Cape Canaveral Space Station today, during a four-hour window that opens at 10:52 a.m. EDT (2:52 p.m. GMT).
EspaceX has launched 9,988 Starlink satellites to date, according to astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell. Today’s launch will therefore bring this number above 10,000. It will also be the 31st record takeoff of the first stage of this Falcon 9, a booster designated 1067.
You can see the history made live: SpaceX will broadcast the flight via his website and its X account, starting about five minutes before launch.
SpaceX launched its first two Starlink prototypes for low earth orbit (LEO) in February 2018then began building the megaconstellation in earnest 15 months later. The company first offered the Starlink service with a public beta test in October 2020 and began a commercial rollout the following year.
Starlink now provides services to millions of customers around the world, and SpaceX continues to strengthen this product by sending more and more satellites to the final frontier.
The pace has reached extraordinary levels lately: SpaceX launched 89 Starlink missions in 2024 and has already exceeded this figure this year. And don’t expect it to stop anytime soon: SpaceX already has permission to launch 12,000 Starlink satellites, and the megaconstellation could eventually include more than 30,000 spacecraft.
Most of the 9,988 Starlink satellites launched by SpaceX to date remain active – 8,610 are currently operational, according to McDowell. Most of the others were de-orbited, guided down to be burned in Earth’s atmosphere. (Each Starlink satellite has an operational lifespan of approximately five years.)
Previous Booster 1067 Missions
If all goes as planned today, Booster 1067 will return to Earth approximately 8.5 minutes after liftoff and land in the Atlantic Ocean aboard the SpaceX drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas.” This will be the 31st launch and landing of the booster, according to a SpaceX mission description.
Such large-scale reuse of rockets is central to SpaceX’s plan to reduce the cost of spaceflight and increase its efficiency.
This strategy, already successful, could soon take a big step forward; the company is developing a giant, fully reusable rocket called Spacecraftwhich aims to help humanity settle March. (The Falcon 9 and its close cousin the Heavy Falcon are only partially reusable; their upper stages are replaceable.)
The Falcon 9 upper stage, meanwhile, will transport all 28 Starlink satellites to LEO today, deploying them approximately 64 minutes after launch.