SpaceX to launch a hundredth Starlink flight of 2025 – Spaceflight Now

Update Oct. 31, 6:30 p.m. EDT (2230 UTC): SpaceX deployed the 28 Starlink satellites.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Halloween afternoon marking its a hundredth Starlink mission of the 12 months. This was additionally its fifteenth orbital launch through the month of October.

The Starlink 11-23 mission added one other 28 Starlink V2 Mini satellites into the low Earth orbit megaconstellation. According to statistics maintained by professional orbital tracker and astronomer, Jonathan McDowell, there are greater than 8,800 Starlink satellites at present in orbit.

Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East occurred at 1:41 p.m. PDT (4:41 p.m. EDT / 2041 UTC). The rocket flew on a south-easterly trajectory upon departure from the California shoreline.



The firm used its oldest Falcon 9 booster that’s nonetheless in service to launch the Starlink 11-23 mission. B1063 first launched on Nov. 21, 2020, on the Sentinel-6A mission and has flown a complete of 28 instances previous to Friday’s launch.

About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1063 carried out an autonomous touchdown on the drone ship ‘Of Course I Still Love You’. This was the 162nd touchdown on this vessel and the 527th booster touchdown so far.

SpaceX launched greater than 2,500 of its Starlink satellites up to now in 2025. The firm just lately up to date its public launch schedule to notice that it plans to launch at the very least eight Starlink missions earlier than Thanksgiving, which is able to add one other 228 broadband satellites to the constellation.