SpaceX launches Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base – Spaceflight Now

SpaceX flew its last Starlink mission of the month aboard a Falcon 9 rocket launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Sunday morning.

The Starlink 17-40 mission will add one other 24 broadband web satellites to SpaceX’s low Earth orbit constellation. The firm has greater than 10,700 satellites presently in obit with a purpose to statistics tracked by astronomer and orbital tracker, Jonathan McDowell.

Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East occurred at 9:09 a.m. PDT (12:09 p.m. EDT / 1609 UTC). The rocket flew on a south-southwesterly trajectory upon leaving the pad.

SpaceX launched the Starlink 17-40 mission utilizing the Falcon 9 first stage booster with the tail quantity B1088, making its seventeenth flight. Previous missions for this booster had been NROL-126, Transporter-12, SPHEREx, NROL-57, and 12 Starlink deliveries.

A bit greater than eight minutes after liftoff, B1088 landed on the drone ship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You’, positioned within the Pacific Ocean. If profitable, this would be the 206th touchdown on this vessel and the 630th booster touchdown to this point.

During the primary half of 2026, has launched its Falcon 9 rockets a complete of 75 occasions and of these, 59 had been in assist of its Starlink constellation.

Here’s a breakdown of SpaceX’s Starlink launches per thirty days versus its complete for that month:

• January – 9/13
• February – 11/12
• March – 13/15
• April – 9/11
• May – 8/11
• June – 10/13 (following the Starlink 17-40 launch)