Starlink Launches From California as Falcon 9 Flights Slow
SpaceX's 116th Falcon 9 mission of 2026 carried 27 satellites from Vandenberg, ending an 11-day gap between Starlink flights.
By Giovanni Serrano ·
A Falcon 9 lifted off from Pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 3:48 p.m. local time on Oct. 23, carrying 27 Starlink satellites into orbit from the California coast. It was the 116th Falcon 9 flight of 2026, and roughly three-quarters of this year's missions have carried Starlink payloads.
The first stage, booster B1063, separated from the upper stage about 2.5 minutes into flight. After the mission clock passed eight minutes, the booster fired its engines for a landing burn and touched down about 20 seconds later on the droneship "Of Course I Still Love You." That marked the 36th launch and landing for B1063, which carried NASA's DART asteroid mission in November 2021. The upper stage completed its first engine burn shortly after touchdown, then coasted for about 45 minutes before a second burn to reach orbit. Deployment of the satellites was scheduled to start 62 minutes after liftoff.
The cadence behind this mission is the number that stands out. Starlink launches from the West Coast and Cape Canaveral once flew every two to three days. The flight before Oct. 23 lifted off 11 days earlier, and that flight had been the first in more than three weeks.
SpaceX attributes the slowdown to its pivot toward Starship, a larger rocket designed for full reusability with a payload bay sized for Version 3 Starlink satellites, which are too big for Falcon 9. The company plans to phase out Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy almost entirely once Starship flies operationally. The vehicle remains in development.
The transition is already visible in launch records. The Falcon 9's 100th flight of 2026, the Starlink 10-49 group from Cape Canaveral, was later identified as the final Falcon 9 Starlink mission from Florida's Space Coast, and the same could soon apply to the West Coast. The Oct. 23 launch added to a Starlink constellation with more than 11,000 active satellites.
Falcon 9 completed 165 launches in 2025, its busiest year. At the current pace, the rocket is expected to fly just under 150 missions by the end of 2026.
Source: Space.com
