The Bahamas – On February 19, 2026, SpaceX successfully landed a Falcon 9 rocket in Bahamian waters for only the second time ever, completing a dramatic launch and recovery mission.

The Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 8:41 p.m. EST, carrying 29 of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband satellites. Just over eight minutes later, the rocket’s first stage returned to Earth, touching down on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in Exuma Sound.

This marks only the second SpaceX landing in the Bahamas, the first occurring in February 2025 during another Starlink launch. Most Falcon 9 boosters typically land farther north in the open Atlantic, but landing near the Bahamas offers strategic advantages for new orbital trajectories, as SpaceX noted in February 2025.

The Civil Aviation Authority of The Bahamas cleared SpaceX to resume landings after completing an environmental assessment following last year’s Starship test flight, which broke apart over the Caribbean and scattered debris across the islands.

Thursday’s Falcon 9 first stage, designated 1077, achieved its 26th successful landing. Meanwhile, the upper stage successfully deployed the 29 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit about 64 minutes after liftoff, adding to the nearly 9,700 satellites that make up the Starlink megaconstellation—the largest off-Earth network ever assembled.

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