Cape Canaveral, Florida – Early this morning, SpaceX successfully launched 28 Starlink broadband satellites into orbit, marking another milestone in the company’s record-breaking year.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the satellites lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 2:46 a.m. EDT (0646 GMT).

About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s first stage returned safely to Earth, landing on the SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. This was the eighth launch and landing for booster B1090.

The Falcon 9’s upper stage continued delivering the Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit, where they are scheduled to be deployed roughly 64 minutes after liftoff.

This mission represents the 126th Falcon 9 flight of 2025 and SpaceX’s 130th launch of the year, including four suborbital Starship test flights aimed at developing technology for future Mars missions. Starship’s fifth test launch is scheduled for October 13.

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