SpaceX's Falcon 9 Is Breaking Reusability Record

The SpaceX has never stopped breaking its rocket-reuse record. It has done so again.

A Falcon 9 rocket launched 21 of the company's Starlink broadband satellites to orbit early this morning (15 February), rising off a pad at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 1:14 A.M. EST (0614 GMT).

It was the 26th liftoff for the rocket's first stage, breaking a reuse mark that SpaceX set just last month. Fifteen of those 26 missions have sent Starlink satellites skyward, according to a company mission description.

The booster came back to Earth as planned today, touching down on a platform in the Atlantic Ocean about eight minutes after liftoff.

"Falcon 9 lands on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship, completing the first 26th launch and landing of an orbital class rocket," SpaceX wrote in a post on X this morning that shared video of the descent and landing.

The Falcon 9's upper stage, meanwhile, deployed the 21 Starlink satelites, 13 of which have direct-to-cell capability, into low Earth orbit about 65 minutes after launch as planned.