{"id":287606,"date":"2026-02-17T02:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T02:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/287606\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T02:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T02:45:10","slug":"double-delivery-spacex-sends-starlink-satellites-into-orbit-on-launches-from-california-and-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/287606\/","title":{"rendered":"Double delivery: SpaceX sends Starlink satellites into orbit on launches from California and Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

SpaceX added a 53 satellites to its Starlink megaconstellation over the course of two launches in as many days.<\/p>\n

First up was a Valentine’s Day (Saturday, Feb. 14) liftoff of 24 satellites (Group 17-13<\/a>) from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) from Vandenberg Space Force Base<\/a> in California.. The Falcon 9 rocket launched at 8:59 p.m. EST (0159 GMT on Feb. 15 or 5:59 p.m. PDT local time).<\/p>\n

Then early Monday morning (Feb. 16), another Falcon 9 with 29 Starlink units (Group 6-103<\/a>) took off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. That liftoff occurred at 2:59 a.m. EST (0759 GMT).<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

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\"Side-by-side\n<\/p>\n

SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets carrying Starlink satellites launched on Feb. 14 and Feb. 16, 2026 from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, respectively. (Image credit: SpaceX)<\/p>\n

SpaceX<\/a> confirmed a successful deploy for both missions about an hour after their respective liftoffs.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The first stages from both Falcon 9<\/a> rockets landed safely on drone ships positioned in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The touchdown on “Of Course I Still Love You<\/a>” on Saturday marked the completion of Booster 1081’s 22nd flight. Booster 1090, which landed on “A Shortfall of Gravitas,” finished its 10th reuse.<\/p>\n

Previous Booster 1090 missions<\/p>\n

The Starlink service provides broadband internet service to underserved areas around the world. The network, which now includes more than 9,600 active units<\/a>, also enables cell-to-satellite and in-flight wifi on select providers.<\/p>\n

Monday’s launch was SpaceX’s 19th Falcon 9 flight of the year and 602nd in history.<\/p>\n

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SpaceX added a 53 satellites to its Starlink megaconstellation over the course of two launches in as many…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-287606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}