{"id":334737,"date":"2026-03-17T23:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T23:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/334737\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T23:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T23:20:13","slug":"spacex-launches-10000th-active-starlink-satellite-in-low-earth-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/334737\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches 10,000th active Starlink satellite in low Earth orbit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost seven years after starting to build out its broadband constellation in low Earth orbit, SpaceX<\/a> now has more than 10,000 active Starlink<\/a> satellites circling the planet.<\/p>\n

The company launched two new batches of the internet relay units on Tuesday (March 17), totaling 54 satellites. The milestone 10,000th Starlink was on board the first Falcon 9 rocket, which successfully lofted 25 satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base<\/a> in California. The second launch added an additional 29 satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station<\/a> in Florida.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Starlink megaconstellation now numbers 10,049 units, of which all but 10 are in working order, according to satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell<\/a>. An additional 1,509 Starlink satellites were launched since May 2019, but have since reentered Earth’s atmosphere<\/a> and been destroyed.<\/p>\n

Article continues below <\/p>\n

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Previous Booster 1088 missions<\/p>\n

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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 29 Starlink satellites lifts off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (Image credit: SpaceX)<\/p>\n

The Starlink group (17-24<\/a>) launched Tuesday from Space Launch Complex 4 East in California lifted off at 1:19 a.m. EDT (0519 GMT or 10:19 p.m. PDT on March 16 local time). That mission’s Falcon 9 first stage (Booster 1088) completed its 14th flight with a touchdown on the Pacific Ocean-positioned droneship “Of Course I Still Love You.<\/a>“<\/p>\n

Previous Booster 1090 missions<\/p>\n

The second Starlink group (10-46<\/a>) of the day departed from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) in Florida at 9:27 a.m. EDT (1327 GMT). The Falcon 9 first stage (Booster 1090) returned to Earth for the 11th time, landing on the “A Shortfall of Gravitas” droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n

The Cape Canaveral launch marked SpaceX’s 34th Falcon 9 mission of the year and 378th Starlink launch in its history.<\/p>\n

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost seven years after starting to build out its broadband constellation in low Earth orbit, SpaceX now has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-334737","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\/334737","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=334737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}