{"id":490093,"date":"2026-02-25T18:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T18:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/490093\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T18:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T18:40:08","slug":"spacex-launches-500th-starlink-satellite-in-2026-during-wednesday-falcon-9-flight-spaceflight-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/490093\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches 500th Starlink satellite in 2026 during Wednesday Falcon 9 flight \u2013 Spaceflight Now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-70903\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/20250818_Starlink_G17_5_Vertical.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"876\" height=\"404\"  \/>File \u2013 SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket stands in the vertical launch position at Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base ahead of the launch of the Starlink 17-5 mission on Aug. 18, 2025. This was the ninth flight for Falcon 9 booster, tail number B1088. Image: SpaceX<\/p>\n<p>Update Feb. 25 10:15 a.m. EST (1515 UTC): SpaceX confirms touchdown of the booster.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX launched its 500th Starlink satellite of the year during a flight from Vandenberg Space Force Base Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n<p>The Starlink 17-26 mission added 25 broadband satellites to the growing constellation that\u2019s nearing 10,000 spacecraft in low Earth orbit. SpaceX confirmed a successful payload deployment an hour after liftoff. With this launch, SpaceX has flown 512 Starlink satellites to orbit in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East happened at 6:17:49 a.m. PST (9:17:49 a.m. EST \/ 1417:49 UTC). The Falcon 9 rocket flew on a southerly trajectory upon leaving the launch pad.<\/p>\n<p>\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX launched the Starlink 17-26 mission using the Falcon 9 first stage booster with the tail number 1093. This was its 11th flight following two missions for the Space Development Agency and eight previous batches of Starlink satellites.<\/p>\n<p>A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, B1093 landed on the drone ship, \u2018Of Course I Still Love You,\u2019 positioned in the Pacific Ocean. This was the 180th landing on this vessel and the 577th booster landing for SpaceX.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"File \u2013 SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket stands in the vertical launch position at Space Launch Complex 4 East&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-490093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}