It was the 97th Falcon 9 launch of the year and the 100th mission of 2026 overall for SpaceX<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n The Falcon 9’s first stage rests on the deck of a drone ship after its successful landing on Aug. 19, 2026. (Image credit: SpaceX)<\/p>\n The mission is carrying 24 of SpaceX’s Starlink<\/a> internet satellites to low Earth orbit<\/a>. If all goes according to plan, the Falcon 9’s upper stage will deploy them there 61.5 minutes after liftoff.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The rocket’s first stage, meanwhile, came back to Earth<\/a> about 8.5 minutes into flight as planned, landing in the Pacific Ocean on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You.” It was the 12th mission for this particular booster, which is designated B1097.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n B1097 is no stranger to milestone flights. During a Starlink launch this past April, for example, the booster performed the 600th landing<\/a> of an orbital rocket in SpaceX’s illustrious history.<\/p>\n Previous Booster B1097 launches<\/p>\n The vast majority of SpaceX’s launches this year \u2014 at the moment, 74 of them \u2014 have been devoted to building out the Starlink megaconstellation, which currently consists of nearly 11,000 operational satellites<\/a>.<\/p>\n One of SpaceX’s three non-Falcon 9 launches of 2026 was performed by its Falcon Heavy<\/a> rocket. The other two were suborbital test flights of Starship<\/a>, the giant, fully reusable vehicle that SpaceX is developing to help humanity settle the moon and Mars<\/a>, among other tasks.<\/p>\n SpaceX first topped 100 launches in 2024, when it conducted a total of 138 missions (132 by Falcon 9, two by Falcon Heavy and four by Starship). In 2025, the company flew a total of 170 times (165 by Falcon 9 and five by Starship).<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/imu9pBDpS9uwYzJoLaK5yE.jpg\")
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