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SpaceX’s 99th Falcon launch checks off new rocket booster reuse record [updated]
Update: Right on schedule, SpaceX Falcon 9 booster B1049 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 40 (LC-40) carrying 58 Starlink satellites and three rideshare payloads from Earth observation company Planet.
A bit less than nine minutes after liftoff, B1049 performed a bullseye landing on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY), becoming the first Falcon 9 booster to successfully launch and land six times. Soon after, the expendable Falcon 9 upper stage reached orbit without issue and deployed three Planet SkySats to complete SpaceX’s third Starlink rideshare mission in two months.
Around T+45 minutes, SpaceX revealed that recovery ship GO Ms. Tree (formerly Mr. Steven) had successfully caught a Falcon fairing half for the fifth time – also the second catch of a twice-flown fairing. Seconds later, Falcon 9 deployed all 58 Starlink v1.0 satellites, completing SpaceX’s 11th Starlink mission and leaving almost 600 operational v1.0 satellites in orbit. With this success, SpaceX is now just four launches away from beginning a public Starlink internet beta test.
SpaceX is hours away from crossing off a major rocket reusability milestone while simultaneously attempting the 99th 100th launch of a Falcon rocket.
SpaceX’s 10th Starlink v1.0 satellite launch, 11th Starlink mission overall, and ninth Starlink launch this year is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida no earlier than (NET) 10:31 am EDT (14:31 UTC) on Monday, August 18th. Carrying 58 Starlink spacecraft and three Planet SkySat Earth imaging satellites, Starlink-10 will be third mission of SpaceX’s Smallsat Rideshare Program. If the mission goes according to plan, SpaceX will end the day with some 585 operational Starlink satellites in orbit – ~69% of the way to the internet constellation’s initial operational capability (IOC).
If successful, Starlink-10 would leave SpaceX just four launches shy of one of the biggest milestones facing any satellite communications constellation.
100th launch while simultaneously launching the same Falcon 9 booster for the sixth time – a reusability first. (Richard Angle)
For Starlink, there are likely several different initial operational capability (IOC) milestones ahead of the constellation. As of July 2020, SpaceX says “hundreds” of private beta test participants – mostly SpaceX employees and their families – are already putting the nascent internet service through its paces.
More recently, the first public signs of those beta testers appeared via speed tests shared (intentionally or not) online, revealing Starlink internet speeds ranging from 10-60+ megabits per second (Mbps) and latency (ping) approaching what CEO Elon Musk said early customers should expect (20-30 ms). Already, latency alone puts Starlink internet service leagues above medium Earth orbit (MEO) and geostationary (GEO) competitors, while the speeds available to private beta testers are easily comparable to or better than existing satellite internet alternatives. Given that current beta-testers are only accessing a constellation of a few hundred satellites (of thousands planned) with user terminal prototypes, it’s safe to say that the quality of Starlink internet service can only improve.
While SpaceX is barely a tenth of the way to Starlink’s first ~4400-satellite phase, a May 2020 interview with Gwynne Shotwell revealed that the company intends to open the Starlink beta program to the public once 14 batches of satellites are safely in orbit. Based on recent FCC-SpaceX interactions, it appears that the company is excluding v0.9 satellite prototypes from the operational count, implying that said public beta can begin to roll out once the Starlink V1 L14 (Starlink-14) launch is complete and the satellite batch has boosted into its final orbit.
Main purpose aside, the Starlink-10 mission will also mark several major rocket milestones for SpaceX. Regardless of the outcome, the company will be just one launch shy from cresting the triple-digit
mark, reaching 100 Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and Falcon Heavy launch attempts since its 2005 launch debut. The mission will also be Falcon 9’s 92nd launch and – if successful – 91st success. Based on SpaceX’s activity in the last eight months, the company could feasibly complete another 7-9 launches, of which 4-5 would likely be Starlink missions.
To economically launch so many Starlink missions, SpaceX has dug deep into the reusability of its Falcon 9 rockets. In April, Falcon 9 B1048 became the first booster to launch five times, although an engine failure prevented a landing attempt. In June and August, another two Falcon 9 boosters successfully launched and landed for the fifth time. Now, Falcon 9 B1049 – the first SpaceX rocket to successfully launch and land five times – is set to become the first to launch (and hopefully land) six times with Starlink-10. If the schedule holds and Starlink-10 goes according to plan, SpaceX will have set two consecutive booster reuse records less than three months (75 days) apart.
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Tune in at the link below to watch SpaceX’s Starlink-10 launch and landing live.
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SpaceX just picked up another $1.6 billion from the Pentagon, with the U.S. Space Force awarding two task orders worth $1.6 billion to fly 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California through the end of 2027. The launches will carry satellites for the Space Based Sensing and Targeting portfolio, a set of programs meant to help the military detect and track airborne threats and relay that information across forces in near real time.
The award falls under National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1, the Space Force’s faster, commercial style procurement track for missions that do not require the military’s most demanding certification process. It is also the largest single order publicly disclosed under that program so far, and the first task order issued since the Space Force nearly tripled Lane 1’s contract ceiling from $5.6 billion to $17 billion on July 17.
SpaceX to become America’s Military data backbone for missiles, drones, and warfighters
Eric Zarybnisky, the Space Force’s acting portfolio acquisition executive for space access, said the entire process, from identifying the requirement to signing the contract, took about two months, including a month set aside for companies to prepare proposals.
SpaceX is not just launching these satellites. It already holds the contracts to build two of the programs within the same portfolio, $4.16 billion for the Space Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator system and $2.29 billion for the Space Data Network Backbone, which Teslarati covered in May. That means SpaceX is now responsible for both building key pieces of the military’s next generation sensing network and getting them into orbit.
With this latest award, SpaceX’s Pentagon contract total for 2026 alone tops $8 billion, adding to a defense portfolio that already includes the Golden Dome missile defense software group SpaceX joined in April and a string of GPS launches it inherited after ULA’s Vulcan rocket ran into a booster anomaly, which we detailed in March.
Lane 1’s vendor pool technically includes seven companies: SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Stoke Space, Impulse Space, and Relativity Space. In practice, SpaceX remains the only provider with the combination of launch cadence, flight proven Falcon 9 hardware, and West Coast infrastructure to support a campaign requiring roughly one Vandenberg launch a month for the next year and a half.
Some lawmakers have flagged the growing concentration of national security launches with one company as a risk worth watching. For now, the Space Force keeps backing SpaceX, with it being the company that shows up ready to launch.
Elon Musk shed two new bits of detail on Starship following its 13th test launch, which was an overwhelming success.
SpaceX launched Starship for the 13th time last Friday after two delays: one on Monday when several Raptor engines did not ignite, and another on Thursday due to unfavorable weather conditions in Starbase, Texas.
The launch was overwhelmingly successful. SpaceX was able to complete a necessary test of the heat shield tiles by increasing the acceleration of Starship from launch throughout the flight; 20 Starlink v3 satellites were released with no issue; the Super Heavy Booster landed safely in the Gulf of America, Ship successfully reignited engines while in space; and it also splashed down without incident in the Indian Ocean.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Nevertheless, more details are coming out about Starship, and Musk is doing the talking.
Starship Will Be Retrieved in the Ocean
Musk revealed on Tuesday night that Starship would be recovered by a ship in the Indian Ocean. SpaceX routinely tries to recover Starship after splashdown in an effort to find out more about the flight by examining the spacecraft afterward.
We’re sending a ship out to recover Starship https://t.co/fUqUZTITO9
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 28, 2026
This helps engineers find out more about why things might have happened, allows them to examine any potential damage or anomalies that might have occurred, and increases the chances of an even more successful flight next time thanks to the additional information recovered.
Ship Could Have Been Caught by Tower Arms, Musk claims
Musk has already indicated that SpaceX will plan to attempt a catch of Starship with the 14th test flight. While this would be a major accomplishment, it would be an expected next step, considering the fact that the Super Heavy Booster has already been caught by the chopsticks on numerous occasions.
The ship landing was precise, meaning that it would have been caught by the tower arms https://t.co/6nbNrRfX9P
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2026
A ship catch would be a great indication of where SpaceX stands in terms of reusability and launch cadence. A successful catch with relatively no incidents would be a good sign that SpaceX is nearing a more frequent launch of Starship, but also that the reusability of the massive rocket would be something many would expect in the near future.
It is a necessity to make life multiplanetary.
Elon Musk has updated his timeline for when humans will walk on Mars and for when ships will simply get there.
The objective of getting to Mars has been one of Musk’s biggest goals since becoming a serial entrepreneur and realizing that time on Earth is limited. Musk has said several times he hopes to die on Mars, and not by impact.
Musk now believes that people will be on Mars in “roughly 5 to 7 years.” He said that a Mars lander will get there “a few years sooner.”
People on Mars in roughly 5 to 7 years.
Mars lander a few years sooner.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2026
The response from Musk comes after NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that SpaceX’s biggest priority is the Moon and not Mars. Because of this, Isaacman conceded that he believes nuclear power and propulsion investments will provide “potentially the pathway with the fewest miracles required to put four people on Mars in the next 10 to 15 years.”
Of course, this is what NASA can do through taxpayer funding and nuclear investments, he added.
Musk’s grand ambitions are much more optimistic than most, and it is certainly a double-edged sword. This is not the first time timelines for Mars have been somewhat lofty, especially to those normal thinkers like you and me, not super geniuses like Musk.
In fact, the SpaceX and Tesla frontman has said on at least a dozen occasions that we could be on Mars in the coming years. Musk said 2020 would be the big year as early as 2009. In 2020, he was “highly confident” of a landing in 2026, and had even said 2024 in a best-case scenario.
The point is, the range has varied, and it’s anyone’s guess when we’ll get there. This latest adjustment to the timeline is typical of Musk, and while the Moon has seemingly taken priority over Mars, it is still worth mentioning that the ultimate goal is to make life multiplanetary, and it starts potentially with the Red Planet.
SpaceX scores another massive Pentagon deal to support military satellites
Elon Musk sheds two new bits of detail on Starship after 13th test launch
