SpaceX launches its 100th mission of the year, sends Starlink satellites to orbit

SpaceX has hit the century mark for the third year in a row.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base on Wednesday (Aug.

19) at 12:01 a.m.

EDT (0401 GMT; 9:01 p.m. on Aug.

18 local time).

It was the 97th Falcon 9 launch of the year and the 100th mission of 2026 overall for SpaceX .

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) The mission is carrying 24 of SpaceX's Starlink internet satellites to low Earth orbit .

If all goes according to plan, the Falcon 9's upper stage will deploy them there 61.5 minutes after liftoff.

The rocket's first stage, meanwhile, came back to Earth 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.

B1097 is no stranger to milestone flights.

During a Starlink launch this past April, for example, the booster performed the 600th landing of an orbital rocket in SpaceX's illustrious history.

Previous Booster B1097 launches Sentinel-6B | Twilight | NROL-172 | Transporter-17 | 7 Starlink missions The vast majority of SpaceX's launches this year — at the moment, 74 of them — have been devoted to building out the Starlink megaconstellation, which currently consists of nearly 11,000 operational satellites .

One of SpaceX's three non-Falcon 9 launches of 2026 was performed by its Falcon Heavy rocket.