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While most attention remains focused on the Starship program, SpaceX quietly achieved new milestones and set records with its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. In the last ten days of August, SpaceX launched nine rockets, including nine Falcon 9 missions and one Starship launch.
SpaceX’s latest launch was a batch of 28 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This accounted for much of the firm’s manifest during those ten days, with five Starlink missions collectively sending 132 satellites into low Earth orbit.
Two additional military launches were part of SpaceX’s schedule: one sent a reconnaissance satellite to Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO) for Luxembourg’s military and another launched the USSF’s X-37B spaceplane. Since receiving its contract in 2021, SpaceX has continued to launch the X-37B aircraft, allowing the Space Force to test new technologies such as quantum computing.
This particular X-37B mission carries a quantum inertial sensor, part of the Defense Innovation Unit’s (DIU) Transition of Quantum Sensing (TQS) program. It marks the first time such a sensor has been sent to space.
After these military and X-37B launches, SpaceX completed four additional missions to close out August. The Falcon 9 booster used for this mission set a new record, flying its 30th time, making it the first rocket to do so. This achievement likely marks the upper limit of how many times SpaceX can reuse a rocket booster.
Most of these launches were Starlink missions. According to SpaceX, this particular Falcon 9 booster flew 19 Starlink launches and four NASA missions in its manifest—two crewed missions and two cargo flights to the International Space Station (ISS). Other launches included satellites for the European Commission and an Indonesian telecommunications firm.
Starship Flight 10 was also part of these nine August launches, marking a significant step forward for the Starship program as it successfully splashed down in the Indian Ocean after its first flight in January.
SpaceX’s final August launch was another Starlink mission, sending 28 satellites to low Earth orbit. The firm’s next mission, another Starlink launch, is scheduled to lift off on Wednesday.
