{"id":9607,"date":"2026-02-25T22:00:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T14:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-launches-500th-starlink-satellite-in-2026-during-wednesday-falcon-9-flight\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T22:00:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T14:00:41","slug":"spacex-launches-500th-starlink-satellite-in-2026-during-wednesday-falcon-9-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-launches-500th-starlink-satellite-in-2026-during-wednesday-falcon-9-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches 500th Starlink satellite in 2026 during Wednesday Falcon 9 flight"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_72684\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-72684\" style=\"width: 678px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-72684\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/20260225_Starlink_17-26_satellites.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/20260225_Starlink_17-26_satellites.jpeg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/20260225_Starlink_17-26_satellites-300x169.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 678px) 100vw, 678px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-72684\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A batch of 25 SpaceX Starlink V2 Mini satellites are shown in orbit above the Earth during the Starlink 17-26 mission on Feb. 25, 2026. Image: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em><strong>Update Feb. 25 10:15 a.m. EST (1515 UTC): SpaceX confirms touchdown of the booster.<\/strong><\/em><\/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><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hc0RdHtjv48?si=LyxcL3zo5MKTZloF\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/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":"<p>A batch of 25 SpaceX Starlink V2 Mini satellites are shown in orbit above the Earth during the Starlink 17-26 mission on Feb. 25, 2026. Image: SpaceX Update Feb. 25 10:15 a.m. EST (1515 UTC): SpaceX confirms touchdown of the booster. SpaceX launched its 500th Starlink satellite of the year during a flight from Vandenberg [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[479,703,682,683,316,440,816],"class_list":["post-9607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-falcon-9","tag-ocisly","tag-slc-4e","tag-sld-30","tag-spacex","tag-starlink","tag-starlink-17-26"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9607"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9607\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}