Watch SpaceX launch its 10,000th Starlink satellite to orbit today

a black and white rocket launches from a seaside pad

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 52 Starlink satellites from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base on March 17, 2023. (Image credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX will hit a big round-number milestone today (Oct. 18), and you can watch it happen live.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 28 of SpaceX's Starlink internet satellites is scheduled to launch from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base today, during a four-hour window that opens at 7:46 p.m. EDT (2346 GMT; 4:46 p.m. local California time).

SpaceX has lofted 9,988 Starlink satellites to date, according to astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell. So today's launch — which you can watch via the company's its website or X account — will take that number above 10,000.

SpaceX launched its first two Starlink prototypes to low Earth orbit (LEO) in February 2018, then began building the megaconstellation in earnest 15 months later. The company offered Starlink service for the first time with a public beta test in October 2020 and started a commercial rollout the next year.

Starlink now provides service to millions of customers around the world, and SpaceX continues to beef up that product by sending more and more satellites to the final frontier.

The pace has reached extraordinary levels lately: SpaceX launched 89 Starlink missions in 2024 and has already exceeded that number this year. And don't expect it to stop anytime soon: SpaceX already has permission to loft 12,000 Starlink satellites, and the megaconstellation could eventually consist of more than 30,000 spacecraft.

Most of the 9,988 Starlink satellites that SpaceX has launched to date remain active — 8,610 are currently operational, according to McDowell. Most of the others have been deorbited, guided down to burn up in Earth's atmosphere. (Each Starlink satellite has an operational life of about five years.)

Previous Booster 1088 missions

NROL-126 | Transporter-12 | SPHEREx | NROL-57 | 6 Starlink missions

If all goes according to plan today, the Falcon 9's first stage will come back to Earth today, landing in the Pacific Ocean on the SpaceX drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You" about 8.5 minutes after liftoff.

It will be the 11th launch and touchdown for this particular booster, which carries the designation 1088.

Meanwhile, the rocket's upper stage will continue hauling the 28 Starlink satellites to LEO, where they'll be deployed about 60 minutes after launch.

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Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

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