SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches for record-breaking 36th time

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Liftoff occurred at 5:25 a.m. ET on Thursday (July 9).

rocket launching from a launch pad at night
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched for a record-breaking 36th time early Thursday morning (July 9). (Image credit: SpaceX)

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched for a record-breaking 36th time early Thursday morning (July 9).

The Falcon 9 lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday at 5:25 a.m. EDT (0925 GMT), carrying 29 of the company's Starlink broadband satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO).

This particular booster, known as 1067, had already completed 35 orbital missions, more than any other SpaceX rocket in history. The overall record is held by NASA's space shuttle Discovery, which flew to orbit and back 39 times.

Thursday's flight extended Booster 1067's company record. The rocket returned to Earth about 8.5 minutes after liftoff, landing on the SpaceX drone ship "A Shortfall of Gravitas" stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

This SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched for a record-breaking 36th time on July 9. (Image credit: SpaceX)

The Falcon 9's upper stage, meanwhile, hauled the 29 Starlink satellites to LEO and deployed them there 63.5 minutes after launch as planned.

Previous Booster 1067 missions

CRS-22 | Crew-3 | Turksat 5B | Crew-4 | CRS-25 | Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13G | O3B mPOWER | PSN SATRIA | Telkomsat Marah Putih 2 | Galileo L13 | Koreasat-6A | 24 Starlink missions

Thursday's launch was the 80th Falcon 9 mission of the year already. About 80% of the rocket's 2026 flights have been devoted to building out Starlink, by far the largest satellite network ever assembled.

The megaconstellation currently consists of more than 10,700 active satellites, according to tracker Jonathan McDowell. And, as Thursday's launch shows, that number is growing all the time.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 5:40 a.m. ET with news of successful rocket launch and landing.

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Mike Wall
Mike Wall
Spaceflight and Tech Editor

Michael Wall is the Spaceflight and Tech Editor for Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers human and robotic spaceflight, military space, and exoplanets, 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.