SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites from Florida, lands rocket at sea

SpaceX launched another batch of its Starlink internet satellites to orbit from Florida early this morning (Aug. 4).

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 28 Starlink spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today at 3:57 a.m. EDT (0757 GMT). It was SpaceX's 96th Falcon 9 launch of the year already.

The rocket's first stage came back to Earth about 8.5 minutes later as planned, touching down in the Atlantic Ocean on "Just Read the Instructions," one of SpaceX's drone ships.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 28 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Aug. 4, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)

According to a SpaceX mission description, it was the 21st flight for this particular booster, which is known as B-1080. Fifteen of those missions have been Starlink launches.

Booster 1080's previous missions

Ax-2 | Euclid | Ax-3 | CRS-30 | SES Astra 1P | NG-21 | 14 Starlink missions

The Falcon 9's upper stage, meanwhile, continued hauling the 28 Starlink satellites toward low Earth orbit, where they're scheduled to be deployed 64 minutes after launch.

They'll have a lot of company up there. The Starlink megaconstellation, the largest satellite assemblage ever built, consists of more than 8,000 operational satellites, and it's growing all the time.

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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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