SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 29 Starlink satellites from Florida

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Liftoff occurred at 5:18 p.m. EST on Tuesday (Dec. 2).

a white and black rocket launches into a dusk sky, leaving behind a puffy plume
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 29 Starlink satellites lifts off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)

Twenty-nine newly-launched Starlink satellites are now in low Earth orbit.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the internet broadband relay units lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Tuesday (Dec. 2). The Starlink satellites were successfully deployed 1 hour and 5 minutes after the 5:18 p.m. EST (2218 GMT) liftoff.

the first stage of a rocket stands atop an ocean-based platform at sunset

The sun sets behind the recovered first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket after a successful Starlink satellite launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)
Booster 1077 missions

Crew-5 | GPS III Space Vehicle 06 | Inmarsat I6-F2 | CRS-28 | Intelsat G-37 | NG-20 | TD7 15 | 17 Starlink missions

The Falcon 9 rocket's first stage, Booster 1077 (B1077), completed its ascent and then returned to Earth for a propulsive landing on the autonomous drone ship, "A Shortfall of Gravitas," stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the 25th flight for the rocket, according to a mission description on SpaceX's website.

The Starlink satellites (Group 6-95) joined the more than 9,100 operational relays forming SpaceX's megaconstellation.

Tuesday's launch was the 155th Falcon 9 flight of 2025, out of SpaceX's 160 missions in total this year (to date).

Robert Z. Pearlman
Robert Z. Pearlman
collectSPACE.com Editor, Space.com Contributor

Robert Pearlman is a space historian, journalist and the founder and editor of collectSPACE.com, a daily news publication and community devoted to space history with a particular focus on how and where space exploration intersects with pop culture. Pearlman is also a contributing writer for Space.com and co-author of "Space Stations: The Art, Science, and Reality of Working in Space” published by Smithsonian Books in 2018.

In 2009, he was inducted into the U.S. Space Camp Hall of Fame in Huntsville, Alabama. In 2021, he was honored by the American Astronautical Society with the Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History. In 2023, the National Space Club Florida Committee recognized Pearlman with the Kolcum News and Communications Award for excellence in telling the space story along the Space Coast and throughout the world.

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