SpaceX blasts off into December with early morning Starlink launch from Florida (video)

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Liftoff occurred at 2:44 a.m. EST on Monday (Dec. 1).

SpaceX kicked off the first day of the last month of the year by lighting up Florida's Space Coast with an early morning launch.

About nine minutes later, the mission reached its preliminary orbit, setting up the Starlink satellites (Group 6-86) to be deployed about an hour later.

"Deployment of 29 Starlink satellites confirmed," SpaceX noted on social media at 3:50 a.m. EST (0850 GMT).

an arc of golden light stretches from the horizon into a cloudy, indigo sky

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Dec. 1, 2025, carrying 29 of the company's Starlink satellites. (Image credit: SpaceX)

In the interim, the Falcon's first stage booster (B1095) returned from its fourth flight to make a propulsive landing on the autonomous droneship "Just Read the Instructions" stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

The 29 Starlink satellites add to SpaceX's broadband internet network, which now has just over 9,100 operational units in low Earth orbit, according to satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.

Monday's launch was SpaceX's 153rd Falcon 9 flight of the year, of which 110 have carried Starlink satellites. In total, SpaceX has dedicated 331 missions to date to populating its megaconstellation since 2019.

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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