Twenty-Six Trips and Counting
Most people slept right through it.
At 1:25 AM Mountain time, a Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base with 27 Starlink satellites on top.
The booster was B1082, flying for the 26th time.
About eight and a half minutes after liftoff, it came back down and landed on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific. Roughly an hour after launch, SpaceX confirmed all 27 satellites had deployed.
Space.com counts it as Falcon 9's 117th launch of 2026, and we're still in October.
A rocket booster used to be something you threw away after one flight. This one has now done the trip 26 times, and the landing barely makes the news anymore.
The next Starlink window from Vandenberg opens Thursday night.
How many flights do you think one booster can take?
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