The West Coast saw its first Starlink mission of 2026 on Wednesday night with the Falcon 9 rocket’s liftoff from Vandenberg Space Force Base occurring weeks after SpaceX delivered a progress report on the constellation.
Falcon’s liftoff from Space Launch Complex-4 at 9:47 p.m. included 25 Starlink satellites packed inside the rocket’s payload fairing.
With its part of the mission done, the rocket’s first-stage booster landed on the droneship positioned in the Pacific Ocean about eight minutes after departing Santa Barbara County.
Deployment of the satellites was set to occur approximately an hour after liftoff.
Starlink, now with more than 9,000 operating satellites, delivers high-speed internet service around the globe, especially in areas where land-based access isn’t available or reliable.
In a progress report released at the end of 2025, officials said Starlink added more than 4 million new customers last year.
The system now has 9 million customers in more than 155 markets, SpaceX said. Starlink also is available to 21 million passengers on multiple airlines and 20 million cruise passengers.
SpaceX expects to launch the third-generation Starlink satellites in 2026 with the new version projected to offer more than 10 times the downlink capacity and 24 times the uplink capacity over the second-generation craft.
Additionally, SpaceX revealed that some previously launched Starlink satellites will get a new orbit.
At the start of January, Michael Nicolls, vice president of Starlink engineering for SpaceX, said Starlink ground controllers had started “a significant reconfiguration of its satellite constellation focused on increasing space safety.”
That involved lowering about 4,400 Starlink satellites from the orbit from 342 miles to 298 miles this year while coordinating with other satellites operators, regulators and U.S. Space Command.
Lowering the satellites will condense Starlink orbits and increase space safety, according to the plan. The new orbit has significantly fewer space debris objects and planned constellations, reducing the likelihood of collisions.
“Starlink satellites have extremely high reliability, with only two dead satellites in its fleet of over 9,000 operational satellites. Nevertheless, if a satellite does fail on orbit, we want it to deorbit as quickly as possible,” Nicolls said in a social media post.
“These actions will further improve the safety of the constellation, particularly with difficult-to-control risks such as uncoordinated maneuvers and launches by other satellite operators.”
Another Starlink mission from Vandenberg is planned between 7:17 a.m. and 11:17 a.m. Sunday to deliver 25 Starlink satellites into space. It will be 13th flight for the first-stage booster, which is scheduled to land on the droneship positioned in the Pacific Ocean.