![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/5CLkfc8Wh6M8eM9zvDqXvH-1280-80.jpg\")
A white and black rocket lifts off from an ocean-side launch pad into a blue sky.<\/p>\n A white and black rocket lifts off from an ocean-side launch pad into a blue sky.<\/p>\n
SpaceX sent another batch of its Starlink broadband internet satellites into low Earth orbit today (Aug. 18), atop a Falcon 9 rocket launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.<\/p>\n
The launch, at 12:26 p.m. EDT (1626 GMT or 9:26 a.m. PDT local time) on Monday marked the company’s 100th Falcon 9<\/a> flight of 2025. It was SpaceX’s 103rd mission overall for the year, including three suborbital test flights of Starship<\/a>, the rocket being developed to land humans on the moon and Mars<\/a>.<\/p>\n Monday’s Falcon 9 mission reached its preliminary orbit about 9 minutes after leaving Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg and was on track to deploy the 24 Starlink satellites (Group 17-5<\/a>) approximately 50 minutes later.<\/p>\n Previous Booster 1088 missions<\/p>\n This launch marked the ninth flight for the Falcon 9’s first stage (Booster 1088). It successfully landed again on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” in the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n With the 24 new satellites, SpaceX<\/a>‘s Starlink megaconstellation now totals more than 8,100 active units, providing global coverage for the company’s clients. In total, over 9,400 Starlink satellites<\/a> have been launched since 2018.<\/p>\n Monday’s launch was SpaceX’s 528th completed mission, 489th landing and 454th reflight of a Falcon 9 first stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A white and black rocket lifts off from an ocean-side launch pad into a blue sky. SpaceX sent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[9,1063,18,1831,19,1826,17,5,1828,1827,1829,133,451,1830,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-8737","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-daily-news","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-global-news","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-inkl","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-news-app","17":"tag-news-headlines","18":"tag-news-today","19":"tag-science","20":"tag-space","21":"tag-today-news","22":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/qtzJzWV8CVgH8u7pe3YBMT.jpg\")
The first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands on its four landing legs after touching down on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” in the Pacific Ocean on Monday, Aug. 18, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)<\/p>\n