Overview
- Booster B1067 completed its 36th flight on Thursday, July 9, lifting 29 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral and returning to land on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas about eight minutes after liftoff.
- Observers across the U.S. East Coast reported a bright ascent and a dawn 'jellyfish' exhaust effect after the launch that made the mission highly visible to coastal communities.
- Thursday's mission counted toward a heavy 2026 tempo for SpaceX, marking roughly the company's 80th Falcon 9 launch of the year and adding to a Starlink constellation tracked at more than 10,700 active satellites.
- SpaceX reported this flight as another reuse milestone — the 597th Falcon booster reuse overall — and the company aims to fly boosters 40 times or more to cut costs and speed turnaround times.
- Operations continued immediately after with a Vandenberg launch planned for July 10 using booster B1071 on its mid-30s flight, showing the company is sustaining back-to-back Starlink missions while NASA's shuttle Discovery still holds the all-time orbital-flight record at 39 missions.