Overview
- The Falcon 9 that lifted off from Cape Canaveral, which launched Tuesday, Aug. 11, carried 29 Starlink satellites and its first-stage booster B1085 made a successful landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.
- A separate Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg in a 7–11 p.m. PT window Tuesday to deploy roughly two dozen Starlink satellites with booster B1103 slated to return to the droneship Of Course I Still Love You.
- Local outlets note small discrepancies in the Vandenberg payload count (reports cite 24 or 25 satellites) and SpaceX’s live webcast and social updates provide the most current mission details and timing.
- Those two flights mark part of a very high launch cadence this year — roughly 93 Falcon 9 missions flown or planned in 2026 — and continue a Starlink buildout that an astrophysicist placed at more than 10,900 active satellites.
- Night launches increase long-distance visibility for nearby communities and the frequent flights mean more routine drone-ship recoveries, growing sky traffic that affects amateur observers and local viewing plans.