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SpaceX sends Starlink satellites into space on 1st launch of a Saturday doubleheader

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Liftoff occurred at 12:26 a.m. EDT ahead of a second Starlink launch scheduled for later today (June 28).

a white and black rocket lifts off into the night sky.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 27 Starlink satellites launches from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on June 28, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)

One up, one to go: SpaceX launched the first of a scheduled two Starlink missions on Saturday (June 28).

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 27 of the broadband internet satellites lifted off at 12:26 a.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The new additions for SpaceX's megaconstellation (Group 10-34) reached low Earth orbit about 9 minutes after they left the ground and were on track to be deployed approximately 50 minutes later.

In the interim, the Falcon rocket's first stage (booster B1092) flew back to the droneship "A Shortfall of Gravitas," safely touching down for the fifth time.

the first stage of white booster rocket stands on its four landing legs atop a sea-based droneship after launching to space

The first stage of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands on an ocean-based droneship after launching Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit on June 28, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)
Booster 1092 missions

CRS-32 | NROL-69 | GPS III-7 | 2 Starlink missions

The early morning Starlink launch is the second such flight SpaceX plans to pull off on Saturday. At 12:47 p.m. EDT (1643 GMT), the company has scheduled a second mission to send 26 more relay satellites from Space Launch Complex-41E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Should that second launch go ahead as planned, SpaceX's Starlink network will pass the 7,900 count of active satellites, according to satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.

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Robert Z. Pearlman
Robert Z. Pearlman
collectSPACE.com Editor, Space.com Contributor

Robert Pearlman is a space historian, journalist and the founder and editor of collectSPACE.com, a daily news publication and community devoted to space history with a particular focus on how and where space exploration intersects with pop culture. Pearlman is also a contributing writer for Space.com and co-author of "Space Stations: The Art, Science, and Reality of Working in Space” published by Smithsonian Books in 2018.In 2009, he was inducted into the U.S. Space Camp Hall of Fame in Huntsville, Alabama. In 2021, he was honored by the American Astronautical Society with the Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History. In 2023, the National Space Club Florida Committee recognized Pearlman with the Kolcum News and Communications Award for excellence in telling the space story along the Space Coast and throughout the world.

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