SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket flew its 300th mission on Thursday Feb. 16, lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 1:34 p.m. PST (4:34 p.m. EST, 2134 UTC) carrying another batch of satellites for the company’s Starlink internet service.
This latest Starlink mission came in the same 24 hours as two marquee missions for SpaceX: the USSF-124 mission, arranged by the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command, and the IM-1 mission, a robotic lunar lander from Houston-based Intuitive Machines.
It was the second launch attempt for the Starlink 7-14 mission. SpaceX scrubbed an attempt on Wednesday for reasons it did not disclose.
It was the 300th Falcon 9 launch since the rocket debuted in 2010 and the 9th dedicated Starlink launch of 2024. Following stage separation, the first stage booster, tail number B1082, making its second flight, landed on the droneship ‘Of Course I Still Love You,’ which was stationed in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California. Separation of the 22 V2 Mini Starlink satellites from the Falcon 9 second stage occurred just over an hour into the flight.
