Overnight SpaceX launch to use booster for record 26th flight

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel on Feb 14, 2025

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ORLANDO, Fla. — An overnight SpaceX launch planned for early Saturday will use a booster that’s already flown to space 25 times.

A Falcon 9 is targeting 1:14 a.m. carrying 21 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveal Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 with backup options through 2:15 a.m. as well as a Sunday launch window opening at 12:41 a.m.

Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts an 80% chance for good conditions at the launch site, which increases to 95% if delayed until Sunday.

The first-stage booster is aiming to build on its fleet-leading tally and stick the landing for the 26th time aiming for a recovery on SpaceX’s droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed downrange in the Atlantic.

The booster had previously been used on two human spaceflights — Crew-3 and Crew-4 — as well as two cargo resupply launches to the International Space Station among others. It made its first launch on June 3, 2021.

SpaceX has five boosters with 20 or more flights under their belt that are still active, two of which sit on 23 liftoffs. Three others had made to to 20 or more before either being expended without a landing attempt to get a payload to a higher orbit, or in once case, tipping over upon landing.

The company is aiming to reuse boosters as many as 40 times.

The launch would mark the 15th from the Space Coast so far in 2025, with all but one coming from SpaceX.

The company has another Starlink launch lined up from Cape Canaveral as early as next Tuesday at 6 p.m., but will mark the first time it parks one of its recovery droneships off the coast of the Bahamas, meaning people on some of its islands may be able to hear a sonic boom.

The next confirmed Kennedy Space Center launch isn’t until Feb. 26, when a Falcon 9 aims to fly up a moonbound lander from Intuitive Machines, although SpaceX may try to shoehorn in launches from KSC before then.

The Space Force is prepared to support as many as 156 launches from all providers in 2025, which is an average of 13 a month.

SpaceX is slated to fly up the lion’s share of those, building on the 88 of 93 missions flown from either KSC or Cape Canaveral in 2024.

Blue Origin has already flown once in 2025 having launched its New Glenn rocket for the first time in January, while United Launch Alliance, which flew five times in 2024, is still awaiting certification of its Vulcan rocket by the Space Force before it flies again, as it will be flying a national security payload.

ULA’s next flight instead could be an Atlas V with the first batch of operational Amazon Project Kuiper satellites, but no launch date has been announced.

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