{"id":64096,"date":"2026-08-12T11:48:03","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T11:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/?guid=5225bcdfba78f77c47a81cda9e3cfc24"},"modified":"2026-08-12T11:51:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T11:51:20","slug":"spacex-wraps-starlink-double-header-day-with-the-launch-of-24-starlink-satellites-from-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/2026\/08\/12\/spacex-wraps-starlink-double-header-day-with-the-launch-of-24-starlink-satellites-from-california\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX wraps Starlink double header day with the launch of 24 Starlink satellites from California"},"content":{"rendered":"\n                            \n                            <article>\n                                <iframe src=\"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/players\/MBabR2GZ.html\" id=\"MBabR2GZ\" title=\"SpaceX launches Starlink satellites from California to complete doubleheader, sticks landing\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"auto\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><p>Just over 12 hours after its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/launches-spacecraft\/spacex-starlink-group-10-19-launch-asog\"><u>first liftoff of the day<\/u><\/a> out of Florida's Space Coast, SpaceX has delivered a second batch of Starlink internet satellites to orbit on a rocket lifting off from the company's California launch site. <\/p><p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/18962-spacex-falcon-9.html\"><u>Falcon 9<\/u><\/a> rocket lifted off from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/33926-cape-canaveral.html\"><u>Vandenberg Space Force Base<\/u><\/a> on Aug. 12, at 12:46<strong> <\/strong>p.m. EDT (0346 GMT; 9:46 p.m. local time). The mission, Starlink Group 17-49, carried 24 of the broadband spacecraft to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/low-earth-orbit\"><u>low Earth orbit<\/u><\/a> (LEO) to join SpaceX's growing constellation of more than 10,000 satellites.<\/p><p>About 8.5 minutes after clearing the tower, the Falcon 9's first stage, Booster 1103 successfully landed on SpaceX's \"Of Course I Still Love You\" droneship in the Pacific Ocean.\" It was the fifth flight for this particular booster.<\/p><figure class=\"van-image-figure  inline-layout\" data-bordeaux-image-check ><div class='image-full-width-wrapper'><div class='image-widthsetter' style=\"max-width:1588px;\"><p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:56.23%;\"><img id=\"dazYWvuLzWakhVSkpxqhVj\" name=\"starlink-17-49-landing\" alt=\"A charred white rocket stands with legs extended on a dark barge at sea.\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/dazYWvuLzWakhVSkpxqhVj.png\" mos=\"\" align=\"middle\" fullscreen=\"\" width=\"1588\" height=\"893\" attribution=\"\" endorsement=\"\" class=\"inline\"><\/p><\/div><\/div><figcaption itemprop=\"caption description\" class=\" inline-layout\"><span class=\"caption-text\">The Falcon 9's first stage is seen just after its drone-ship landing on Aug. 12, 2026. <\/span><span class=\"credit\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">(Image credit: SpaceX)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><p>In addition to being its third Starlnk mission, B1103 also launched the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/launches-spacecraft\/spacex-spy-satellite-launch-nrol-179-nro\"><u>NROL-179<\/u><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/launches-spacecraft\/spacex-falcon-9-launch-sda-titl-3-military-satellites\"><u>SDA-T1TL-E<\/u><\/a> in support of U.S. national defense.  <\/p><p>Following separation from Falcon 9's main booster, the rocket's second stage flew onward to LEO, delivering its 24 Starlink satellites about one hour after liftoff. <\/p><div  class=\"fancy-box\"><div class=\"fancy_box-title\">Previous Booster B1103 launches<\/div><div class=\"fancy_box_body\"><p class=\"fancy-box__body-text\"><strong><\/strong><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/launches-spacecraft\/spacex-spy-satellite-launch-nrol-179-nro\"><strong>NROL-179<\/strong><\/a><strong> | <\/strong><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/launches-spacecraft\/spacex-falcon-9-launch-sda-titl-3-military-satellites\"><strong>SDA-T1TL-E<\/strong><\/a><strong> | <\/strong><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/launches-spacecraft\/spacex-starlink-17-42-b1103-vsfb-ocisly\"><strong>Starlink 17-42<\/strong><\/a><strong> | <\/strong><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"http:\/\/videos.space.com\/m\/exFltXs5\/blastoff-spacex-launches-starlink-satellites-from-california-shortly-after-artemis-2-moon-flyby?list=6DUiA9a3\"><strong>Starlink 17-35<\/strong><\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div><p>Today's liftoff was the 94th Falcon 9 launch of the year, 73 of which have delivered Starlink stacks to the growing constellation \u2014 the largest satellite constellation ever assembled.<\/p><p>Starlink currently consists of <a href=\"https:\/\/planet4589.org\/space\/con\/star\/stats.html\" ><u>more than 10,900 active satellites<\/u><\/a>, according to astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell. But SpaceX has even bigger megaconstellations in mind: The company has filed to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/satellites\/spacex-wants-to-launch-100-000-starlink-satellites-to-orbit\"><u>operate 100,000<\/u><\/a> of its bigger, more capable Starlink V3 satellites, and SpaceX CEO <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/18849-elon-musk.html\"><u>Elon Musk<\/u><\/a> has also stated his intent to launch <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/satellites\/elon-musk-wants-to-put-1-million-ai-satellites-in-space-heres-how-spacex-could-do-it\"><u>a million AI data center satellites<\/u><\/a> to Earth orbit as well.<\/p>\n                                                            <\/article>\n                            \n                        ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SpaceX launched 24 more of its Starlink global internet satellite constellation to orbit from California on Aug. 11, wrapping the second Starlink launch of the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2799,1263],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-launches-amp-spacecraft","category-space-exploration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64096"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/610"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64097,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64096\/revisions\/64097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}