{"id":64253,"date":"2026-08-16T02:54:47","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T02:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/?guid=8d91def699c5816694c6370c5448981b"},"modified":"2026-08-16T12:52:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T12:52:18","slug":"new-record-spacex-launches-2-falcon-9-rockets-just-38-minutes-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/2026\/08\/16\/new-record-spacex-launches-2-falcon-9-rockets-just-38-minutes-apart\/","title":{"rendered":"New record! SpaceX launches 2 Falcon 9 rockets just 38 minutes apart (video)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n                            \n                            <article>\n                                <iframe src=\"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/players\/h5aKCkEF.html\" id=\"h5aKCkEF\" title=\"SpaceX launches 2 rockets 38 minutes apart - A new record! Sticks landings\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"auto\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><p>SpaceX keeps setting spaceflight records.<\/p><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/18849-elon-musk.html\"><u>Elon Musk<\/u><\/a>'s company launches far more frequently than any other outfit, and it operates the largest satellite constellation ever assembled \u2014 the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/spacex-starlink-satellites.html\"><u>Starlink<\/u><\/a> broadband network, which consists of nearly 11,000 satellites (and counting).<\/p><p>On Saturday evening (Aug. 15), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/18853-spacex.html\"><u>SpaceX<\/u><\/a> set another mark, for the shortest time between orbital flights: It launched two <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/18962-spacex-falcon-9.html\"><u>Falcon 9<\/u><\/a> rockets just 38 minutes apart, besting its old mark \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/spacex-back-to-back-rocket-launches-landings-after-booster-touchdown-failure\"><u>set on Aug. 31, 2024<\/u><\/a> with two Starlink missions \u2014 by 27 minutes. <\/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:2844px;\"><p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:56.26%;\"><img id=\"5bq3p8xJEyafgZUTSRYbQJ\" name=\"Screenshot 2026-08-15 at 7.04.00\u202fPM\" alt=\"a black-and-white spacex falcon 9 rocket launches into a dark night sky.\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/5bq3p8xJEyafgZUTSRYbQJ.jpg\" mos=\"\" align=\"middle\" fullscreen=\"\" width=\"2844\" height=\"1600\" attribution=\"\" endorsement=\"\" class=\"inline\"><\/p><\/div><\/div><figcaption itemprop=\"caption description\" class=\" inline-layout\"><span class=\"caption-text\">A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches eight satellites for the telecom company Globalstar from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Aug. 15, 2026. <\/span><span class=\"credit\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">(Image credit: SpaceX)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><p>The first liftoff, from Florida's <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/33926-cape-canaveral.html\"><u>Cape Canaveral Space Force Station<\/u><\/a>, occurred Saturday at 9:12 p.m. EDT (0112 GMT on Aug. 16) and carried eight satellites to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/low-earth-orbit\"><u>low Earth orbit<\/u><\/a> (LEO) for Louisiana-based telecom company Globalstar.<\/p><p>All eight spacecraft were deployed successfully, separating over a six-minute span beginning 56.5 minutes after liftoff, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SpaceX\/status\/2088812375818567975\" ><u>SpaceX announced via social media.<\/u><\/a><\/p><p>While that Falcon 9 was powering its way to LEO, another one launched from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/34147-vandenberg-air-force-base.html\"><u>Vandenberg Space Force Base<\/u><\/a>, on California's central coast. That liftoff, at 9:50 p.m. EDT (6:50 p.m. local time; 0150 GMT on Aug. 16), kicked off a mission for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/us-space-force-history-mission-capabilities\"><u>U.S. Space Force<\/u><\/a> called USSF-366. <\/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:2805px;\"><p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:56.26%;\"><img id=\"6oAFFXDQ6d7TtSjed3x3Tf\" name=\"Screenshot 2026-08-15 at 7.33.02\u202fPM\" alt=\"view from a rocket in orbit around earth showing a boxy satellite deploying\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/6oAFFXDQ6d7TtSjed3x3Tf.jpg\" mos=\"\" align=\"middle\" fullscreen=\"\" width=\"2805\" height=\"1578\" attribution=\"\" endorsement=\"\" class=\"inline\"><\/p><\/div><\/div><figcaption itemprop=\"caption description\" class=\" inline-layout\"><span class=\"caption-text\">A Globalstar satellite deploys from the upper stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on Aug. 15, 2026. <\/span><span class=\"credit\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">(Image credit: SpaceX)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><p>We know very little about USSF-366, which isn't surprising given its classified status. However, rocket watchers have made a few inferences from the limited available information.<\/p><p>\"It is possibly a batch of classified LEO satellites for a U.S. government entity based on SpaceX's Starshield satellite bus, based on locations of rocket stage drop zones being exact fits with previous Starlink Group 15 launches,\" NextSpaceflight.com wrote in its <a href=\"https:\/\/nextspaceflight.com\/launches\/details\/8349\/\" ><u>mission description<\/u><\/a>. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/launches-spacecraft\/spacex-to-launch-8th-batch-of-next-gen-us-spy-satellites-early-march-21\"><u>Starshield<\/u><\/a> is a SpaceX project that uses modified versions of Starlink craft to fly national security missions for the U.S. government.)<\/p><p>It's unclear when and where the rocket's upper stage will deploy the USSF-366 payload(s); <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spacex.com\/launches\/ussf366\" ><u>SpaceX's mission description<\/u><\/a> doesn't reveal that information. And the company ended its livestream shortly after the first-stage landing, as is typical for national security flights.<\/p><p>Both of Saturday's missions featured successful rocket landings. The Falcon 9 first stage that launched the Globalstar mission came back for a touchdown at Cape Canaveral about eight minutes after launch. It was the 14th flight for that particular booster.<\/p><p>The USSF-366 Falcon 9 first stage, meanwhile, came back to Earth about 8.5 minutes after its launch, touching down in the Pacific Ocean on the SpaceX droneship \"Of Course I Still Love You.\" That booster now has 18 missions under its belt.<\/p><p>Saturday's doubleheader brought the tally of Falcon 9 launches in 2026 to 96. The vast majority of those \u2014 about 75% \u2014 have been Starlink missions.<\/p>\n                                                            <\/article>\n                            \n                        ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SpaceX launched two of its Falcon 9 rockets just 38 minutes apart on Saturday evening (Aug. 15), setting a new spaceflight record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":587,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2799,1263],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64253","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\/64253"}],"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\/587"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64253"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64267,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64253\/revisions\/64267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}