{"id":64348,"date":"2026-08-18T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/?guid=6b818969a912536c092a3b5102ded9ae"},"modified":"2026-08-19T15:11:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T15:11:45","slug":"watch-spacex-launch-its-100th-mission-of-the-year-tonight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/2026\/08\/18\/watch-spacex-launch-its-100th-mission-of-the-year-tonight\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches its 100th mission of the year, sends Starlink satellites to orbit (video)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n                            \n                            <article>\n                                <iframe src=\"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/players\/Yd10gJEI.html\" id=\"Yd10gJEI\" title=\"SpaceX hits 100 missions in 2026 with Starlink launch from California\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"auto\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><p>SpaceX has hit the century mark for the third year in a row.<\/p><p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/18962-spacex-falcon-9.html\"><u>Falcon 9<\/u><\/a> rocket lifted off from California's <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/34147-vandenberg-air-force-base.html\"><u>Vandenberg Space Force Base<\/u><\/a> on Wednesday (Aug. 19) at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT; 9:01 p.m. on Aug. 18 local time).<\/p><p>It was the 97th Falcon 9 launch of the year and the 100th mission of 2026 overall for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/18853-spacex.html\"><u>SpaceX<\/u><\/a>. <\/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:2816px;\"><p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:56.25%;\"><img id=\"imu9pBDpS9uwYzJoLaK5yE\" name=\"Screenshot 2026-08-18 at 9.16.58\u202fPM\" alt=\"A black and white spacex falcon 9 rocket first stage sits on the deck of a ship at sea.\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/imu9pBDpS9uwYzJoLaK5yE.jpg\" mos=\"\" align=\"middle\" fullscreen=\"\" width=\"2816\" height=\"1584\" attribution=\"\" endorsement=\"\" class=\"inline\"><\/p><\/div><\/div><figcaption itemprop=\"caption description\" class=\" inline-layout\"><span class=\"caption-text\">The Falcon 9's first stage rests on the deck of a drone ship after its successful landing on Aug. 19, 2026. <\/span><span class=\"credit\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">(Image credit: SpaceX)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><p>The mission is carrying 24 of SpaceX's <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/spacex-starlink-satellites.html\"><u>Starlink<\/u><\/a> internet satellites to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/low-earth-orbit\"><u>low Earth orbit<\/u><\/a>. If all goes according to plan, the Falcon 9's upper stage will deploy them there 61.5 minutes after liftoff.<\/p><p>The rocket's first stage, meanwhile, came back to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/54-earth-history-composition-and-atmosphere.html\"><u>Earth<\/u><\/a> about 8.5 minutes into flight as planned, landing in the Pacific Ocean on the drone ship \"Of Course I Still Love You.\" It was the 12th mission for this particular booster, which is designated B1097.<\/p><p>B1097 is no stranger to milestone flights. During a Starlink launch this past April, for example, the booster performed the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/launches-spacecraft\/spacex-starlink-17-22-b1097-vsfb-ofisly-600th-falcon-landing\"><u>600th landing<\/u><\/a> of an orbital rocket in SpaceX's illustrious history.  <\/p><div  class=\"fancy-box\"><div class=\"fancy_box-title\">Previous Booster B1097 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-sentinel-6b-sea-level-monitoring-satellite-launch\"><strong>Sentinel-6B<\/strong><\/a><strong> | <\/strong><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/launches-spacecraft\/watch-spacex-launch-nasas-pandora-exoplanet-studying-satellite-on-jan-11\"><strong>Twilight<\/strong><\/a><strong> | <\/strong><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/launches-spacecraft\/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-launch-nrol-172-spy-satellite-mission\"><strong>NROL-172<\/strong><\/a><strong> | <\/strong><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/launches-spacecraft\/spacex-falcon-9-transporter-17-rideshare-launch-81-satellites\"><strong>Transporter-17<\/strong><\/a><strong> | 7 Starlink missions<\/strong><\/p><\/div><\/div><p>The vast majority of SpaceX's launches this year \u2014 at the moment, 74 of them \u2014 have been devoted to building out the Starlink megaconstellation, which currently consists of <a href=\"https:\/\/planet4589.org\/space\/con\/star\/stats.html\" ><u>nearly 11,000 operational satellites<\/u><\/a>.<\/p><p>One of SpaceX's three non-Falcon 9 launches of 2026 was performed by its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/launches-spacecraft\/spacex-falcon-heavy-rocket-viasat-3-f3-launch\"><u>Falcon Heavy<\/u><\/a> rocket. The other two were suborbital test flights of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/spacex-starship-super-heavy.html\"><u>Starship<\/u><\/a>, the giant, fully reusable vehicle that SpaceX is developing to help humanity settle the moon and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/47-mars-the-red-planet-fourth-planet-from-the-sun.html\"><u>Mars<\/u><\/a>, among other tasks.<\/p><p>SpaceX first topped 100 launches in 2024, when it conducted a total of 138 missions (132 by Falcon 9, two by Falcon Heavy and four by Starship). In 2025, the company flew a total of 170 times (165 by Falcon 9 and five by Starship).<\/p><p>Such numbers will jump dramatically in the coming years, if all goes to plan. SpaceX founder and CEO <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/18849-elon-musk.html\"><u>Elon Musk<\/u><\/a> has said the company wants to launch Starship multiple times per day, boosting annual tallies to 1,000 or so. Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy aren't part of this longer-term picture; SpaceX wants to phase them out and have Starship shoulder the load.<\/p><p><em><strong>Editor's note: <\/strong><\/em><em>This story was updated at 12:20 a.m. ET on Aug. 19 with news of successful launch and rocket landing.<\/em><\/p>\n                                                            <\/article>\n                            \n                        ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SpaceX launched its 100th mission of the year early Wednesday morning (Aug. 19), sending 24 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit.<\/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-64348","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\/64348"}],"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=64348"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64394,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64348\/revisions\/64394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}