Another night. Another Falcon 9.
It lifted off Vandenberg at 11:01 p.m. EDT on July 10. Cold California night, hot exhaust. Twenty-nine Starlink satellites rode along, heading for low Earth orbit.
B1071 was the booster. It is now flying its thirty-fifth time.
Cute number, but the record isn’t here. The actual mark stands at 36, set by sister booster B1067 just a few days prior. Same mission profile. Same satellites.
But B1071 isn’t done yet.
It fell back to Earth. Landed hard on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship in the Pacific. Standard procedure, really, about eight and a half minutes after ignition. Clean.
The upper stage kept going, shedding those satellites roughly 62 minutes into the flight. They drift upward now. Adding to the swarm.
Jonathan McDowell counts over 10,701 active satellites already.
Ten thousand seven hundred and odd. That’s the current state of play.
SpaceX wants 100,00. They asked permission for it.
This was mission number 81 for 2026 already.
Do you know how many were Starlink?
Eighty percent of them. Roughly. The grid grows while we watch.
