A continuous shot of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket flying from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station during the Starlink 10-45 mission on July 14, 2026. Image: John Pisani/Spaceflight Now
Update July 13, 5:58 a.m. EDT (09:58 UTC): SpaceX has landed the booster on a drone.
SpaceX fired up its flight-tested Falcon rocket booster for the 600th time, launching the Starlink 10-45 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday morning. This was the 28th flight of the launch vehicle with tail number 1080.
The pre-dawn flight added 29 more broadband Internet satellites to SpaceX’s low-Earth orbit constellation. The company has more than 10,800 spacecraft in low Earth orbit.
Liftoff from Cosmodrome 40 occurred at 5:10 a.m. Eastern Time (09:10 UTC). After leaving the site, the rocket flew along a northeast trajectory.
The 45th Weather Squadron forecasts a 90 percent chance of favorable weather when the window opens, increasing to 95 percent over time. Meteorologists warn that the rocket could fly through thick clouds and cause lightning.
“Some lingering dense clouds remaining from evening convection may be present early in the launch window but should gradually dissipate through the window,” launch meteorologists wrote. “As a result, we have raised our view slightly at the start of today’s launch window, but overall good weather is expected.”
SpaceX launched the Starlink 10-45 mission using a Falcon 9 first stage booster, tail number B1080. It was its 28th flight after launching two crewed flights for Axiom Space, the European Space Agency’s Euclid Observatory and Northrop Grumman’s NG-21.
Approximately 8.5 minutes after takeoff, B1080 landed on the Lack of Gravity drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. To date, this is the 161st landing on this vessel and the 638th landing of the launch vehicle.