SpaceX will launch another batch of its Starlink satellites from California’s central coast tonight (June 24), and you can watch the action live.
A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base tonight at 11:19 p.m. EDT (8:19 p.m. local time; 0319 GMT on June 25), carrying 24 of the broadband spacecraft to low Earth orbit (LEO).
You can watch the launch live via SpaceX; coverage will begin about 10 minutes before liftoff.
If all goes to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come back to Earth about 8.5 minutes after launch, touching down in the Pacific Ocean on the SpaceX drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You.”
According to a company mission description, it will be the 25th flight for this particular booster, which is known as B1081.
The rocket’s upper stage, meanwhile, will continue hauling the 24 satellites to LEO. The spacecraft will be deployed there just under 62 minutes into flight.
Previous Booster 1081 missions
Tonight’s launch will be the 74th Falcon 9 liftoff of the year, and the 59th of 2026 devoted to building out the Starlink megaconstellation. Starlink is by far the biggest satellite network ever assembled; it currently consists of nearly 10,700 active units, and the number goes up all the time.
SpaceX has launched two non-Falcon 9 missions this year as well. On April 29, a Falcon Heavy lofted the Viasat-3 F3 telecom satellite. And the company’s Starship megarocket launched on its 12th-ever test flight on May 22.
