Cape Canaveral, Fla. — The new SpaceX Rocket put an untouched batch of Starlink Internet satellites into orbit late Wednesday (February 26th) in a dazzling nighttime lift-off.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 21 Starlink satellites has skyrocketed into the night sky from SpaceX’s launch complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The lift-off occurred at 10:34pm (0334 GMT).
The Starlink mission, called Starlink 12-13, won the fourth batch of SpareLink Internet satellites, which began flights on February 18th, February 21st and February 22nd, for over a week. SpaceX initially targeted Tuesday night for its launch, but pushed it back 24 hours before its attempt.
The release was unusual for SpaceX in one aspect. This is the first stage of that Falcon 9. The booster was the brand new Falcon 9 stage designated as a B1092, making its first flight. This is the novelty of SpaceX with a veteran flight booster stable.
Booster, like its legion of predecessors, returned to Earth about eight minutes after launch, landed on a drone ship, and read the instructions that were stationed off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Meanwhile, the upper part of the Falcon 9 continued to rise into orbit, where it deployed 21 Starlink satellites about 65 minutes after liftoff.
Related: Starlink Satellite Train: How to see and track it in the night sky
The new Starlink satellite is a megaconstellation designed to provide high-speed internet access around the world, adding to SpaceX’s increasing number of space-based internet satellites.
The late-night launch marked the 2025 SpaceX 24th Falcon 9 mission. Of these, 18 are dedicated to the launch of Starlink. SpaceX currently has over 7,000 operational StarLink satellites in low Earth orbit. According to the database Astronomer Jonathan McDowell regularly tracks Starlink Constellation satellites.
