SpaceX hit another quiet milestone this morning, launching booster B1100 on its sixth flight from Vandenberg Space Force Base and recovering it cleanly on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific. The mission, Starlink Group 17-37, added 24 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites to low Earth orbit — and marked SpaceX's 60th Falcon 9 launch of 2026.
Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4E occurred at 14:50:34 UTC (7:50 a.m. PDT). NASASpaceflight confirmed the launch and tracked the booster through landing, noting the first stage descended through cloud cover before touching down — a routine that has become almost unremarkable at this pace.
B1100 last flew on April 23, 2026, making this its sixth flight in just over a month. At 60 launches through late May, SpaceX is on pace to comfortably surpass last year's total. For Starlink subscribers, each successful deployment tightens coverage and capacity — particularly relevant as the V2 Mini Optimized generation continues to expand throughput across the constellation. For more on SpaceX's ongoing launch cadence, see our SpaceX coverage.
Sources & reporting notes
The links below identify the material source records used for this report.
- @NASASpaceflight on X (2026-05-26T14:51:42.000Z) — Direct source
- @SpaceX on X (2026-05-26T14:40:14.000Z) — Direct source
- @NASASpaceflight on X (2026-05-26T14:59:56.000Z) — Direct source
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