New Starlink Satellites Launched into Orbit from Florida

Early Saturday morning, a Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, carrying a fresh batch of 28 Starlink broadband satellites into low Earth orbit. The lift-off occurred at 5:01 a.m. EDT, with the rocket’s upper stage reaching a preliminary orbit roughly nine minutes after takeoff.

The satellites were deployed approximately an hour into the mission, increasing the overall number of active Starlink units in space to over 8,000. This launch is part of SpaceX’s ongoing effort to expand global internet coverage, with plans to deploy up to 12,000 satellites.

A rocket lifts off into the night sky, its orange-white thrust lighting up its launch pad — A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 28 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral on July 26, 2025.

During the launch, the first stage separated about two minutes after liftoff, then executed a controlled descent to land on the drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas” in the Atlantic Ocean. The booster, designated B1078, achieved its 22nd flight.

The launch followed a recent 2.5-hour outage in the Starlink network, which was attributed to a failure in critical internal software services. SpaceX confirmed that the issue was resolved and service was restored, acknowledging the importance of connectivity for users worldwide.