SpaceX was set to send a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Friday morning, putting 29 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit just as the company’s stock traded on the Nasdaq for the first time. Liftoff for the Starlink 10-54 mission was scheduled for 8:37 a.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 40.
That made spacex launch today more than another routine Starlink run. The mission was lined up to carry 29 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites and was scheduled on the same morning SpaceX moved into public markets for the first time, more than 24 years after its founding in March 2002. SpaceX has said it has more than 10,500 Starlink satellites already in orbit, and this flight would add to a deployment pace that has made the network one of the company’s central businesses.
The rocket was expected to arc to the northeast after leaving the pad, with Spaceflight Now planning live coverage starting about an hour before liftoff. The 45th Weather Squadron put the odds of favorable weather at 80 percent at the opening of the window, though that chance was expected to fall to 70 percent as the window progressed. Meteorologists were watching for cumulus clouds, a reminder that even a high-profile launch tied to a market milestone still had to get past Florida weather.
SpaceX planned to fly Falcon 9 booster B1080 on the mission, its 27th flight. The booster had already logged two crewed trips to the International Space Station for Axiom Space, two cargo missions to the station and a flight with the European Space Agency’s Euclid observatory. A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, it was targeting a landing on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas off the coast of South Carolina.
If the recovery worked, it would be the 155th landing on that drone ship and SpaceX’s 623rd booster landing overall. It would also mark the 55th dedicated Starlink launch of 2026 and the 56th SpaceX mission to carry Starlink spacecraft this year. The company is still pushing ahead with Starship, after completing its 12th test flight in May, and says it intends to begin deploying Starlink V3 satellites in the back half of 2026. The morning launch, then, sat at the point where SpaceX’s public-market debut, its satellite business and its reuse-heavy rocket program all met at once.
