SpaceX launches 27 Starlink satellites on booster B1093's 17th flight
SpaceX flew Falcon 9 booster B1093 for the 17th time from Vandenberg, the droneship's 225th booster recovery.
what happened
SpaceX launched 27 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base's Space Launch Complex 4E at 6:47 p.m. PDT (0147 UTC Sept. 20) on September 19, per Spaceflight Now. The Falcon 9 first stage, booster B1093, landed on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean for its 17th flight, marking the droneship's 225th booster recovery and the 662nd Falcon booster landing overall; B1093 had previously flown two U.S. Space Force Space Development Agency missions, a Transporter rideshare, and 13 Starlink batches, per Spaceflight Now. It was SpaceX's 81st Starlink launch of 2026, per Spaceflight Now.
why it matters
Another routine Starlink batch keeps SpaceX's West Coast Falcon 9 cadence running even as the company shifts its Florida Starlink missions to Starship; the booster-reuse and droneship-recovery counters remain the clearest public proxy for how far SpaceX has pushed first-stage turnaround economics.
signal-to-noise
quick facts
- Companies
- SpaceX
- Category
- launch
- Impact
- noise
- SNR
- 4 / 5
- Event date
- 2026-09-19
- Published
- 2026-09-20 12:01 UTC