Update Aug. 31, 8:15 a.m. EDT: SpaceX landed its Falcon 9 booster on the drone ship.
SpaceX capped off the month of August with a Sunday morning sunrise Starlink mission. This was the company’s ninth time launching its broadband internet satellites this month alone.
All told in 2025, following the deployment of the 28 satellites on the Starlink 10-14 mission, SpaceX will have deployed more than 1,900 of its Starlink V2 Mini satellites into low Earth orbit across 77 Falcon 9 launches.
Its latest flight lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7:49 a.m. EDT (1149 UTC). It flew on a north-easterly trajectory upon departure from Florida’s Space Coast.
On Saturday, the 45th Weather Squadron predicted a sliding scale for the launch weather forecast. Meteorologists forecast a 90 percent chance for favorable weather at the opening of the window, but things deteriorate to a 65 percent chance for a good outlook as time goes on.
Launch weather officers cite potential concerns for cumulus clouds and anvil clouds due to “isolated offshore showers… at the start of the window.”
“A weak westerly flow pattern continues over the state and will persist through the weekend, as a weak surface boundary over the northern portions of the peninsula gradually sags southward,” meteorologists wrote. “With moisture levels remaining very high, showers and thunderstorms are expected to develop quickly with daytime heating each day, then slowly drift back toward the east coast during the afternoon and evening hours before diminishing overnight.”
SpaceX launched the Starlink 10-14 mission using the Falcon 9 first stage booster 1077, which made its 23rd trip to space and back. Some of its previous missions include NASA’s Crew-5, GPS III Space Vehicle 06 and NG-20.
Nearly 8.5 minutes after liftoff, the first stage booster landed on the drone ship, ‘Just Read the Instructions,’ which was positioned in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina.
This successful booster recovery was the 134th for that drone ship and the 497th booster landing for SpaceX to date.
On Wednesday, Aug. 27, SpaceX announced that its Starlink broadband internet service reached a threshold of 7 million customers across roughly 150 countries, territories and smaller markets. That’s a growth of 3 million customers since September 2024.
- August 2025 – 7 million customers/150+ countries, territories and smaller markets
- June 2025 – 6 million customers/140+ countries, territories and smaller markets
- February 2025 – 5 million customers/125+ countries, territories and smaller markets
- September 2024 – 4 million customers/100+ countries, territories and smaller markets
- May 2024 – 3 million customers/99+ countries, territories and smaller markets
- September 2023 – 2 million customers/60+ countries and smaller markets
- December 2022 – 1 million customers
During the prelaunch coverage of Starship Flight 10, SpaceX said in a pre-produced video that roughly two-thirds of all operational satellites in orbit are Starlinks. Cornelia Rosu, the senior director of Starlink Production, said in the video that SpaceX is producing dozens of Starlink V2 Mini satellites weekly at its facilities in Redmond, Washington.
“Generally satellite manufacturing is a very slow process. It takes people weeks or months to build a satellite,” Rosu said. “At SpaceX, we iterate very fast and we have learned how to build satellites at a 70 sats per week rate.”
SpaceX plans to launch at least 170 Falcon 9 rockets across 2025, with the majority of those supporting its Starlink constellation. Sunday’s launch will the 108th of the year.
Starlink satellites are designed, built, launched and operated from the United States to provide connectivity anywhere on the planet pic.twitter.com/NkcjJw4nDT
— Starlink (@Starlink) August 25, 2025
source: spaceflightnow.com