SpaceX is dominating the launch scene this week with a flurry of Starlink missions, kicking off with the successful Falcon 9 liftoff of Starlink Group 6-103 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Monday, February 16, at 2:59 a.m. EST. According to NASASpaceflight.com, booster B1090, on its 10th flight, deployed 29 Starlink v2 Mini satellites into a 257 by 271-km orbit and landed flawlessly on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. This marked SpaceX's 19th Falcon 9 launch of 2026, building toward surpassing last year's record of 165 flights.
Hot on its heels, Space.com reports another double delivery over the weekend: on February 14, 24 satellites from Group 17-13 launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base, with booster B1081 completing its 22nd mission on Of Course I Still Love You. Starlink now boasts over 10 million subscribers worldwide, NASASpaceflight.com notes, with Southwest Airlines joining airlines like Hawaiian offering high-speed in-flight Wi-Fi thanks to the constellation's global reach.
Looking ahead, Falcon 9's Starlink Group 10-36 blasts off Wednesday from Florida's SLC-40 at 5 p.m. EST, with veteran booster B1077 on its 27th flight landing on Just Read the Instructions. Thursday brings Group 17-25 from Vandenberg at midnight PST, B1063's 31st mission to Of Course I Still Love You. NASASpaceflight.com previews more: Group 6-104 on Saturday with record-breaking B1067's 33rd flight, and Group 17-26 on Sunday.
Amid the action, social media buzzes with excitement over Starlink's growth, though X faced a massive outage Monday morning, Fox Business reports, spiking to 41,000 complaints and halting posts from Elon Musk fans speculating on Starship prep at Kennedy's LC-39A, where the crew access arm was just removed. Whispers on platforms like X highlight Southwest's deal as a game-changer for aviation, with users sharing stunning launch footage and debating if SpaceX will hit 200 flights this year.
NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 also docked smoothly at the ISS, carrying astronauts Jessica Meir and others, per NASA's blog, underscoring Dragon's reliability.
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