SpaceX Marks 700th Falcon Rocket Launch, Completing a Satellite Constellation

SpaceX launched three telecom satellites into orbit on Sept. 13, marking the 700th mission for the company's Falcon rocket family. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 2:49 p.m. EDT, carrying the final three satellites for the O3b-mPOWER constellation operated by SES (a Luxembourg-based satellite operator).

The Falcon family debuted in March 2006 with the Falcon 1, which flew five times — twice successfully — before giving way to the Falcon 9 in 2010. The Falcon 9 has flown the vast majority of the family's missions, while the Falcon Heavy has launched 13 times to date. The Falcon 9's first stage landed on the droneship "A Shortfall of Gravitas" in the Atlantic Ocean about nine minutes after launch, completing its 29th flight for this particular booster.

The rocket's upper stage carried the three O3b-mPOWER satellites to medium Earth orbit, deploying them at an altitude of 5,000 miles over a 14-minute span. The satellites, built by Boeing and weighing about 3,750 pounds each, complete a constellation that already had 10 O3b-mPOWER satellites in orbit; SpaceX has now launched all of them across six Falcon 9 missions since December 2022. SES describes the constellation as built to deliver low latency and high throughput for industries where network uptime is critical.

The launch was SpaceX's 107th orbital mission of 2026, with the Falcon 9 flying 105 of those and the Falcon Heavy flying the other two. The company has also flown two suborbital test flights of its Starship rocket this year and is preparing for a third, which is expected to attempt an orbital flight for the first time.