SpaceX launched the 700th Falcon 9 rocket to date on Friday night, October 30, sending 27 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit on the Starlink 15-18 mission.
The launch
- Liftoff: 9:04 p.m. PDT (11:04 p.m. CDT, or 0404 UTC on October 31) from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
- Booster: B1093 flew for the 18th time. Its earlier flights include Transporter-16, two Space Development Agency missions and a string of Starlink launches.
- Landing: about eight and a half minutes after liftoff, the booster landed on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific. Spaceflight Now counts that as the ship’s 231st landing and the 675th Falcon booster landing overall.
Context
This was SpaceX’s 11th and final orbital launch of October. That monthly count is far ahead of any other launch provider, but it lands as SpaceX starts winding down the Falcon program to focus on Starship. Vandenberg has been especially busy this year; earlier in October a Starlink flight gave the base a record 72nd launch of 2026. SpaceX’s launch schedule lists the USSF-432 mission from the same pad next, with a window opening on the evening of November 2 Eastern time.
Sources: Spaceflight Now, SpaceX mission page