SpaceX is closing out the month of May with its 16th Falcon 9 launch. A Saturday afternoon launch from the company’s West Coast launch pad will carry 27 Starlink V2 Mini satellites into low Earth orbit.
The launch team is targeting liftoff of the Starlink 11-18 mission from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 1:10 p.m. PDT (4:10 p.m. EDT, 2010 UTC).
Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about 30 minutes prior to liftoff.
SpaceX will use the first stage booster, tail number B1071, making its 25th flight. Previous missions included three rideshare missions, five for the National Reconnaissance Office, and 14 batches of Starlink satellites.
A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, B1071 will target a landing on the droneship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You.’ If successful, this will be the 133rd booster landing for this vessel and the 455th landing to date.
If the launch goes on time, it will tie the monthly launch record set by the company in November 2024, which saw 16 Falcon 9 launches.
During a pre-launch media teleconference on Wednesday regarding the GPS III-7 Space Vehicle 08 mission, Anne Mason, SpaceX’s director of National Security Space Launch, said SpaceX is still aiming to launch at least 170 Falcon launches in 2025.
That would be a notable jump from the record 132 missions accomplished in 2024. The company has launched 143 Falcon missions in the last 365 days.
“I always find it amazing that this cadence has become somewhat normal,” Mason said. “But if we look back just five years ago, in 2020, when we launched roughly 25 times, which is still a healthy rate at twice a month, and now launching on average every two to three days, I think this demonstrates how Falcon’s reusability and reliability, plus the hard work and dedicate of the SpaceX team has been critical to supporting assured access to space.”
In order to meet this cadence, Mason said SpaceX has a Falcon second stage coming through production every two-and-a-half days. The company has launched 143 Falcon missions in the last 365 days.
SpaceX is also seeking to ramp up its cadence through the proposed acquisition of Space Launch Complex 6 at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Public review of the proposal runs through July 7 with the Department of the Air Force expected to issue its Final Environmental Impact Statement this Fall.
