A SpaceX Falcon 9 has launched and landed a record 32 times following a successful mission on Monday night.
The Falcon 9 first-stage booster — listed as B1067 — lifted off at 5:26 p.m. ET from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Shortly after deploying 29 Starlink internet satellites to low-Earth orbit, the Falcon 9’s first stage returned to Earth, making a perfect landing on the Just Read the Instructions droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of Florida.
Here’s some footage of the rocket making its record 32nd launch and landing.
32nd landing (record) for this booster! pic.twitter.com/FV31HExa0H
The workhorse booster made its maiden flight in June 2021 and last flew on October 19, 2025.
It previously launched CRS-22, Crew-3, Turksat 5B, Crew-4, CRS-25, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13G, SES O3B mPOWER-A, PSN SATRIA, Telkomsat Merah Putih 2, Galileo L13, Koreasat-6A, and 20 Starlink missions.
SpaceX has a growing number of boosters making multiple flights. The reusability system is at the heart of the spaceflight company’s strategy, enabling it to drastically cut the cost of launches compared to traditional rockets that can only be used once.
Taking what it’s learned from the Falcon 9 landings, SpaceX has also managed to land the first stage of its much larger and more powerful Starship rocket, though in that case a pair of giant mechanical arms secure the booster just above the ground.
Only Blue Origin has replicated SpaceX’s feat in landing an orbital-class rocket upright minutes after launch. The U.S. company started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos just last month successfully landed the first stage of its New Glenn rocket following a failed attempt at the start of the year.
Others want to join the elite club, but nailing the technology is a challenge. Chinese firm LandSpace, for example, recently attempted to land the first stage of its reusable Zhuque‑3 rocket but the booster exploded upon its return instead of touching down safely.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.