SpaceX launched 29 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on August 25, 2026, marking the 100th Falcon 9 flight of the year and the final Falcon 9 Starlink mission from Florida. The pre-dawn liftoff created a vivid jellyfish exhaust plume visible as far away as New York City.
SpaceX reached a major operational milestone early on August 25, 2026, while simultaneously closing a chapter on its workhorse rocket fleet. The mission lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:33 a.m. EDT (0933 GMT), carrying 29 Starlink internet satellites into orbit.
The flight served as the 100th flight of 2026 for the Falcon 9 rocket and utilized a first stage that had flown 37 times, establishing a new company reuse record. Hours after liftoff, leadership confirmed that the flight was also the final Falcon 9 Starlink mission to fly from the Sunshine State.
Transitioning Florida Starlink Operations to Starship
With Falcon 9 wrapping up its Starlink duties in Florida, the company is pivoting its Space Coast operations toward its next-generation launch system. Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX vice president of launch, outlined the strategic shift via X on the morning of the launch.
“From here on, Starlink missions out of Florida will fly on Starship. The West Coast team will continue regularly launching Starlink from Vandenberg [Space Force Base in California],” Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX vice president of launch, said via X this morning.
Dontchev also highlighted the sheer volume of work accomplished by the retired Florida configuration, noting that Falcon has flown ~260 Starlink missions from the Cape over the last seven years, adding, can't wait until we launch that and many more with Starship!
The Spectacular Pre-Dawn Jellyfish Plume Over New York City
The trajectory and timing of the launch produced a striking visual phenomenon for observers hundreds of miles to the north. As the rocket ascended shortly before dawn, sunlight illuminated its expanding exhaust plume against a dark background sky, creating what is known as a “jellyfish” effect.
The glowing exhaust trail caught the attention of residents as far away as New York City, where onlookers captured video of the Falcon 9 rocket on the Starlink Group 10-49 mission passing by lower Manhattan and One World Trade Center just before dawn in New York City after launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Aug. 25, 2026, as seen from Hoboken, New Jersey.
Expanding Starship Infrastructure and Future Plans
The retirement of Florida-based Falcon 9 Starlink flights clears the path for Starship, a vehicle that stands more than 400 feet (122 meters) tall and is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, designed to be fully and rapidly reusable. Starship remains in the testing phase; SpaceX has conducted 13 test flights with the vehicle to date, all of them suborbital.
While Starship currently launches only from SpaceX’s Starbase site in South Texas, the company is already building pads for the giant rocket in Florida. Furthermore, the company announced that it plans to break ground next year on Starbase Louisiana, which it says will be able to support thousands of Starship liftoffs per year. SpaceX thinks Starship will revolutionize spaceflight when it comes online, and the company plans to phase out the Falcon 9 and its heavy-lift cousin, the Falcon Heavy, after that happens, so the final Falcon 9 Starlink launch from the West Coast may be coming relatively soon as well.
The rapid expansion of the Starlink megaconstellation has driven Falcon 9’s launch cadence to record highs over the past few years. In 2024 and 2025, for example, the rocket lifted off a total of 297 times, and 211 of those were Starlink flights. Seventy-seven of the 100 Falcon 9 launches this year have been Starlink missions.
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