SpaceX launches 25 Starlink satellites

SpaceX launched 25 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Sunday morning, April 26. (spacex.com) (basenor.com) The Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4 East at 7:37 a.m. Pacific time, or 14:37 Coordinated Universal Time. (basenor.com) (youtube.com) The mission was Starlink Group 17-16, not Group 17-14; Group 17-14 flew earlier, on April 23, with 24 satellites from the same California pad. (basenor.com) (spacex.com) (spaceflightnow.com) Starlink is SpaceX’s internet network in low Earth orbit, which means satellites fly much closer to Earth than traditional communications spacecraft and can cut delay times. (starlink.com) Each new batch adds capacity to the network, which SpaceX says connected more than 4.6 million new active customers in 2025 and expanded into 35 additional countries, territories, and markets. (starlink.com) The April 26 launch also showed how routine booster reuse has become for SpaceX. First-stage booster B1088 flew for the 15th time and landed on the droneship *Of Course I Still Love You* in the Pacific Ocean about nine minutes after liftoff. (basenor.com) SpaceX’s public launch schedule lists another Starlink mission from Vandenberg on April 29, underlining the company’s rapid California launch cadence. (spacex.com) Starlink is also expanding beyond home internet. SpaceX says it completed deployment of the first generation of its Direct to Cell constellation this year, with more than 650 satellites launched in 18 months. (starlink.com) That makes the April 26 flight one more building block in a network SpaceX is still thickening, one Falcon 9 mission at a time. (spacex.com) (starlink.com)