SpaceX · Falcon 9 · 27 Oct 2026
Vandenberg just broke its launch record with two months to spare
A Falcon 9 carrying 27 Starlink satellites lifted off from California at 3:25am ET (12:25am PT; ) on Tuesday, 27 Oct 2026. Vandenberg Space Force Base says it was its 72nd launch operation of the year, one more than in the whole of 2025 (as of 27 Oct 2026). At this year's pace, the base would finish 2026 somewhere in the high 80s.
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What happened
SpaceX's Starlink 15-16 mission launched from Space Launch Complex 4 East at 12:25am PT and put 27 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. The first stage landed on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific about eight and a half minutes after liftoff.
Within the hour, the base made it official. Vandenberg posted on X that the flight was its "72nd launch operation for the calendar year - officially surpassing our modern record." That record was 71, set in 2025. Four days earlier, on 23 Oct, the base had called Starlink 15-15, launched from the same pad, a "record-tying 71st launch for the calendar year."
Col. James Horne III, who commands Space Launch Delta 30, the Space Force unit that runs the base, said in a statement to the USA TODAY Network that the launch "does more than break a 50-year record." He said it "highlights Vandenberg's position as the busiest spaceport in the world."
Falcon 9 launches 27 @Starlink satellites from California
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 27, 2026
The pace, by the numbers
27 Oct is day 300 of the year. Here's how the two years compare (as of 27 Oct 2026):
- 2025: 71 launches in 365 days, which works out to one every 5.1 days.
- 2026 so far: 72 launches in 300 days, or one every 4.2 days. That's about 23% faster than last year.
- The rest of 2026: 65 days remain. At the same rate that's roughly 15 or 16 more launches, which would put the year at about 87 or 88.
That's our own arithmetic, not an official forecast. The USA TODAY Network reports that Space Force officials have previously said around 80 rockets could launch from the base this year, so our number assumes the pace holds through the holidays. Either way, every launch between now and 31 Dec adds to the new record.
Horne also pointed further ahead. In the same statement he spoke of charting "a path toward 100 annual launches by 2027." That's a goal, not something already scheduled.
One note on counting. The 72 is the base's own tally of "launch operations." Launch Library 2, a public launch database, lists 69 orbital launches from Vandenberg so far in 2026 (as of 27 Oct 2026). The two counts measure different things, and the base hasn't published its full list.
The booster behind it
The first stage on this flight, B1082, was flying for the 26th time. SpaceX's mission page lists its earlier flights as USSF-62, OneWeb Launch 20, NROL-145 and Transporter-18, plus 22 Starlink missions including this one. So a booster that has flown military, commercial and rideshare missions has now done more than 20 Starlink runs from the same coast.
That reuse is what makes a record like this possible. Space.com counts Tuesday's flight as the 117th Falcon 9 launch of 2026, and says about three-quarters of them were Starlink missions (as of 27 Oct 2026). Launch Library 2's count of 2026 Falcon 9 launches matches the 117.
Why California matters for Starlink
Starlink 15-16 headed for an orbit tilted about 70 degrees to the equator, according to The Space Tap, citing Spaceflight Now. Launching from California is how SpaceX reaches these steep, high-inclination orbits, which carry satellites over higher latitudes than launches from Florida typically do.
There's a second reason the West Coast pad is so busy. Space.com reports that SpaceX ended Starlink launches from Florida earlier this year as it shifts its focus to Starship. That leaves SLC-4E carrying much of the Starlink load.
The record isn't SpaceX's alone on paper, since the base counts every launch operation it supports. But Tuesday's milestone was set by a Falcon 9 on a Starlink mission, flown by a booster on its 26th trip.
Sources: SpaceX, Starlink 15-16 mission page; SpaceX on X (27 Oct 2026); Vandenberg Space Force Base on X (27 Oct 2026); Vandenberg Space Force Base on X (23 Oct 2026); USA TODAY Network via AOL (27 Oct 2026); Space.com (27 Oct 2026); The Space Tap (27 Oct 2026); Launch Library 2. Pace projections are Supercharged Daily's own arithmetic.
— Alex R
