SpaceX achieves 100 Falcon 9 launches in 2026

The global aerospace sector saw significant activity in late August 2026, highlighted by SpaceX achieving its 100th Falcon 9 launch of the year. The company conducted two successful launches on August 25, one from Cape Canaveral carrying 29 Starlink satellites and another from Vandenberg carrying 27 satellites. SpaceX also announced plans for a second Starbase facility in Louisiana to support high-cadence Starship operations.

Other notable orbital successes included Europe’s Ariane 62, which delivered the MTG-I2 weather satellite for Eumetsat, and China’s Chang Zheng 6C, which successfully deployed a mixed rideshare of seven payloads. Russia also completed a successful Soyuz-2-1B mission to replenish its GLONASS navigation constellation.

Upcoming launch schedules include the debut test flight of Galactic Energy’s Pallas-1 rocket in China, a Rocket Lab Electron mission from New Zealand, and ISRO’s GSLV-F17 mission carrying the EOS-05 Earth-observation satellite from India.