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SpaceX launches 23 more Starlink satellites from Florida (video)

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Liftoff occurred at 12:43 a.m. EDT on Tuesday (June 3).

SpaceX sent another batch of its Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit from Florida early Tuesday morning (June 3).

Twenty three (23) of the broadband internet units, including 13 with direct-to-cell capabilities, rode atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on a nine-minute trip into space. Liftoff occurred at 12:23 a.m. EDT (0423 GMT).

The satellites were set to be released into orbit about an hour later.

A white and black rocket lifts off into the night sky, with only its bright whiite thrust visible

The bright thrust from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket shines in the dark night sky over the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on June 3, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)

As to plan, the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage was jettisoned and returned to a landing on "Just Read the Instructions," a droneship positioned in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. This was the 21st flight for the first stage, including 13 prior Starlink missions, according to a flight summary on SpaceX's website.

Monday's launch followed a similar mission from Vandenberg Space Force Station in southern California on Saturday. That flight deployed 27 Starlink satellites.

The active Starlink constellation is now more than 7,600 satellites strong, according to tracker and astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, making it the largest space-based communications network in history. SpaceX launched about one thousand more of the satellites, which as of today are no longer in service.

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Robert Z. Pearlman
Robert Z. Pearlman
collectSPACE.com Editor, Space.com Contributor

Robert Pearlman is a space historian, journalist and the founder and editor of collectSPACE.com, a daily news publication and community devoted to space history with a particular focus on how and where space exploration intersects with pop culture. Pearlman is also a contributing writer for Space.com and co-author of "Space Stations: The Art, Science, and Reality of Working in Space” published by Smithsonian Books in 2018.In 2009, he was inducted into the U.S. Space Camp Hall of Fame in Huntsville, Alabama. In 2021, he was honored by the American Astronautical Society with the Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History. In 2023, the National Space Club Florida Committee recognized Pearlman with the Kolcum News and Communications Award for excellence in telling the space story along the Space Coast and throughout the world.

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