SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites to orbit from California (video)

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Liftoff occurred at 6:02 p.m. EST.

SpaceX launched another batch of its Starlink internet satellites from California today (Feb. 1).

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 22 Starlink spacecraft lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 6:02 p.m. EST (2302 GMT).

The Falcon 9's first stage returned to Earth about eight minutes after liftoff as planned, touching down in the Pacific Ocean on the SpaceX drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You."

The first stage of a rocket stands upright on its four legs atop an ocean-based droneship, soon after launching to space.

The first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rests on the deck of a drone ship shortly after launching 22 Starlink internet satellites to orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Feb. 1, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)

Today's flight was the 17th launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description. Thirteen of its 17 flights have been Starlink missions.

The Falcon 9's upper stage, meanwhile, continued carrying the 22 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit. It will deploy them there about 61 minutes after liftoff.

SpaceX has now launched 14 Falcon 9 missions in 2025, nine of them Starlink flights.

The Starlink megaconstellation — the biggest ever assembled — currently consists of more than 6,900 operational spacecraft, according to astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.

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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.