Falcon 9 Passes 700 Launches as SpaceX Shifts Focus to Starship

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has now flown more than 700 times since its debut in June 2010, making it the first rocket family to reach that number of launches. The milestone came with a pair of Starlink missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on October 27 and October 30 (October 31 UTC), and Elon Musk congratulated the team on X.

Congrats to the @SpaceX team on over 700 Falcon 9 flights!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2026

Which Falcon 9 Flight Was Number 700?

Launch trackers disagree by one flight. Next Spaceflight lists Starlink 15-16, which lifted off at 12:25 a.m. PDT on October 27 on booster B1082’s 26th flight, as the 700th Falcon 9 mission. Spaceflight Now counts the next one, Starlink 15-18, as number 700.

That second launch left Vandenberg at 9:04 p.m. PDT on October 30 with 27 Starlink satellites. Booster B1093 flew for the 18th time and landed on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You about 8.5 minutes after liftoff, which Spaceflight Now counts as the 675th Falcon booster landing. Either way, the rocket is past 700 flights.

How Reusable Boosters Got Falcon 9 to 700

The number rests on a few turning points. Falcon 9 landed a first stage on a ground pad for the first time in December 2015 and on a drone ship in April 2016. In March 2017 SpaceX flew a previously used orbital booster again, and in May 2020 the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission carried NASA astronauts, the first crewed launch from US soil since the Space Shuttle retired in 2011.

Reusing the first stage, the largest and most expensive part of the rocket, turned launches that once took months of preparation into an operation that can repeat every few days. Today a single booster routinely flies more than 20 missions.

Falcon 9 Is Slowing Down as Starship Ramps Up

The milestone arrives as SpaceX starts to wind the Falcon program down. October ended with 11 SpaceX orbital launches, still far ahead of any other provider, but the October 27 flight marked the first time since July 2025 that the company’s 365-day launch count fell below 150. The peak was 171 launches in the year to December 2025.

SpaceX stopped flying Starlink missions on Falcon 9 from Florida in August, and NASA has acknowledged that the company plans to stop offering Falcon 9 for commercial and government missions within the next few years. The focus is now Starship, which is preparing for its Starship Flight 15 attempt at a double catch in mid-November.

Musk said on the company’s third quarter earnings call, “We expect Starship to fly weekly at some point in the first half next year and then second half next year, twice weekly or maybe even more frequently by the end of next year.”

What It Means for Starlink Users and Customers

For now, Falcon 9 remains the workhorse that keeps the Starlink constellation growing, which matters for users watching changes such as Starlink dynamic pricing. It also still carries crews and cargo for NASA and launches for outside customers, a business that has grown with deals like Anthropic becoming SpaceX’s largest customer. Once Starship takes over those flights, the Falcon 9 count will likely stop climbing, but few rockets will ever get close to it.