On Sunday, SpaceX finished its 80th Starlink launch of the year. The company plans to switch to a new rocket soon, which should help lower costs.
A Falcon 9 rocket carried 27 satellites into low-Earth orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
SpaceX is starting to replace the Falcon 9 with Starship, its new fully reusable rocket. The company recently filed documents for Starship’s 14th test flight, which could launch as early as September 15.
Last month, SpaceX’s vice president of launch shared on social media that the latest Starlink mission from Florida was the last one there to use the Falcon 9. Future Starlink launches from Florida will use Starship, while the West Coast team will keep using Falcon 9 from Vandenberg for now.
Starship offers several advantages. It is fully reusable, can carry much larger payloads, and uses liquid methane instead of kerosene as fuel. These features could make it cheaper than Falcon 9 in the long run and better suited for future Mars missions.
Lowering launch costs is still important for SpaceX’s stock, which has moved up and down since the company went public in June. Last week, the stock saw a small increase.
