600 rocket landings! SpaceX notches another milestone during Sunday Starlink launch

At SpaceX, what has gone up has now successfully come down 600 times.

The company, which was founded by Elon Musk, marked its 600th successful landing of one of its orbital-class rockets with the recovery of the first-stage booster that put a new batch of Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit on Sunday (April 19).

“Falcon lands for the 600th time!” SpaceX wrote on social media on Sunday. “Falcon 9 launches 25 Starlink satellites from California ahead of completing the 600th overall landing of an orbital-class rocket.”

Lifting off at 12:03 p.m. EDT (1603 GMT or 9:03 a.m. PDT local time) from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base, the latest Falcon 9 rocket to fly deployed the Starlink broadband internet relay satellites (Group 17-22) an hour and two minutes after leaving Southern California.

The 25 spacecraft added to SpaceX’s megaconstellation, which numbers more than 10,275 satellites circling the planet.

At about eight minutes into Sunday’s launch, the Falcon 9’s first stage (Booster B1097) returned to Earth, touching down on its four landing legs on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship, which was stationed in the Pacific Ocean. In addition to being the 600th safe recovery of a Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rocket since 2015, it was the eighth landing for this particular booster.