SpaceX hits 100 Falcon 9 launches in 2026 — and one booster is closing in on the Space Shuttle's record

By: Anton Kratiuk | today, 15:34

SpaceX logged its 100th Falcon 9 launch of 2026 on August 25, lifting off from Cape Canaveral with 29 Starlink satellites aboard. That milestone arrived faster than many expected: the company flew just 96 missions in the entire year of 2023 — a figure that once seemed untouchable. The pace of launches now shows no sign of slowing.

The booster that keeps going

The flight also set an individual record. Booster B1067 flew for the 37th time, closing in on the NASA Space Shuttle's all-time reuse mark of 39 flights. B1067 is no ordinary workhorse — its résumé includes crewed Crew-3 and Crew-4 missions, ISS cargo runs CRS-22 and CRS-25, and deployments of Turksat, Eutelsat, O3b mPOWER, and Galileo navigation satellites. About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, it landed on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. The upper stage deployed all 29 satellites 61.5 minutes later, pushing the Starlink constellation past 11,000 operational satellites.

SpaceX now has six boosters with more than 30 flights each, per Yahoo News. No other orbital launch provider comes close.

A gap no competitor has closed

The scale of SpaceX's reuse program translates directly into cost. Falcon 9 delivers payload to low Earth orbit at roughly $2,720 per kilogram — 60 to 80 times cheaper than expendable alternatives like Vulcan Centaur. Blue Origin and Rocket Lab are both working on reusable systems, but neither has demonstrated flight-proven reuse at anything approaching this cadence, according to SpaceX Stock.

In 2025 SpaceX flew 165 missions — more than every other orbital provider combined. That dominance is drawing regulatory attention, with the FAA managing an increasingly crowded launch slot schedule. For now, no US or international rival has a credible near-term answer to Falcon 9's combination of price, reliability, and turnaround speed.

What comes next

B1067 needs just two more flights to surpass the Space Shuttle's record. Given SpaceX's current tempo — roughly one Falcon 9 launch every 2–3 days — that milestone could arrive before the end of September. Whether the company treats it as a PR moment or quietly logs it as mission 39 says a lot about how routine rocket reuse has become.