SpaceX has done it again. On Saturday evening, August 15, Elon Musk's company launched two Falcon 9 rockets from opposite coasts of the United States just 38 minutes apart, setting a new spaceflight record for the shortest time between orbital flights.
The first liftoff occurred at 9:12 PM EDT from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying eight satellites for Louisiana-based telecom company Globalstar to low Earth orbit. While that rocket was still climbing, a second Falcon 9 launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base on California's central coast at 9:50 PM EDT, kicking off the classified USSF-366 mission for the U.S. Space Force.
Both missions featured successful booster landings. The Globalstar booster returned to Cape Canaveral after its 14th flight, while the USSF-366 first stage landed on the droneship "Of Course I Still Love You" in the Pacific Ocean after its 18th mission.
The new record beats SpaceX's previous mark of 65.5 minutes, set on August 31, 2024, by a full 27 minutes. The doubleheader brought the total Falcon 9 launches in 2026 to 96, with approximately 75% of those being Starlink missions deploying the company's growing broadband satellite constellation of nearly 11,000 spacecraft.
