# Falcon 9 flies Starlink 17-45 on a 25th-flight booster
> SpaceX's 74th launch of the year adds 24 V2 Mini satellites from Vandenberg

**Meta:** type: story · date: 2026-06-25 · heads: The Long Game, How Life Changes · 2 takes · 2 lenses · 1 regions

## Summary

[Spacex](/en/entity/spacex) launched 24 [Starlink](/en/entity/starlink) V2 Mini satellites on a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base, lifting off from SLC-4E at 0330 UTC on June 25. First stage B1081 flew for a 25th time and landed on the Pacific droneship "Of Course I Still Love You" about 8.5 minutes after launch, with the second stage deploying the satellites roughly an hour into flight. The mission was SpaceX's 74th Falcon 9 launch of 2026, part of the steady cadence that keeps thickening the low-Earth-orbit broadband network.

## Why it matters

The relentless launch rate is the moat: each flight adds capacity and pushes Starlink further ahead of rival constellations on coverage and unit cost. Reusing a booster for a 25th time underlines how reuse economics underwrite a tempo competitors cannot yet match.

## What to watch

- How high SpaceX pushes single-booster reuse counts.
- V2 Mini Optimized capacity gains versus earlier batches.
- Whether rival constellations close any of the cadence gap in 2026.

## Regional takes (batched by bias / lens)

### launch coverage
- **Spaceflight Now** (United States, en) — Live coverage of Starlink 17-45: liftoff from Vandenberg SLC-4E at 0330 UTC on June 25, 24 V2 Mini satellites, first stage B1081 flying a 25th time and landing on droneship 'Of Course I Still Love You', SpaceX's 74th Falcon 9 flight of 2026.
  > "Liftoff of Starlink 17-45 came at 0330 UTC, with booster B1081 making its 25th flight and landing on Of Course I Still Love You."
  Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2026/06/24/live-coverage-west-coast-falcon-9-launch-to-continue-expansion-of-spacexs-starlink-network/

### unlabelled
- **Space.com** (United States, en) — 
  Source: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacex-falcon-9-starlink-group-17-45-launch-ocisly

## Across the graph
- Related: [[starlink-mobile-25m-2026]]
- Entities: Spacex, Starlink

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Canonical: https://rbtfl.xyz/en/n/starlink-17-45-vandenberg-2026