SpaceX has quietly closed an era on Florida's Space Coast: Tuesday's Starlink 10-49 mission from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station was the last planned Falcon 9 Starlink launch from the state, according to SpaceX Vice President of Launch Operations Kiko Dontchev. From here on, Starlink missions out of Florida will fly on Starship, while the West Coast team keeps launching regularly from Vandenberg.
End Of A 260-Launch Run
Since the first Starlink batch lifted off from Cape Canaveral on May 23, 2019, roughly 260 Starlink missions have flown from the Sunshine State on Falcon 9. Tuesday's flight, using SpaceX's fleet-leading booster, put another 28 broadband satellites into low Earth orbit and pushed the operational constellation past 11,000 spacecraft, according to Harvard-Smithsonian astronomer Jonathan McDowell.
Starship Takes Over On The East Coast
The handover is aspirational for now. Starship has not completed an official orbital mission, though the last flight test successfully deployed 20 Starlink V3 satellites that connected to the constellation. SpaceX plans Starship Flight 14 for mid-September from Texas, with Flight 15 tentatively slated to launch from Florida if that mission goes well.
What It Means For Cape Cadence
Florida launch cadence will not slow: SpaceX just posted a record 37th flight for booster B1067 and hit its 100th orbital mission of 2026 earlier this month. But Starlink will now become the payload that pulls Starship into routine service from Florida, complementing the Nevada-cleared robotaxi buildouts and Waymo's custom 5nm ASIC stack as SpaceX absorbs Starlink's biggest deployment burden on its next-generation vehicle.
Reporting based on coverage from Spectrum News 13, Spaceflight Now and Kiko Dontchev's public statements on X.