16 August 2026 year (Kyiv time) SpaceX has carried out two orbital launches of Falcon rockets 9 with an interval 38 minutes — from the US Space Force base at Cape Canaveral and
from the Vandenberg Spaceport in California. This is the shortest interval between own orbital launches in the company's history; the previous record was 65 minutes (31 August 2024 year).
Both first stages successfully returned for reuse: floridian (14-and flight) landed on a pad near Cape Canaveral, californian (18-and flight) — on the barge Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean.
The launches had a different character. First (Globalstar 2-R) was commercial and provided the launch of eight satellites of the Globalstar operator into low Earth orbit. Second (USSF-366) conducted in the interests of the US Space Force; the composition of the payload is classified. According to the estimates of specialized sources, presumably launched a batch of satellites on the Starshield platform.
From the beginning 2026 Falcon year 9 carried out 96 launches, close 75 % of which accounted for the deployment of the Starlink constellation. For comparison, in 2020 year the company fulfilled 26 запусків за весь рік.
Source: https://universemagazine.com