Active
Falcon 9
Partially reusable two-stage medium-lift launch vehicle. The world's most frequently launched orbital rocket.
SpaceXFalcon Heavy
Active
Heavy-lift launch vehicle consisting of a strengthened Falcon 9 core with two additional boosters.
Latest update Aug 31, 2026
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Current status
Operational since 2018 for heavy national-security, science, and high-energy commercial payloads; flew its 13th mission on August 30, 2026, launching NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope with both side boosters landing back at Cape Canaveral and the center core expended.
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Specifications6
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In the news4
Falcon Heavy flies first NRO mission as NROL-97
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy lifted the classified NROL-97 payload from Kennedy Space Center LC-39A at 11:54 p.m. EDT on Oct. 1, 2026, the National Reconnaissance Office's first Falcon Heavy flight after 22 Falcon 9 missions and its first NSSL Phase 3 Lane 2 launch. Spaceflight Now and NASASpaceFlight said side boosters B1072 and B1104 landed at LZ-1 and LZ-2 while new center core B1106 was expended toward a high-energy orbit. Payload identity and upper-stage deploy status were not disclosed; the flight was SpaceX's third Falcon launch of the day and, Spaceflight Now said, the first day it landed four boosters.
SpaceX lofts Google Suncatcher TPU satellite on Transporter-18
A Falcon 9 lifted Transporter-18 from Vandenberg SLC-4E at 2:32 p.m. EDT on Oct. 1, 2026, carrying 130 payloads including Google's Project Suncatcher pathfinder, which tests TPUs in orbit on a Planet Labs satellite. Space.com said the first stage landed at LZ-4 about 7.5 minutes later on its 25th flight, with payload deployments due about 54.5 minutes after liftoff. This was SpaceX's second launch of the day after Crew-13; NROL-97 on Falcon Heavy was still scheduled for 11:53 p.m. EDT.
www.space.com www.independent.co.uk qz.com + Google DeepMind
SpaceX flies 700th Falcon mission for SES
A Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's SLC-40 at 2:49 p.m. EDT (1849 UTC) on September 13 carrying SES's final three O3b mPOWER satellites (F11-F13). Space.com counted it as SpaceX's 105th Falcon 9 and 107th orbital mission of 2026, and Spaceflight Now as the 700th Falcon-family launch (687 Falcon 9 and 13 Falcon Heavy). Booster B1080 flew for the 29th time and landed on A Shortfall of Gravitas, the 661st Falcon booster landing; the Boeing-built satellites deployed around 8,000 km in medium Earth orbit and SES says they will enter service by mid-2027, completing a 13-satellite constellation.
SpaceX launches NASA's Roman Space Telescope on Falcon Heavy
SpaceX launched NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope at 7:26 a.m. EDT on August 30 aboard a Falcon Heavy from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, following a Launch Readiness Review completed two days earlier. The observatory is headed to the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point, about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, where it will join the James Webb Space Telescope and survey the sky in infrared with a field of view 100 times wider than Hubble's to study dark energy and search for exoplanets.
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