SpaceX celebrates birthday with launch from Cape Canaveral

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel on Mar 14, 2026

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ORLANDO, Fla. — SpaceX has lit many more candles than needed for its birthdays since it was founded by Elon Musk in 2002.

It lit one more Saturday at 8:37 a.m. with a Falcon 9 rocket that launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 flying another 29 Starlink satellites to orbit.

For the company’s 24th birthday, which also falls on National Pi Day in deference to the date being 3/14, the launch commentator had a special countdown and felicitation.

“10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, Pi, 2, 1, ignition, engines full power and liftoff. Go SpaceX. Go Falcon. Happy Birthday,” he said.

This particular candle, as in the first-stage booster, was flying for the sixth time and made another successful recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic.

The launch marked the 18th of the year on the Space Coast, all but one of which have been flown by SpaceX.

Combined with California missions, SpaceX has now flown its Falcon 9 rocket 32 times this year, on track to approach the record 165 missions flown across all of its launch sites in 2025. That total included 101 from either Kennedy Space Center or Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The majority of those missions have been for Starlink with the company’s internet constellation having grown to nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit, according to statistics maintained by astronomer Jonathan McDowell.

The company’s first launch attempt of its Falcon 1 rocket came in 2006, although that rocket and two more failed before finally managing to get to orbit in 2008. It flew one more successful Falcon 1 in 2009 before shifting gears to what has been the workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.

The first Falcon 9 launched on June 4, 2010, and Saturday’s mission marks the 614th time the company has flown the rocket, with only two launch failures during liftoff.

The company introduced the more powerful Falcon Heavy, which is essentially three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together, with its debut launch in 2018 flying Musk’s red Tesla roadster into deep space. It has flown 11 times over its career, although not since 2024, although could fly several missions before the end of 2026.

The company has also launched its in-development Starship and Super Heavy 11 times from its launch site Starbase in Texas, with the 12th coming as soon as April. The company looks to bring the powerful rocket to the Space Coast before the end of the year with launch towers in development at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

That’s 636 rocket launch attempts in 24 years.

That’s a lot of candles.