A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched for the 21st time night (May 17), setting a new reusability record for the company.

In the evening of May 18, at 8:32 p.m. EDT (00:32 GMT), the Falcon 9 rocket launched 23 of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband satellites into orbit from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, the first stage of the Falcon 9 returned to Earth as scheduled, landing on the SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which was positioned in the Atlantic Ocean.

As per the SpaceX mission description, this was the booster’s 21st launch and landing. That created a new record that might be surpassed several times soon; two Falcon 9 first stages have already completed 20 flights.

The 23 Starlink satellites were successfully deployed into low Earth orbit by the Falcon 9’s upper stage approximately 65 minutes after liftoff.

With tonight’s launch, SpaceX has now completed 51 orbital missions in 2024; the company plans to launch roughly 150 times before the year ends.

36 of those 51 orbital launches have been used to expand the Starlink broadband megaconstellation, which has over 5,900 operational satellites at this point.