Rocket Launch Frenzy, Solar Surprises & Space Race Showdowns: 48 Hours of Space News (Sept 16–17, 2025)
Rapid-Fire Rocket Launches and Satellite Deployments SpaceX’s Starlink blitz: SpaceX continued its high-frequency launch campaign, highlighting how routine orbital deployment has become. On Wednesday, Sept. 17, a Falcon 9 rocket lifted 24 Starlink V2 Mini satellites into a polar low-Earth orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California spaceflightnow.com. Liftoff occurred at 8:43 am PDT (15:43 UTC), and about eight minutes later the veteran booster (B1088 on its 10th flight) landed on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You spaceflightnow.com spaceflightnow.com. This “Starlink Group 17-12” mission was SpaceX’s 83rd Starlink launch of 2025, pushing the year’s Starlink satellite tally above 2,000 deployed so
