June 4 (UPI) -- SpaceX on Wednesday afternoon launched another batch of 27 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on the 15th anniversary of the first Falcon 9 rocket launch.
It was the 500th orbital launch of a Falcon rocket, including Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, Spaceflight Now reported.
The Falcon 9 lifted off from pad 4E at 4:40 p.m. PDT.
A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, the first stage landed on the "Of Course I Still Love You" droneship in the Pacific Ocean.
This was the 26th flight for the first stage booster, which included 18 Starlink missions.
It was thge 134th landing on this vessel and the 457th booster landing in California and Florida.
The first launch of a Falcon 9 rocket was on June 4, 2010, from Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex pad 40. This was a test Dragon spacecraft successfully placed into orbit.
In 2020, Falcon 9 was the first commercial rocket to launch humans to orbit.
Falcon has sent commercial resupply missions, including astronauts, to the International Space Station.
The next SpaceX Falcon 9 launch is scheduled for 11:19 p.m. EDT Friday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station pad 40. The rocket will launch a geostationary satellite for SiriusXM.
Private mission to ISS
SpaceX, NASA and Axiom Space are planning a launch of the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, Axiom Mission 4, for 8:22 a.m. Tuesday from the Kennedy Space Center's pad 39A.
The Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch a new SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The targeted docking time is approximately 12:30 p.m., June 11. There are nine people currently on the ISS.
Axiom Space and SpaceX are planning coverage to start at 6:15 a.m. and NASA at 7:25 a.m.
Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space, will command the commercial mission. She is 65 years old.
The crew also includes pilot Shubhanshu Shukla with the Indian Space Research Organization, and mission specialists with the European Space Agency, Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary.
This would be the first time ISRA will send an astronaut to the space station as well as ESA astronauts from Hungary and Poland.
NASA and the Indian agency are planning five joint science investigations and two in-orbit science, technology, engineering and mathematics demonstrations.
Axiom Space, which is based in Houston and founded in 2016, is building the first commercial space station with deployment planned in the late 2020s.
