The Weekly Rocket Report #66
02/16/2026-02/22/2026
Ricky Whitmore
Space Writer
Hello all and welcome back to the Weekly Rocket Report! I thought this was going to be another Weekly Starlink Report, but we had a hero fly in and save us, we’ll get to that in a bit.
First we start the week, as we often do with Falcon 9. Starlink Group 6-110 lifted of from the Cape Tuesday evening carrying 29 satellites to orbit successfully. Following staging the rocket’s booster flew back to Earth, landing on the drone ship “Just Read The Instructions”.
Falcon 9 launches Starlink Group 6-110. Photo Credit: SpaceX.
Mission #2 for the week was Starlink Group 17-26, a Vandenberg launch. Falcon 9 carried 25 more satellites to orbit, and landed its booster on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You”.
Friday started early with another Falcon 9 rising with the sun at Cape Canaveral. It was carrying Starlink Group 6-108, a batch of 29 more internet satellites. After separation the first stage returned to Earth, landing on the drone ship “A Shortfall Of Gravitas”.
Friday evening came a break in the Starlinks! A suborbital Electron took off from Wallops Island carrying a scram jet demo as part of Rocket Lab’s HASTE program. Unlike many of the suborbital test launches, this one was advertised, streamed, and followed up on, a rarity amongst these types of launches. The mission was called “That’s Not A Knife”, Crocodile Dundee anyone?
Electron launches “That’s Not A Knife”. Photo Credit: Rocket Lab.
Moving back to Starlink now for two launches on Sunday. The first of these lit up the early morning sky at Vandenberg with Falcon 9 carrying 25 satellites on Starlink Group 17-23. Following stage separation, the Falcon booster returned to Earth, landing down range on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You”.
The final launch of the week was a special one for me. Starlink Group 10-41 blasted off from the Cape Sunday just before 10PM. The reason this launch was special was its Northeast launch trajectory, allowing it to be seen by people all up the east coast. I live in Pennsylvania, around 12 hours drive from Cape Canaveral, but was still able to see the rocket as its second stage streaked across the eastern sky. The rocket was carrying 29 satellites to orbit, and before I saw it the booster separated and returned to its drone ship “Just Read The Instructions”. (Not great picture taken from my cell phone).
Falcon 9 launches Starlink Group 10-41. Photo Credit: Me.
What a week, lots of Starlinks once again! It was cool for me personally to be able to see a launch this week, living as far away from launch pads as I do. Hopefully some of my east coast US friends got to see it as well. Looking ahead at next week I see some more Starlinks, very exciting, but also another launch attempt from Space One, and their KAIROS rocket. Hopefully the twice failed rocket has fixed its issues and will have a successful launch. Of note, there has not been a launch from China in a few weeks, not since February 12th in fact, and I do not see one scheduled next week either. It is very uncommon for China to have such a large gap in launch cadence, makes you wonder… No matter what happens I will be here next week to cover it all, on The Weekly Rocket Report!
As always feel free to write to me at rickyew2112@gmail.com, or find me on X @Rickyew2112
Sic Itur Ad Astra
(Thus They Journey to the Stars)