Florida's Space Coast is keeping its streak alive in 2026. After a record-shattering 109 orbital launches in 2025, the Cape has already sent 49 rockets skyward through the end of July — a pace that would have shattered the state's annual record just five years ago, when 31 launches in all of 2021 was enough to tie the mark at the time.
August kicks off with a pre-dawn Falcon 9 carrying AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 11, 12, and 13 cellular broadband satellites from Launch Complex 40 on Wednesday, August 5, at 3:42 a.m. A second Falcon 9 Starlink mission follows on Monday, August 10, with a window opening at 10:49 a.m. and 29 satellites bound for low-Earth orbit on a northeast trajectory.
The month's marquee event comes on Sunday, August 30, when a SpaceX Falcon Heavy is set to lift off from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center at 7:26 a.m. carrying NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope — an instrument boasting a field of view at least 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope. Residents along the Space Coast can expect sonic booms after that one.
Looking a little further out, a crewed Falcon 9 mission — NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 — is penciled in for mid-September, with astronauts from NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, and Roscosmos heading to the International Space Station. Later in the year, Sierra Space's uncrewed Dream Chaser space plane is targeting a fourth-quarter launch atop a ULA Vulcan rocket from Launch Complex 41. Note that all dates and times are subject to change.
Florida Today's Space Team provides live blog coverage starting at least 90 minutes before each liftoff at floridatoday.com/space; this schedule and additional launch details were reported by Florida Today.
