Falcon 9 Launches Starlink 17-47 — 69th Orbital Mission of 2026; OCISLY Recovery from Vandenberg

SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base on June 3, 2026 at 8:40 a.m. PDT (15:40 UTC), carrying 24 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites to low Earth orbit on a polar trajectory. The first stage performed a downrange burn and landed on the autonomous spaceport drone ship 'Of Course I Still Love You' (OCISLY) in the Pacific Ocean — SpaceX's 620th cumulative booster recovery. This mission (Starlink Group 17-47) represents SpaceX's 69th orbital launch of 2026, continuing the company's record-breaking launch cadence. The June 3 launch followed the scrub of Starlink Group 12-26 on June 2 (different mission, different booster); both were scheduled from Vandenberg SLC-4E. The Starlink active constellation surpassed approximately 10,582 satellites in orbit with this deployment. The launch proceeded while Starship remains grounded pending FAA IFT-12 mishap investigation and one day before the historic SpaceX IPO management roadshow officially opened (June 4–8).