Elon Musk's aerospace firm, SpaceX, is winding down its Starlink satellite launches using the Falcon 9 rocket from the U.S. East Coast, setting the stage for future missions to be carried out by the Starship rocket. On Tuesday, SpaceX's Vice President of Launch, Kiko Dontchev, confirmed this development in a post on X, stating that the launch from Pad 40 marked the final planned Falcon 9 Starlink mission in Florida. Dontchev added that this signifies "the end of an era" and confirmed that "all future Starlink missions from Florida will be executed using Starship."

Dontchev also noted that the West Coast team will "continue launching Starlink satellites from Vandenberg on a regular basis," and expressed immense pride in the team that has made the "Falcon 9 the most reliable launch vehicle in history." On Tuesday, a Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, deploying 29 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit, marking the final planned East Coast Falcon 9 Starlink mission.

Over the weekend, Musk shared on X that phasing out the Falcon rocket family, including both the Falcon 9 and the triple-booster Falcon Heavy—which has completed 12 launches to date—is an inevitable progression. He explained, "Once Starship achieves steady flight at a rate of several times per week, it becomes logical to redirect SpaceX's highly scarce engineering and production resources toward Starship to boost launch frequency to multiple times daily, which means the gradual retirement of the Falcon series."