Iridium NEXT-1

Falcon 9's return to flight after the AMOS-6 pad explosion in September 2016 that had grounded the vehicle for more than four months.

The mission also opened the Iridium NEXT constellation replacement campaign: SpaceX would deliver all 75 replacement satellites across eight dedicated Falcon 9 flights, each carrying 10 at a time, retiring the original Iridium constellation launched in the late 1990s. The full 66-satellite operational constellation plus nine in-orbit spares was completed in 2019.