The large image: SpaceX had a complete of 98 profitable missions in 2023, excess of its nearest rivals. It’s going to begin out 2024 with a January 2 launch of a Falcon 9 with a payload of 21 Starlink satellites, a few of which could have the primary Direct to Name capabilities.
Each 4 days during the last 12 months SpaceX despatched a rocket into orbit, for a complete of 98 profitable missions, topping its earlier report of 61 orbital launches in 2022 and coming inside placing distance of founder Elon Musk’s purpose of 100 launches for 2023.
It ended the yr with an formidable two launches final Thursday, sending two rockets into orbit from Florida. The primary was a Falcon Heavy, carrying the US navy’s X-37B area aircraft – which doesn’t have a crew and operates autonomously – from a launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart to unprecedented altitudes the place it’s going to conduct cutting-edge analysis. The second was the Falcon 9, which blasted off a couple of miles to the south carrying 23 Starlink Web satellites.
In all, SpaceX closed the yr with 98 flights that included 91 Falcon 9s, 5 Falcon Heavy rockets and two take a look at launches of the Tremendous Heavy-Starship rocket. The corporate may effectively have met Musk’s purpose of 100 launches had it not been for unhealthy climate and a few technical issues with the final Falcon Heavy launch.
Falcon Heavy launches USSF-52 to orbit from Florida pic.twitter.com/DC269EmaLh
– SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 29, 2023
Musk and his group may be disillusioned, however not when put into the bigger context of what its rivals completed in 2023. Rocket Lab USA launched its forty second Electron rocket in mid-December, marking its tenth orbit for the yr and making the Electron the second most regularly launched U.S. rocket yearly. It deployed a satellite tv for pc for Japan-based Earth imaging firm the Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Area.
One other competitor, United Launch Alliance had three missions this yr with a complete of 158 beneath its belt, with its newest in October when the Atlas V rocket carrying the Protoflight mission for Amazon’s Challenge Kuiper lifted off from Cape Canaveral Area Pressure Station. The Protoflight launch was the primary mission in a broader business partnership between ULA and Amazon to launch nearly all of the Challenge Kuiper constellation.
SpaceX will waste no time within the new yr for extra flights. It’s planning a January 2 launch of a Falcon 9 with a payload of 21 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit at Vandenberg Area Pressure Base in California. This launch will embrace the primary six Starlink satellites with Direct to Name capabilities that may allow cell community operators all over the world to offer international entry to Web and cellphone companies.
