The large image: SpaceX had a complete of 98 profitable missions in 2023, excess of its nearest opponents. It will begin out 2024 with a January 2 launch of a Falcon 9 with a payload of 21 Starlink satellites, some of which may have the primary Direct to Call capabilities.
Every 4 days over the past 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 goal of 100 launches for 2023.
It ended the year with an formidable two launches final Thursday, sending two rockets into orbit from Florida. The first was a Falcon Heavy, carrying the US army’s X-37B area aircraft – which doesn’t have a crew and operates autonomously – from a launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to unprecedented altitudes the place it can conduct cutting-edge analysis. The second was the Falcon 9, which blasted off a few miles to the south carrying 23 Starlink Internet satellites.
In all, SpaceX closed the year with 98 flights that included 91 Falcon 9s, 5 Falcon Heavy rockets and two check launches of the Super Heavy-Starship rocket. The firm would possibly nicely have met Musk’s goal of 100 launches had it not been for dangerous 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 crew may be disillusioned, however not when put into the bigger context of what its opponents completed in 2023. Rocket Lab USA launched its forty second Electron rocket in mid-December, marking its tenth orbit for the year and making the Electron the second most incessantly 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 Space.
Another competitor, United Launch Alliance had three missions this year 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 Project Kuiper lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The Protoflight launch was the primary mission in a broader business partnership between ULA and Amazon to launch the bulk of the Project Kuiper constellation.
SpaceX will waste no time in the brand new year for added flights. It is planning a January 2 launch of a Falcon 9 with a payload of 21 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. This launch will embody the primary six Starlink satellites with Direct to Call capabilities that may allow cell community operators all over the world to present international entry to Internet and cellphone providers.