A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket with the Psyche spacecraft launches from NASA’s Kennedy House Middle in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Oct. 13, 2023.
Chandan Khanna | AFP | Getty Photographs
Elon Musk’s SpaceX smashed its earlier annual report for orbital rocket launches, pulling off 96 profitable missions in 2023 at a blistering common launch tempo of each 4 days.
SpaceX this yr achieved 91 launches with its Falcon 9 rocket and one other 5 with the Falcon Heavy, topping its earlier annual report of 61 orbital launches in 2022. For context, SpaceX launched Falcon 9 extra occasions this yr than in the whole first decade after the rocket’s debut.
Alongside the way in which this yr, SpaceX landed its 250th orbital rocket booster in addition to launched and landed a single rocket 19 occasions, persevering with to push the boundaries of reusing rockets. This week, SpaceX additionally set a brand new firm report for shortest time between orbital launches, at just below three hours, which represents the tightest time between Florida launches since NASA’s Gemini 11 mission in 1966.
What’s extra, SpaceX’s launch rely for the yr doesn’t embody its pair of Starship take a look at flights, which weren’t carrying industrial payloads sure for orbit.
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Jon Edwards, SpaceX vp of Falcon launch autos, wrote in a social media put up that just some years in the past, Musk steered “a objective of 100 launches as a thought experiment.”
“Right here we’re. I am so extremely proud to work with the perfect crew on earth, and so excited to see what we obtain subsequent yr,” Edwards wrote.
SpaceX officers have mentioned the corporate goals to launch as many as 144 Falcon missions in 2024, because it continues to deploy satellites for the Starlink system that drives a significant portion of its $180 billion valuation.
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