With 62 take-offs in 2023, the Californian company exceeds its own record set last year… and almost four months ahead! To meet the needs of its customers and its promising Starlink constellation, SpaceX should even pick up the pace. Elon Musk announces up to 12 shootings per month.
And according to several reports, SpaceX could even become profitable.
Burst Falcon
When SpaceX sent 60 orbital missions in 2022, the record was already high. Because the resources necessary to deploy, on three sets of launches, enough personnel and equipment to ensure more than one orbital takeoff each week, are not given to all operators. However, as launches and reuses progress, processes are optimized at SpaceX, and times are reduced between different Falcon 9 take-offs. The company does not skimp on resources when they can enable it to save time.
And clearly, the pace has picked up even more this year, as this morning on September 4, SpaceX now boasts 62 orbital liftoffs in 2023. 59 Falcon 9, 3 Falcon Heavy, and let’s not forget the (non-orbital) attempted Starship flight last April. The bar of 80 to 90 shots will undoubtedly be crossed by the end of the year celebrations!
Records, but not just for Starlink!
SpaceX has therefore not lowered its rates, even though the “first phase” of deployment of the Starlink satellites ended at the end of the spring. Faced with an expansion of the activity of its super constellation and its thousands of satellites, the Californian firm is now deploying larger, heavier and more powerful units, equipped with inter-satellite links to better distribute the needs on the ground stations. which act as relays.
These satellites, renamed “V2 minis” are a version adapted to the Falcon 9 rocket, because initially it was planned to send clusters with Starship orbital flights, but the super heavy launcher is not yet ready. Be careful, however, not to believe that SpaceX only sends Starlink satellites with its rockets, because this is not the case. Cargo Dragons, Crew Dragon capsules, defense satellites, the needs of American state administrations are present, as are commercial satellites to low or geostationary orbits. We even find in the lists of European units such as the Euclid telescope, for lack of other solutions for the moment.
And it should go up!
And, for those who believed that with 80 or 90 firings per year, SpaceX had reached cruising speed, Elon Musk came to add his two cents. Indeed, the latter declared on X.com (ex-twitter) that he hoped that by the end of the year, the teams would be able to send up to 10 orbital take-offs into orbit, and that next year , it would climb further, eventually reaching 12 shots per month. This would represent a trifle of 144 take-offs a year, or one per week on each of the 3 available launch sites. Will there be slots left for other suppliers?
Source : SPACEFLIGHT NOW
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