SpaceX is planning to launch 144 orbital flights in 2024, much more than the record 96 flights in 2023.
SpaceX rocket launches on its second flight. Photo: SpaceX
Elon Musk's company launched 96 orbital missions in 2023, a huge leap from the record of 61 flights set a year earlier. SpaceX is planning to surpass the 100 mark in 2024. Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX's vice president of construction and flight reliability, said they would increase the rate to about 12 flights per month, or 144 per year. That would equate to a launch every 2.8 days, a pace that seemed impossible just a few years ago. But SpaceX has done many things that seemed impossible in the history of spaceflight, so it's entirely possible that the company could achieve such an ambitious goal.
About two-thirds of SpaceX’s 2023 launches will be for Starlink, the company’s internet satellite mega-constellation. Starlink currently has about 5,230 active spacecraft, according to astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell. But SpaceX has been granted permission to deploy a total of 12,000 Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), and the company has applied to launch an additional 30,000. So Starlink constellations will continue to launch from two locations, Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, in 2024.
In addition to satellites, SpaceX also has three crewed missions to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2023, including two for NASA and one for Axiom Space, a Houston-based company that is aiming to build its own space station in LEO in the next few years.
SpaceX will launch five crewed missions this year, if all goes according to plan. NASA’s Crew-8 and Crew-9 flights are scheduled to launch in February and August 2024, respectively. Axiom’s Ax-3 mission will launch on January 17, and Ax-4 will fly as early as October 2024. In April, SpaceX plans to launch Polaris Dawn, a free-flight mission to LEO that will include the first private astronaut spacewalk.
91 of SpaceX’s 96 orbital flights last year were carried out on the Falcon 9, with the rest flying on the company’s powerful Falcon Heavy rocket. But 2023 also marks two test flights of a rocket that promises to revolutionize spaceflight and exploration . It’s called Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built.
Both the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy feature reusable first stages, a major breakthrough in spaceflight technology. But the Starship vehicle, which stands about 400 feet tall in its full configuration, is designed to be fully reusable. Musk wants Starship’s massive Super Heavy booster to land directly on the launch pad after liftoff, allowing for quick inspection, refurbishment, and re-flight. Two Starship test flights took off from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in South Texas in April and November of last year. The missions aimed to launch the vehicle’s upper stage as far as possible, landing it in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.
The April flight didn’t last long. Starship encountered some serious problems, including a problem with the separation of its two stages. SpaceX was forced to destroy the vehicle just four minutes after liftoff. Starship went further on its second flight. All 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy performed as expected, and the booster successfully separated from the upper stage. But the mission ended prematurely, with the upper stage exploding about eight minutes after liftoff.
SpaceX’s third flight, however, is coming soon. Last week, SpaceX test-fired the engines of its latest Starship prototype, which is scheduled to launch after receiving a license from the Federal Aviation Administration. SpaceX is also preparing other Starship vehicles in line with the company’s development philosophy of frequent test flights and rapid improvements.
Timing is critical for the development of Starship. NASA has chosen the massive vehicle as the first manned lander for its Artemis program. Starship is scheduled to carry astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time as part of the Artemis 3 mission, which is currently scheduled to launch in late 2025 or 2026.
An Khang (According to Space )
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