Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

SpaceX smashes its own record for rocket launches in a year

Trevor Mogg
By

When it comes to SpaceX rocket launches, this year has been the busiest by a long way.

In 2020, for example, the commercial spaceflight company led by Elon Musk achieved a total of 26 launches, while last year it sent 31 rockets skyward, with all of the missions involving its dependable Falcon 9 rocket.

Recommended Videos

This year, however, SpaceX has achieved a whopping 61 missions — the final one of 2022 blasted off early Friday ET — all using the Falcon 9 except for a November launch that used its more powerful triple-booster Falcon Heavy rocket to deploy two U.S. Space Force satellites.

Related

California-based SpaceX has clearly come a long way since its first cargo flight to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2012, a year in which it performed a mere two launches.

Besides deploying numerous satellites in low-Earth orbit for a range of customers, it also began operating regular crewed flights to and from the ISS in 2020, enabling NASA to launch its astronauts to space from U.S. soil for the first time since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.

Part of the reason SpaceX has been able to increase its launch frequency is due to the Falcon 9’s design, which enables the landing of the first stage so that it can be easily deployed for multiple missions. This allows SpaceX to focus on refurbishing a small fleet of rockets rather than having to build numerous single-use boosters at great cost.

To date, SpaceX has achieved 198 rocket launches, 159 booster landings, and 133 reflights.

With more customers looking to send small satellites into orbit, and SpaceX also using its spaceflight hardware to deploy large numbers of its Starlink internet satellites, 2023 looks set to be an even busier year for SpaceX.

Looking further ahead, SpaceX is also preparing for the first flight of its next-generation Super Heavy rocket and Starship spacecraft. A version of Starship is set to land the first woman and first person of color on the lunar surface in just a few years from now in NASA’s Artemis III mission, and could even carry the first astronauts to Mars.

Starship is also set to carry passengers on the first all-civilian mission to the moon after Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa bought nine seats for the dearMoon mission that will involve a flyby of the lunar surface before returning home. The voyage is set for 2023, but delays in testing the Super Heavy rocket and Starship mean that SpaceX is likely to miss that date.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
SpaceX shares awesome rocket imagery from Starship flight
A view of Earth captured from SpaceX's Starship spacecraft.

SpaceX’s third Starship test flight last Thursday was its best yet, far exceeding the first two missions, which took place last year and ended in huge fireballs just a few minutes in.

This time, the Starship -- comprising the first-stage Super Heavy booster and upper-stage Starship spacecraft -- kept on flying, with both parts reaching their destination points before breaking up on descent.

Read more
Watch SpaceX’s Starship burn brightly as it hurtles toward Earth
SpaceX's Starship reentering Earth's atmosphere.

SpaceX surprised a lot of people on Thursday morning when its mighty Starship rocket managed not to blow up seconds after liftoff.

The Starship -- comprising the first-stage Super Heavy booster and upper-stage Starship spacecraft -- enjoyed its most successful test flight yet following two short-lived missions in April and November last year.

Read more
SpaceX’s Starship reaches orbit on third test flight
spacex starship third test flight screenshot 2024 03 14 143605

SpaceX's mighty Starship rocket has made it into space on its third test flight. The rocket, launched at 9:25 a.m. ET today, March 14, took to the skies over the Starbase launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas, and made it to orbit but was lost before the planned splashdown in the India Ocean.

The vehicle consists of the lower section, the Super Heavy booster, and the upper section, the Starship or ship. The two were stacked together ahead of today's flight and achieved separation a few minutes after launch. This tricky maneuver involves cutting off most of the booster's 33 Raptor engines and disengaging clamps connecting the booster to the ship. The ship then fires its own engines to head onward into orbit.

Read more