Next Year, SpaceX Aims To Average One Launch Every 2.5 Days (arstechnica.com) 27
Stephen Clark reports via Ars Technica: Earlier this week, SpaceX launched for the 75th time this year, continuing a flight cadence that should see the company come close to 100 missions by the end of December. SpaceX plans to kick its launch rate into a higher gear in 2024. This will be largely driven by launches of upgraded Starlink satellites with the ability to connect directly with consumer cell phones, a service SpaceX calls "Starlink Direct to Cell," a company official told Ars this week. The goal next year is 12 launches per month, for a total of 144 Falcon rocket flights. Like this year, most of those missions will be primarily devoted to launching Starlink broadband satellites. So far in 2023, more than 60 percent of SpaceX's launches have delivered the company's own Starlink satellites into orbit.
Here are some numbers. Last year, SpaceX launched 61 missions. In 2021, the number was 31. In the last 12 months, SpaceX has launched 88 Falcon rockets, plus one test flight of the company's much larger Starship rocket. SpaceX's success in recovering and reusing Falcon 9 boosters and payload fairings has been vital to making this possible. SpaceX has gone past the original goal of launching each Falcon 9 booster 10 times before a major overhaul, first to 15 flights, and then recently certifying boosters for up to 20 missions. Technicians can swap out parts like engines, fins, landing legs, and valves that malfunction in flight or show signs of wear. With so many launches planned next year, 20 flights is probably not a stopping point. "We might go a little higher," the SpaceX official said. SpaceX may also see an uptick in missions for external customers, like NASA, the U.S. Space Force, and commercial companies. "External demand for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches is 'steady,' the official said, but some customers that had launches scheduled for this year encountered delays with their satellites, moving them into 2024."
Here are some numbers. Last year, SpaceX launched 61 missions. In 2021, the number was 31. In the last 12 months, SpaceX has launched 88 Falcon rockets, plus one test flight of the company's much larger Starship rocket. SpaceX's success in recovering and reusing Falcon 9 boosters and payload fairings has been vital to making this possible. SpaceX has gone past the original goal of launching each Falcon 9 booster 10 times before a major overhaul, first to 15 flights, and then recently certifying boosters for up to 20 missions. Technicians can swap out parts like engines, fins, landing legs, and valves that malfunction in flight or show signs of wear. With so many launches planned next year, 20 flights is probably not a stopping point. "We might go a little higher," the SpaceX official said. SpaceX may also see an uptick in missions for external customers, like NASA, the U.S. Space Force, and commercial companies. "External demand for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches is 'steady,' the official said, but some customers that had launches scheduled for this year encountered delays with their satellites, moving them into 2024."
Kuiper (Score:2)
Re: Kuiper (Score:2)
Well itâ(TM)s simple really - Jeff Bezos doesnâ(TM)t want to give money to Elon Musk, or look like the space race loser he is by using the winnerâ(TM)s services.
Amazon is being sued for their dumb decision to use every other launch provider because of Bezosâ(TM) ego*.
* Iâ(TM)m fully aware that Muskâ(TM)s ego is just as big.
Acid rain? (Score:2)
I recall from the 1970s discussions of projects requiring large numbers of rocket launches. The killer problem then was that each launch was seeding huge amounts of undesired chemicals into to upper atmosphere and calculations showed significant impacts.
Did rocket propellants change enough that this isn't an issue any more?
Re: (Score:3)
Back in the early days of rocket propellants, they were chasing performance above everything else. Look up hypergolic propellant and see how bad those are. Hell, in the book Ignition, US Army rocket labs was for a time serious about using mercury and even went out of their way of building containment facility to do testing. Thankfully saner heads prevailed. Although, China still uses hypergolic in most of their older rockets. Current class of propellants are RP-1 (refine kerosene), Liquid Hydrogen, and
Re: (Score:2)
Partly yes, and partly it's not like launch companies are going to care about nasty pollution unless they're forced to by government regulations.
Solid and hypergolic fuels (which ignite spontaneously on contact.) tend to be the worst offenders - and those are becoming less common, especially for launch engines. I believe hypergolics are still moderately popular for maneuvering jets and such - engines which restart frequently for relatively short burns, where you don't want the complexity of an ignition syst
Re: Acid rain? (Score:2)
So what. (Score:4)
"...some customers that had launches scheduled for this year encountered delays with their satellites, moving them into 2024."
Yeah. And? Some customers realize they have a choice in space travel; SpaceX, or SpaceX.
A failed industry still hell-bent and butt-hurt on shorting anything and everything Musk touches, will actively want to destroy the very hand that feeds them should disaster strike due to accelerated schedules. For the clickbait profits alone.
Disaster is something that merely happens with the elevated risk of space travel, but it won't matter when it comes to Musk enterprises. Never has due to jealousy. We all know this vitriol, so expect it when the inevitable happens.
Re: So what. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Jealousy? Are you kidding? People don't like Musk for many reasons. Jealousy is not one of them.
One of the richest humans, on a planet full of Insta-narcissists.
At least warn me next time before I spit out my coffee like that. Sadly the worthless politics he fired, is showing.
Re: (Score:1)
he never invented anything
he is just spending government money
he enables fascists on twitter
he promised we would be driving self-driving cars on Mars by now, just to get money from investors
he killed my dad
Re: So what. (Score:2)
Re: So what. (Score:2)
"...some customers that had launches scheduled for this year encountered delays with their satellites, moving them into 2024."
Yeah. And? Some customers realize they have a choice in space travel; SpaceX, or SpaceX.
And get off Elon's dick, how are satellite delays triggering?
Re: So what. (Score:2)
Direct to Cell w/o mobile hardware updates? (Score:3)
Re: Direct to Cell w/o mobile hardware updates? (Score:2)
I don't know much about this, but I read that the satellites have electronically steered phased array antennas and they could compensate for their velocity and distance. And they have laser links and are getting decently close to each other.
So to the phone it doesn't look like the satellite is moving so fast and so far away. They pass off data between them to keep it going
Re: (Score:3)
I doubt it.
It has _already_ been demonstrated. The first phone-to-sat text was in 2020, with a completely unmodified 4G phone. This year there was a voice-to-sat call: https://www.zdnet.com/article/... [zdnet.com]
CO2 (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
As I recall the emissions from the entire global launch industry is still a rounding error compared to aviation, or cars, or nearly a dozen other sectors of the economy.
Not really something to even concern ourselves with until we've pretty much solved the problem. Or until demand grows by a few orders of magnitude.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: CO2 (Score:3)
Great for tourism! (Score:3)
2-3 launches per week means almost everyone who spends a week in Orlando has at least one opportunity to watch a rocket launch.
By comparison, back in the shuttle era, it was damn-near impossible even for *Floridians* who lived more than 3-4 hours away from Titusville to watch a rocket launch, because the usual outcome of a trip to Titusville was... a scrub. Then another scrub. And another... until your whole family decided it was futile & gave up.
Lots of people used to plan Florida vacations around launches back in the Shuttle era. Nearly everyone went home disappointed. Thanks to SpaceX, it's now actually *possible* to plan a trip to Florida to see a launch & have it actually *happen*.
StarShip is not longer crucial? (Score:2)
Not t