Elon Musk’s SpaceX has broken its previous annual record for the number of orbital rocket launches, with 96 successful missions in 2023, with an incredible average launch frequency of every four days.
This year, SpaceX has made 91 launches using the Falcon 9 rocket and five more using the Falcon Heavy, surpassing its previous annual record of 61 orbital launches in 2022. For comparison, this year SpaceX has launched Falcon 9 more times than in the entire first decade after the rocket began flying.
In addition, this year, SpaceX landed its 250th orbital booster and launched and landed the same rocket 19 times, continuing to push the boundaries of reusable rockets. Of course, then there was an unfortunate incident when the same rocket that made the 19th takeoff and landing crashed due to natural causes.
In addition, in the last week of 2023, SpaceX set a new company record for the shortest time between orbital launches – just under three hours, which is the shortest time between launches from the Florida spaceport since NASA’s Gemini 11 mission in 1966. This was reported by CNBC.
Moreover, the number of SpaceX launches per year does not include a couple of Starship test flights that did not have a commercial payload in orbit.
John Edwards, SpaceX’s vice president of Falcon launch vehicles, wrote on social media that only a few years ago Musk proposed “a goal of 100 launches as a thought experiment.”
“And here we are. I am incredibly proud to work with the best team on earth and look forward to what we will accomplish next year.“, Edwards writes.
Congrats to the entire Falcon team at @SpaceX on a record breaking 96 launches in 2023! I remember when @elonmusk first threw out a goal of 100 launches as a thought experiment, intended to unlock our thinking as to how we might accelerate Falcon across all levels of production… https://t.co/hEwQD8t7in
— Jon Edwards (@edwards345) December 29, 2023
SpaceX officials said the company intends to launch 144 Falcon missions in 2024 as it continues to deploy satellites for the Starlink system, which provides most of its $180 billion valuation.
