SpaceX surpasses its own record for the number of rockets launched in a year

On Tuesday, October 15, SpaceX launched its 100th rocket this year, and two hours later SpaceX sent its 101st into the sky, both in their medium-lift launch vehicle known as Falcon 9. This surpassed its own record of 98 launches in 2023 and is a One good example of how the company is redefining cheap access to space, thanks in part to its reusable rockets.

And these record-breaking rockets weren’t SpaceX’s only recent big achievements. On October 14, their heavy launch vehicle, the Falcon Heavy, sent the Europa Clipper orbiter, the largest interplanetary probe ever built, bound for Jupiter and its icy moon.

And the day before, the world’s largest and most powerful launch vehicle, SpaceX’s Starship with its Super Heavy rocket booster, performed its third successful test flight of five, performing an astonishing feat. Not only did the booster rocket return, but it was also captured in mid-air with a giant chopstick-like thing called a Mechazilla.

On October 9, a Falcon 9 launched the European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft, which is on its way to check the damage done to an asteroid that was hit and destroyed by NASA’s Dart mission. The mission was an attempt to deflect the asteroid in September 2022, which was also launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9.

That makes five milestone flights in less than a week by a private company, something NASA and its other private competitors are unable to do.

SpaceX continues to demonstrate that access to space does not have to follow the expensive, wasteful resources of the past. The secret to that success is that it uses its own reusable rockets.

Throughout the history of the space program, all the way back to Sputnik, the very first satellite in 1957, spacecraft have been sent into the sky on disposable rockets that were used once and then thrown away.

If you could look through the ocean at Cape Canaveral, Florida, you would see the seabed littered with rocket debris.

The exception was the Space Shuttle program, but those spaceships ended up being very expensive to fly, costing about $2 billion per launch, according to NASA. and two of them were destroyed in flight, killing a total of 14 astronauts. A Falcon 9 launch costs about $85 million.

All other space launches by every spacefaring nation have used disposable rockets. That’s not the most efficient way to control rockets.

Imagine what the cost of an airline ticket would be if you boarded an international flight and the plane was thrown away after landing, and then a new one was built to take you home.

NASA has a political incentive to continue providing jobs to many different states in the US, which are building components for their super-heavy launch vehicle, the Space Launch System (SLS). These outsourced parts are then assembled in Cape Canaveral.

So far, the SLS has flown once when it launched in November 2022 on a 25-day unmanned flight to the moon, and won’t fly again until 2025, when it will take Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hanson past the moon and back .

Each SLS flight costs about $5.6 billion, according to NASA, and these giant rockets are used only once, meaning the multi-billion-dollar boosters have a lifespan of about eight minutes. That is the time it takes to reach Earth’s orbit.

SpaceX has mastered the art of recycling their rocket boosters that do the heavy lifting of knocking the launch systems out of the Earth’s atmosphere. The Falcon 9 rocket boosters send themselves back from space to locate landings on an offshore platform or land-based landing pad. Of the 379 launches, 310 used recycled rocket boosters, one of which flew 22 times.

The Falcon Heavy rocket was not recovered after the Europa Clipper launch because the spacecraft was so large and traveled so far that all the fuel was needed to send it to Jupiter. But the rocket can be reused with smaller payloads.

Capturing the superheavy booster mid-air with the chopsticks on Oct. 14 was a historic first, but the ultimate plan is to turn the rocket around and return it to the launch pad so it can take off again within 30 minutes. minutes after refueling.

SpaceX has become the rocket company of choice for NASA, other countries and even the military.

The aerospace company has been conducting crewed flights to the International Space Station (ISS) since 2020 in their Dragon spacecraft atop their Falcon 9 rocket. On September 30, they launched one that docked with the ISS to rescue Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore who had been stranded for months on the International Space Station due to the failed Boeing Starliner that lifted them up.

SpaceX’s Starship is also NASA’s vehicle of choice to land astronauts on the moon with the ambition to travel to Mars.

If plans to build a colony on the moon come to fruition, regular flights from Earth will be needed to provide people with equipment, supplies and rides, which will require a low-cost option.

China and India are following the SpaceX model for developing reusable rockets. Should other spacefaring nations follow SpaceX’s example, our dreams of space exploration will have a better chance of becoming a reality.