Surprise, surprise: SpaceX plans to break more spaceflight records this year.
Elon Musk’s company launches 96 orbital missions in 2023; this was a big jump from the previous peak of 61 set a year ago. And SpaceX is planning another major breakthrough in 2024 that will take it well over the century mark.
“When we look at next year, we want to increase this figure.” [our] The flight rate has dropped to about 12 flights per month, or 144 flights, Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX’s vice president of construction and flight reliability, told a U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Space and Science hearing on Oct. 18.
This means one launch every 2.8 days; This is a pace that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. But SpaceX has a history of reshaping our ideas about what’s possible in spaceflight, so ambitious goals look eminently achievable.
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Starlink will lead the way
Nearly two-thirds of SpaceX’s launches in 2023 were devoted to building Starlink, the company’s satellite-internet megasatellite. This trend will likely continue into 2024, as the network is not yet complete.
Starlink currently consists of approximately 5,230 operational spacecraft, according to astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell. However, SpaceX has permission to place a total of 12,000 Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), and the company has applied for approval of an additional 30,000 satellites.
So Starlink parties should continue flying from both coasts (California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base and Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center) through 2024.
We’ll also see a few more SpaceX astronauts launch this year.
The company has launched three crewed missions to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2023; two for NASA and one for Axiom Space, a Houston-based company that aims to establish and operate its own outpost at LEO within a few years.
If all goes as planned, SpaceX will send five astronaut missions into the sky this year. Crew-8 and Crew-9 flights for NASA are scheduled to begin in February and August, respectively. Axiom’s Ax-3 mission will launch on January 17, with Ax-4 targeted no earlier than October. And in April, SpaceX plans to launch Polaris Dawn, a free-flight mission to LEO that will include the first spacewalk by a private astronaut.
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Starship preparing to depart
91 of SpaceX’s 96 orbital missions last year were flown on its powerful Falcon 9 rocket, with the company’s powerful Falcon Heavy accounting for the other five.
But 2023 also featured two test flights of the launcher that SpaceX thinks will revolutionize spaceflight and exploration: Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built.
Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy both feature reusable first stages, a serious breakthrough in spaceflight technology. But Starship, which is approximately 122 meters high when fully stacked, is designed to be completely reusable. Indeed, Musk wants Starship’s massive Super Heavy booster to land directly on the launch bay after liftoff to allow for rapid inspection, refurbishment and reflight.
Starship’s two test flights took place from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in South Texas in April and November of last year, respectively. Both missions aimed to send the upper portion of the vehicle across much of the Earth; The splash was aimed at a part of the Pacific near Hawaii.
The April flight did not last long. Starship suffered several serious problems, including two of its stages failing to separate, and SpaceX deliberately destroyed the vehicle, which rolled over just four minutes after liftoff.
Starship made progress on its second flight; All 33 of the Super Heavy’s Raptor engines fired as planned and the booster successfully separated from the upper stage. However, this mission also ended prematurely, resulting in the destruction of the upper stage approximately eight minutes into the flight.
We shouldn’t have to wait long for flight number three. Just last week, SpaceX tested the engines of its latest Starship prototype, which it plans to launch as soon as it receives a license from the US Federal Aviation Administration. (The FAA is currently leading an investigation into what happened on the November Starship flight.)
SpaceX is also working to prepare other Starship vehicles in line with the company’s development philosophy that prioritizes frequent test flights and rapid iteration.
“I think maybe by the end of the year they can complete it in a functional way. Not in terms of rhythm, just by demonstrating reusability,” said Justus Parmar, CEO of venture capital and consulting firm Fortuna Investments. He spoke about the space industry about SpaceX’s Starship efforts. “So this is going to be huge.”
Time is of the essence for Starship’s development. NASA has selected the giant vehicle as the first manned lander for the Artemis program, which aims to establish a permanent, sustainable human presence on and around the moon by the late 2020s. The plan calls for Starship to carry astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time on the Artemis 3 mission, which is currently scheduled to lift off in late 2025 or 2026.
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Private spaceflight accelerates
The last two years have been difficult for investors in most areas, and space was no exception.
“Growth has been crushed,” Parmar told Space.com. “Everything is down 70 to 90 percent.”
But he sees a comeback coming. Parmar predicts that money will start flowing into the space ecosystem in earnest again this year, potentially leading to a “banner year” in 2025.
“Technology is the furthest it’s ever been, and yet we have the lowest valuations ever in any given capacity. So I think the build-out with new capital is really promising,” he said.
Low prices and rapidly advancing technology are not the only factors that will move the needle. The continued success of SpaceX, which dominates the private spaceflight industry, shows investors that there’s money to be made at the final frontier. According to Parmar, this is a critical situation.
“In any growing or developing industry, you always need a pioneer; you need a success story,” he said. “If there is no winner in the industry, no one will support it” [it]”
Parmar stated that Google was in a leading position in the early 2000s, when investors needed a success story after the internet bubble burst. Google has reshaped the entire internet economy, and SpaceX may eventually do something similar.
This doesn’t mean SpaceX will be the only spaceflight company to hit it big in 2024. Parmar thinks Blue Origin, founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos in 2000, is poised for a breakout year.
Blue Origin has a new CEO: Dave Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services. Additionally, Bezos recently announced that he will be moving from Seattle to Miami. He broke the news in an Instagram post that also noted that “Blue Origin’s operations are increasingly shifting to Cape Canaveral.” The Space Coast is just a few hundred miles from Bezos’ new home in South Florida
Parmar said these signs show that Bezos is prioritizing Blue Origin more than he has in the past and is more actively involved in the company’s operations. (Like SpaceX, Blue Origin has bold goals; Bezos has said he wants to help humanity expand its footprint into the solar system.)
“I think everything they do will accelerate,” Parmar said. “He’s doing his best on this.”