space x
Is it possible that SpaceX succeeded in making orbital launches boring? Increasingly, the answer to this question is yes.
On Friday, the California-based company launched two Falcon 9 rockets in just over four hours. At 12:26 p.m. local time, a Falcon 9 rocket carried his 52 SpaceX-owned Starlink satellites into low earth orbit from the launch pad at Space Force Station Vandenberg, California. Just four hours and 12 minutes later, another Falcon 9 rocket launched two of his large communications satellites from the Kennedy Space Center into geostationary transfer orbit for the Luxembourg-based satellite company SES.
This broke SpaceX’s own record for shortest time between two launches. However, the overall record for the shortest time between her two launches of the same rocket still belongs to the Russian-made Soyuz vehicle. In June 2013, Roscosmos launched a Soyuz booster from Kazakhstan and Arianespace launched a Soyuz booster within two hours of her from French Guiana. However, these launches were made by her two separate space agencies on separate continents.
Cadence acceleration
Friday’s launch of the two SES satellites was, overall, SpaceX’s 19th orbital mission in the calendar year. The company is currently launching a Falcon rocket every 4.1 days of his and is on pace to launch about 90 rockets by the end of 2023.
To put this into perspective, ten years ago the United States launched an average of 15 to 20 orbital rockets a year in total. In 2022, the United States will make her 78 orbital flights, the most ever. This year, that number would easily reach triple digits, if not for a catastrophic accident with a Falcon 9 booster. The all-time record for orbital launches in a year is held by the Soviet Union with his 101 in 1982.
Ten years ago, SpaceX was still a startup in the global launch industry. In 2013, for the first time, he launched his Falcon 9 rocket a total of three times in one year. This was a rather monumental achievement for the company as it introduced both his second launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base and the heavily upgraded version 1.1 of the Falcon 9 rocket. It also flew its first commercial mission and began experimenting with ocean-based landings.
In a highly competitive environment ten years ago, SpaceX lagged far behind major competitors such as Roscosmos, Europe-based Arianespace, and US-based United Launch Alliance. This year, those numbers have fluctuated significantly. To date, Russia has launched her three rockets, two Soyuz and her one Proton in 2023.
no longer a competition
In other words, SpaceX’s main competitor of the past decade has launched three rockets this year. By comparison, SpaceX has just launched three rockets in three days, including his CRS-27 mission, which flew to NASA on the night of March 14. Start dominating. The country has made a total of 11 orbital launches this year.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk says he hopes one day the launch industry will operate like an airline on rockets. His company isn’t there yet, as the landing, refurbishment and reboot of the Falcon 9’s first stage will take weeks. Each mission still requires a new second stage. And the fastest turnaround time for his three launch pads, Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and Vandenberg in California, is still about a week at each facility.
But they certainly have come a long way in ten years.
