SpaceX Breaks Own Record for Falcon 9 Launches

SpaceX Breaks Own Record for Falcon 9 Launches

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 15, 2024 6:02 pm ET | Last Updated: October 15, 2024 6:51 pm ET

SpaceX has set a new record for Falcon 9 launches in a single year, with the 97th successful liftoff overnight. That breaks their record of 96 in 2023 with many weeks still to go in 2024. Add in the three suborbital Starship test flights and they’ve already reached 100 successful launches this year despite one launch failure. They also experienced a landing failure plus a second stage anomaly so the year has not been trouble free, but it is an impressive achievement.

The FAA gave the go-ahead for Falcon 9 to fully return to flight on Friday after overseeing SpaceX’s investigation of a second-stage anomaly during the launch of NASA’s Crew-9 on September 28. The FAA previously OK’d the launch of ESA’s Hera planetary defense mission on October 7, but for that flight only. Friday’s approval was for the return of regular operations.

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch of NASA’s Europa Clipper yesterday didn’t need FAA approval because it was a government mission, but SpaceX quickly followed up with a Falcon 9 double header early this morning from the East and West Coasts. Both placed groups of SpaceX Starlink broadband Internet satellites into low Earth orbit.

First was Starlink 10-10 with 23 satellites from Space Launch Complex-40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 2:10 am ET, then Starlink 9-7 with 20 satellites from SLC-4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 4:21 am ET (1:21 am Pacific).

The Starlink launch from Vandenberg set the new record of 97 successful Falcon 9 flights in one year, with more to come.

SpaceX has a remarkable record of Falcon 9 successes with just two launch failures. The first, in June 2015, was taking two tons of cargo to the International Space Station on a Cargo Dragon. The next launch wasn’t until December of that year. The second launch failure was this past July, destroying 20 Starlink satellites because of a liquid oxygen leak in the second stage. In that case it took only two weeks for SpaceX to identify and remedy the problem and return to flight.

A separate failure occured in 2016 when a Falcon 9 exploded on the ground during a pre-launch test, destroying the AMOS-6 communications satellite, but that was not a launch failure per se.

All in all, they’ve had 379 launches of Falcon 9 since the first in 2010.

SpaceX recovers almost all Falcon 9 first stages. The exceptions are when all the fuel is needed to launch the satellite(s) and none is left for a boost-back burn. The stages land either on autonomous drone ships at sea or on a landing pad back on terra firma. Most are later reflown. The booster used for Starlink 10-10 was on its 11th flight and the one for Starlink 9-7 was its 19th.

So far there have been 335 landings and 310 reflights.

Landing failures also are rare, but one occurred on August 28.  As with the launch failure, the FAA oversaw SpaceX’s investigation of what happened, but allowed flights to resume two days later while the investigation was underway.

Similarly, Falcon 9 second stage anomalies are unusual, but there have been two this year. The first was in July as noted above and on September 28 the engine did not shut down properly after delivering NASA’s Crew-9 to orbit. In that case there was no mission impact because the Crew Dragon spacecraft had already separated. The second stage safely landed in the ocean, but outside the designated coordinates.

For the third time in three months, Falcon 9 launches were suspended. That was the suspension lifted on Friday although the FAA allowed the launch of ESA’s Hera to proceed because it had a constrained launch window and Hurricane Milton was looming.

Considering the number and cadence of SpaceX launches and landings, these few failures may seem unremarkable, but three in three months is noteworthy for a company with such a long record of successes.

SpaceX competitor United Launch Alliance (ULA) boasts a 100 percent mission success record since the company was founded in 2006, but has had far fewer launches. For all four rockets in its stable over the past 18 years —  Atlas V, Delta II, Delta IV, and the new Vulcan — the most in any one year was 16. The total is “more than 155” (the ULA website doesn’t provide a specific number, but it looks like 160 in the chart below), modest in comparison to SpaceX.


SpaceX also is testing its new enormous rocket, Starship. The three Integrated Flight Tests (IFTs) this year in March, June, and two days ago, were increasingly successful, none more so than Sunday’s when they recovered the Super Heavy booster for the first time — and not on a drone ship or landing pad, but catching it in mid-air at the same launch tower it left less than seven minutes earlier.

Last Updated: Oct 15, 2024 6:51 pm ET

User Comments



SpacePolicyOnline.com has the right (but not the obligation) to monitor the comments and to remove any materials it deems inappropriate.  We do not post comments that include links to other websites since we have no control over that content nor can we verify the security of such links.

SPACEPOLICYONLINE.COM

About | Contact | Privacy