SpaceX Setting a Pace to Achieve Its Founder’s Goal of Making Launches a Daily or Even Hourly Event

In 2012, SpaceX successfully achieved 21 launches. In 2019, the number was 27. In the past year, the number had grown to 61. Considering that globally, the total number of rockets reaching orbit was 180, SpaceX’s growing predominance is noteworthy and acting to stimulate competitors. In 2023 the company has set a 100-launch goal and has already kickstarted the year in the first week with two. It is an impressive show by the company which from its outset set a goal of making rocket flight a daily if not hourly thing much like airplanes fly today.

SpaceX’s private U.S. competitors are the United Launch Alliance (ULA), and Blue Origin. The latter has yet to achieve orbital flight. While Rocket Lab, born in New Zealand, but operating in that country and the U.S. has successfully put satellites into orbit. The European Space Agency (ESA) through Arianespace provides launch-to-orbit services. Russia’s Roscosmos, China’s CNSA, India’s ISRO, South Korea, Japan and now Israel are also in the satellite launch business. But none of these competitors have built the capacity to achieve the volume of business SpaceX has done and intends to do.

SpaceX made reusability one of its primary goals in developing its technology from the get-go. It also made a commitment to achieve rapid turnaround and re-flight of its reusable rockets. In April 2022, a Falcon 9 first stage was reflown 21 days after a previous flight.

When you consider that 4-1/2 days between flights involved towing the first stage to port, it means the refurbishment and testing only took 16-1/2 days. When the SpaceX team was asked about the refurbishing process, they stated that the total amount of time amounted to 9 days. Although that is a far cry from the company’s goal to achieve daily re-flights, it is a dramatic improvement over the only other reusable orbital space vehicle to ever fly, NASA’s Space Shuttle, which took almost a year to refit between flights.

The next-generation launch vehicle in SpaceX’s arsenal is the Starship. In-atmosphere test launches have been completed using Starship prototypes. The next planned launch is to low-Earth orbit. The goal is to make this happen in 2023.

Starship is a fully reusable two-stage rocket consisting of a Super Heavy first stage for orbital and Deep Space missions, and the Starship itself which is capable of delivering up to 100 tons of cargo including passengers to orbit, but if used for suborbital transportation, even greater tonnage. Compared to Falcon 9 reusability, which has been limited to the first stage and space fairings, Starship represents a giant leap forward.

Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder has always projected optimism in setting target dates for his company. In 2020, he tweeted that the goal was to build a fleet of Starships within a decade. He noted that the SpaceX Texas factory being built would produce a completed Starship every 72 hours.

How big a fleet did he envision and what would it do? Musk stated that his Starships would make suborbital and orbital flights up to three times daily, and 1,000 times per year. The plan was to have 1,000 Starships in ten years for point-to-point suborbital transportation of cargo and passengers, for low-Earth orbital flights, and for missions to the Moon, and Mars. The fleet would deliver a million tons of cargo to orbit each year with the goal to build a permanent human presence in near-Earth space, on the Moon and Mars.

For this dream to happen it has to start with a successful Starship orbital mission in 2023. The company is hell-bent to make this a reality.