SpaceX Falls Short of Goal to Launch 100 Times in 2023
SpaceX ended the year with two more successful rocket launches on Thursday, but fell short of its goal to launch 100 times in 2023. The company’s Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful in commercial service, lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying the US military’s X-37B spaceplane. Within a few hours, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launcher took off with a payload of 23 Starlink Internet satellites.
Although the Falcon Heavy’s side boosters and Falcon 9’s first stage successfully landed back on Earth for reuse, bringing SpaceX’s total successful flights in 2023 to 98, the company fell short of its own ambitious goal of 100 launches this year.
Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, had set the goal of 100 launches, an increase from the company’s previous record of 61 launches in 2022. However, bad weather and technical problems with the final Falcon Heavy launch kept the company short of achieving the milestone.
Jon Edwards, vice president of Falcon launch vehicles at SpaceX, congratulated the team on reaching a record-breaking 96 launches for the year and expressed excitement for what they will achieve next year.
SpaceX’s Falcon rockets exceeded expectations in 2023, with nearly two-thirds of the missions dedicated to delivering satellites to orbit for the company’s Starlink broadband network, which now numbers more than 5,000 spacecraft. The Falcon rockets hauled approximately 1,200 metric tons of payload into orbit, equivalent to nearly three International Space Stations.
Despite not reaching their goal of 100 launches, the year was still one of major accomplishments for SpaceX, solidifying its position as the leader in commercial spaceflight.