SpaceX surpasses 100 rocket launches in 2024

On the morning of Tuesday, October 15, SpaceX carried out its 100th rocket launch of 2024. The Falcon 9 mission with 23 Starlink satellites on board turned out to be the anniversary – the rocket launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Center in Florida at 2:10 local time (9:10 Moscow time). About eight minutes after launch, Falcon 9’s first booster stage returned safely to Earth, landing on the A Shortfall of Gravitas platform off the coast of Florida.

Image source: x.com/SpaceX

A little more than two hours later, the company secured its own record with another rocket launch from the opposite coast of the United States. From the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 4:21 local time (11:21 Moscow time) on the same day, Falcon 9 launched, which launched another 20 Starlink vehicles into orbit – the first stage also returned safely to Earth.

The past few weeks have been busy for SpaceX. During the launch of the Crew-9 manned mission to the ISS, a problem arose with the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, after which the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) suspended the rocket’s flights and allowed them to resume only on October 11. But before this period expired, the company, as an exception, was allowed to send the European Hera probe into space to study the binary system of asteroids Didymos and Dimorpha. On October 13, SpaceX test-launched Starship, and on October 14, NASA’s Europa Clipper interplanetary station set off on a Falcon Heavy rocket to Jupiter’s moon Europa.

In recent months, Falcon 9 has suffered two more incidents. On July 11, a liquid oxygen leak occurred on the rocket’s upper stage, causing 20 Starlink satellites to be deployed at too low an altitude, resulting in their loss. And on August 28, the first stage of the Falcon 9 capsized during landing while returning to Earth. However, the company has already broken its own record from last year – in 2023 it managed to make 96 launches. SpaceX is the world’s most active space launch organization, with China second with 47 launches. 96 of the 101 launches so far have been taken by Falcon 9, two-thirds of which have been Starlink missions. The company also conducted two Falcon Heavy launches and three Starship test flights this year.