SpaceX launched its 62nd mission this year over the weekend, using its Falcon 9 rocket -- 63rd if you count the test flight of the Starship mega-rocket in April; and a total of 82 in the past 12 months.. Nearly 60 percent of these missions, have launched the company's Starlink Internet satellites into orbit.
The Elon Musk's rocket company has launched three astronaut missions to the International Space Station, along with three Falcon Heavy rockets since the start of the year.
The increasing launch cadence is made possible by SpaceX's reuse of first-stage boosters and payload fairings. In July, the company launched a Falcon 9 booster for its 16th flight as engineers extended the first stage's usable life from 15 flights to 20 missions. This life extension will, for now, only be used for Starlink launches, according to SpaceX.
SpaceX's launch teams are also reconfiguring launch pads at a faster rate. The turnaround time at SpaceX's most-used launch pad in Florida was reduced to less than four days between missions this year.
The higher launch demand means that launchpads at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and the Kennedy Space Center are routinely busy.
SpaceX's has launched 44 times from Florida. The spaceport there has now supported 46 orbital launch attempts this year, including from United Launch Alliance and Relativity Space. That puts the Florida launch base on pace to surpass the 57 launches it hosted last year.
Officials from the US Space Force's Eastern Range, have streamlined their operations to accommodate the higher launch demand. SpaceX's rockets use autonomous flight termination systems, which would self-activate to destroy the rocket in the event of an in-flight failure. This means the Space Force's range requires less infrastructure and a smaller workforce for a launch that uses a human-in-the-loop destruct system.
The Space Force also no longer closes the range at Cape Canaveral for maintenance as they used to do in the past for upgrades and refurbishment of ground systems, which ground launches to a halt.
“When the Eastern Range was supporting 15 to 20 launches a year, we had room to schedule dedicated periods for maintenance of critical infrastructure," said Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, commander of Space Launch Delta 45 and director of the Eastern Range. "During these periods, launches were paused while teams worked the upgrades. Now that the launch cadence has grown to nearly twice per week, we’ve adapted to the new way of business to best support our mission partners.”
SpaceX's launch pad in California, has hosted 18 Falcon 9 missions. The launch pad has an older design that takes longer to set up for each mission, mainly because of the design of its strongback, the truss-like structure stands next to the rocket during the final countdown.
Unlike the ones in Florida, the strongback in California does not swing away from the rocket at liftoff. This exposes the strongback to a blast of fiery exhaust as the Falcon 9 climbed off the pad, increasing the refurbishment required between launches. However, SpaceX's ground crew has been able to launch Falcon 9 missions as few as 10 days apart from California.
SpaceX will stay busy with numerous launches over the next few months. The most high-profile one is the second test flight of the giant Starship rocket from Starbase in South Texas. Two more Falcon Heavy rockets are scheduled to take off this year, beginning with the launch of NASA's Psyche asteroid probe on October 5 from Florida; and a US Space Force mission later in the year.
In November, SpaceX plans to launch a Falcon 9 rocket with a commercial lunar lander developed by Intuitive Machines, a Houston-based company that aims to land the first privately owned spacecraft on the Moon.
There are also two resupply missions to the International Space Station on tap for launch on Falcon 9 rockets later this year. One of those will use SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule, and the other will haul a Northrop Grumman Cygnus supply ship into orbit. This will be the first of at least three Northrop Grumman resupply missions to launch on SpaceX rockets following the retirement of that company's Antares launcher.
The Missile Defense Agency also plans to launch the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor mission into orbit later this year on a Falcon 9 rocket. This new sensor will have improved sensitivity to detect and track hypersonic missiles, which have lower heat signatures from their exhaust plumes than larger long-range ballistic missiles, making them more challenging to see with the military's existing missile-tracking satellites.
Musk, said the launch cadence will only ramp up over the coming months. "Aiming for 10 Falcon flights in a month by end of this year, then 12 per month next year," he wrote on X. He said next year, his company will be responsible for the launch of 90 percent of the world's total payload mass to orbit.