SpaceX Might Miss Its Goal Of 100 Rocket Launches In 2023

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In less than a day after launching NASA's Crew 7 mission to the International Space Station (ISS), SpaceX flew its Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The launch was SpaceX's 59th for 2023 and its 258th overall mission, indicating that it is unlikely that the firm will meet its self-set target of launching 100 rockets this year. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket was already vertical on the pad yesterday at the time of the Crew 7 launch, and if the company is to launch 100 missions this year, then it will have to launch one more mission this year and at least ten missions per month for the remainder of 2023.

Even though SpaceX might not launch 100 missions this year, the firm has grown its launch cadence this year compared to the last. In 2022, the company had launched 61 missions, and with potentially two more launches left before August closes, it appears that SpaceX will have met its 2022 cadence by the end of this month.

A large portion of SpaceX's launch manifest is made of Starlink launches, and recent trends indicate that the firm will have to step up the pace of these launches, too. This is because the number of satellites that SpaceX launches with each mission has rapidly dropped since the firm finished building out the first generation portion of its constellation. The satellites part of the second generation constellation are significantly bigger than their predecessors and naturally take more space inside the Falcon 9 rocket.

SpaceX's plans for its second-generation constellation have penned in using Starship for the launches, and so far, there are