WASHINGTON — The world set one other file for orbital launches in 2024 in a unbroken surge of launch exercise pushed nearly fully by SpaceX.
There had been 259 orbital launch makes an attempt in 2024, a 17% improve from the earlier file of 221 orbital launch makes an attempt in 2023, based mostly on SpaceNews evaluation of open supply information. That determine doesn’t embrace suborbital launches, similar to 4 SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy check flights or two launches of the HASTE suborbital variant of Rocket Lab’s Electron.
That improve in general launches matches the rise by SpaceX alone, which carried out 134 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches in 2024, up from 96 in 2023. The firm carried out extra orbital launches than the remainder of the world mixed.
SpaceX accounted for 88 of 93 launches from the Eastern Range in Florida, which incorporates Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center, and 46 of 47 launches from the Western Range at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Other U.S. entities carried out simply 20 orbital launches in 2024, counting 13 Electron launches from New Zealand’s Launch Complex 1 by U.S.-headquartered Rocket Lab.
China carried out 68 launches in 2024, breaking a file of 67 launches set in 2023. Russia carried out 17 launches, adopted by Japan (7), India (5), Iran (4), Europe (3) and North Korea (1).
The 259 orbital launches included six failures. Kairos, a small launch car from Japanese enterprise Space One, failed in its first two launches in March and December. Two Chinese business launch automobiles, a Hyperbola-1 and Lijian-1, suffered failures in July and December, respectively, as did the only real North Korean launch. A Falcon 9 launch of Starlink satellites in July reached orbit, however the higher stage malfunctioned throughout a relight of the engine to circularize the orbit, ensuing within the satellites deployed in orbits too low to outlive.
While SpaceX sharply elevated its launch cadence in 2024, the corporate nonetheless fell wanting its inside purpose. The firm entered the yr searching for to launch 148 Falcon rockets, together with 4 launches the corporate carried over from 2023, when it simply missed a purpose of 100 launches. In December, Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief working officer of SpaceX, mentioned the corporate had a brand new purpose of 136 launches for 2024.
Shotwell mentioned at a Dec. 17 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) occasion that the corporate was planning 175 to 180 Falcon launches in 2025, pushing to extend launch charges to combat complacency. “We simply hold pushing the boundaries,” she mentioned. “That’s the way you keep in combating weight.”
SpaceX can even be ramping up Starship launches, together with the primary really orbital missions, in 2025. That car, SpaceX hopes, will finally have a a lot increased launch fee than even Falcon.
“Elon [Musk] is like, ‘I wish to launch 1,000 occasions a yr,’” Shotwell mentioned on the CSIS occasion. “We’ve obtained to determine that out, however that might be Starship, not Falcon.”
