SpaceX Notches 100th First Stage Landing, Sets New Annual Launch Record
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. (SpaceX PR) — On December 21, 2021, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched Dragon on the 24th Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-24) mission for NASA from historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, completing our 31st and final launch of the year. Dragon separated from Falcon 9’s second stage about twelve minutes after liftoff and will autonomously dock to the space station on Wednesday, December 22.
CRS-24 also marked the 100th recovery of an orbital class rocket booster. SpaceX remains the only launch provider in the world capable of propulsive landing and re-flight of orbital class rockets. While most rockets are expended after launch — akin to throwing away an airplane after a cross-country flight — SpaceX is working toward a future in which reusable rockets are the norm. To date, SpaceX has:
- Launched 138 successful missions;
- Landed first stage rocket boosters 100 times; and
- Reflown boosters 78 times, with flight-proven first stages completing 75 percent of SpaceX’s missions since the first re-flight of a Falcon 9 in 2017.
2021 was particularly impressive, during which the SpaceX team:
- Launched 94 percent of all missions on flight-proven Falcon 9 boosters;
- Safely carried eight astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA, in addition to transporting ~28,000 pounds of critical cargo and scientific research to and from the orbiting laboratory;
- Completed the world’s first all-civilian astronaut mission to orbit, which flew farther from planet Earth than any human spaceflight since the Hubble missions;
- Launched humanity’s first planetary defense test to redirect an asteroid, among other important scientific missions; and
- Deployed more than 800 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit which are helping to connect over 150,000 customers and counting around the world with high-speed, low-latency internet.
In the year ahead, SpaceX’s launch cadence will continue to increase, as will the number of flight-proven missions, human spaceflights, Falcon Heavy missions, and people connected with internet by Starlink. We’re also targeting the first orbital flight of Starship, and have resumed development of a lunar lander for NASA that will help return humanity to the Moon, on our way to Mars and beyond.
39 responses to “SpaceX Notches 100th First Stage Landing, Sets New Annual Launch Record”
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impressive as is their point and shoot capability
having said that…its unclear the reusability has bought them much. launch cost do not reflect it
Is that cost or price? Suspect the price hasn’t changed much but cost has.
Cheers
Neil
-I bet it has not. what number of flights this year were starlink?
I bet the entire organization is kept afloat by NASA’s contract both for Dragon and other vehicles…as well asa the odd DoD launch. how many non starlink flights/ I bet less then 10
SpaceX found how weak the private demand was with Falcon 1. It is why they are bypassing the intermediaries and going straight to the consumer with Starlink.
so then I am not seeing where the commercial demand for Starship comes from
You are looking for a business model where as Elon Musk is looking at the dream of Mars. Starlink, satellite launch and even Tesla are just revenue streams to make the dream happen. The advantage of being the richest person is not having to put revenue first in everything you do.
RE: “…Musk is looking at the dream of Mars. Starlink, satellite launch and even Tesla are just revenue streams to make the dream happen.”
True, but I’d say that it’s not just a luxury of being the richest guy in the world. He started Starship long before and then even Starlink before he was the richest man in the world, while he started Tesla and SpaceX as merely another Silicon Valley rich guy.
He’s always had and pursued a greater vision and been willing to bend the industry and even the market to fit his vision. Heck, a lot more than “willing to bend”, but rather Musk has openly, directly and even gleefully pursued bending and in the case of Starlink, even creating, the market.
However, he did need that first couple of hundred million 😀
Yes, Elon Musk had to cash out of PayPal first to have the money needed for both. Similarly Jeff Bezos needed the funds from Amazon first for Blue Origin.
actually I dont think that. I think the Mars thing is to keep the adoring fan boys who view themselves as the modern “farmer in the skies” watching all the adoring Utube channels that endlessly give Musk the praise he needs…and accept nearly anything he says as “Pravada” or Gospel 🙂
however if its true that he has no business case then he is doomed to failure.
without an economic case for it, a frontier will fail. there are plenty of ghost towns in the American west which prove that. the frontier has to have an economic case. nothing else pays for it
Sounds like an ancestor of yours was one of King John II advisors. ?
we are German. without the economic link, you are at best the Vikings in the new world. the good news is that Musk will never get to even trying with people
He’s not building it to meet commercial demand.
So yeah, it’s risky for sure.
As Thomas points out, Musk has a dream of Mars.
From a purely business standpoint, however, the basic case for Starship is simply a conviction that if prices can drop below a certain point, the launch market will be price elastic (price elasticity of demand) and that the only way to drive prices down sufficiently to achieve that is through full, rapid and reliable reusability. As we all know, a belief in price inelasticity of demand had previously driven the industry. The true nature of the market’s price elasticity has yet to be tested
This is the key right there. There are those squealing that there is no market and those screaming that Elon’s efforts give us the solar system. To the true believers in both directions, anything else is delusional.
I am a bit off center in believing that the solar system will be opened. It is however, not chiseled in stone that it happens right now, or that it happens based on the efforts of one company. I think Starship will become operational. I think it likely that the price point will be intermediate between the super low and no change.
To me, if Superheavy can hit a weekly cadence, and starship monthly, with 40 tons net payload, then a very few hull numbers are required to change things considerably. At that rate, three Superheavies and a dozen Starships could place over 5,600 tons of payload in LEO annually. That would be almost $3B in direct launch charges at $250.00 a pound average. That would be game changing. Or 50 passengers per launch at half a million each would be 40 launches per billion revenue.
yeah thats what people believe but not me
the only way the market develops cheaper transportation is for an economic reason to do so. Musk is sort of angling that with the notion that he has to have the cheap space lift to deploy starlink …and I kind of believe that. but he will likely be one of the first examples in technology to make that work.
Musk is building Starship to meet his own commercial demand – Starlink. It will find other commercial uses too – from SpaceX itself if from nowhere else. Conveniently, it also makes the settlement of the Moon and Mars practical.
Yes, and Starlink will be what fills the gap until other firms develop payloads for it.
Or SpaceX does so on its own.
Deploying Starlink will be the biggest initial piece of commercial demand for Starship. But other commercial applications – including by SpaceX itself – will also appear in short order.
curious what their revenue stream is. Musk is bleeding cash
Gross margins on commercial and government Falcon missions are very fat. That money, of course, is quite insufficient to bankroll simultaneous development and roll-out of Starlink and Starship, but that’s what all the investor cash is for. The red ink isn’t going to last. All the non-Starlink launch missions currently planned for 2022 also suggests that revenues from operations will be much greater next year than they were this year. That will certainly help.
he has to hope that
I honestly dont see the economics of starship and even though a user of it dont see completely the economics of starlink …and the mars thing is completely out there
its his money and all but I think he has really driven out of the realm of solid economics…see what happens I guess
See what happens, indeed.
Looks like 14.
so just under 1/2 of them were non starlink? so thats impressive but 1) its hardly indicative of a market changed by lower pricing and 2) they must be bleeding money like a stuck hog in terms of even F9/FH operation not to mention the billions pouring out on Starship
It’s worse than that, they put the entire GEO industry on hold because of Starlink.
if they turned down GEO business or blew it off that was to me silly.
I assume times man of the year has this all in his head. but it strikes me that they might have bitten off more then they can chew and/or more then was economically feasible.
But Starship better have (and I am sure it will not) airline style cost factors otherwise he is going to bleed out pretty quickly. I bet you he has 8 billion in starship by the time it gets to something usefull…if he has a dime in it
all the muskateers are thinking that “it works” this coming year…and they better hope it does. because when it doesnt he is in trouble
The GEO operators looked at Starlink and thought their business model was broken, so they decided to run off existing systems to see what happens.
I would imagine Musk’s real business model is to attract far more investment money than his enterprises bring in by selling actual product. My estimation is it’s all about the promise of the future.
Hello Andrew. I think that this is his entire act right now…I dont quite understand how he is doing it…but its all buy in for some future they think is coming
I’ll be curious to see how it works out
the Starlink exposure that we have, in the pipeline patrol business and the boat is so far positive. in neither place could we put the antenna (or power) acerage for a geo system…the boat is averaging about 100 mps an hour (some more some less)and the planes about 40 mps but they have sub standard antennas and fly in odd attitudes on the pipeline.
when we get it we will put a “dishy” as all the Musketeers call it at the vacation home in matagorda. two reasons first it will likely improve the rental capability (the net there is very slow now) and second I want to try and understand what the actual numbers are for the thing…in case we buy a place in Washington where there is no fiber.
the boat and pipeline patrol planes have worked out exactly as we hoped…but there were really no alternatives at any comparable speed
I have two friends in my working group at work who are remote working. in terms of starlink. one is remote working from his RV as he and his wife tour canada. as long as he/she is not on video it seems to work fine. Video is less though. it works but not as much as I would have thought it would
on the other hand the person who is remote working from their vacation house in Alaska has some service from Hughes which he claims will handle about 800 mps constantly. (we get here on fiber a constant 900-1200 mps.) of course divided up into all the users. but he has the acerage and power for the 14 foot dish..he is only paying about 140 a month.
as I said we will see how it works out. If it works Musk will make a lot of money. thats a big if
The launching of new businesses almost invariably involves operating at a loss for awhile. Starlink is the future cash cow being invested in. Starship is a means of getting Starlink built out far more quickly and cheaply than could be done with the Falcons and which is also useful for a vast number of other things. Investment is always about the future.
Turning down business is not, I think, what Andrew T. was referring to when he wrote “put the entire GEO industry on hold because of Starlink.” SpaceX, in any avent, has not done that. Its 30th launch of 2021 was a GEO comsat for your old stomping grounds, Turkey. What Andrew meant, I think, is that – except for all the C-band clearing stuff, the GEO industry is looking to see just how Starlink works out before investing heavily in assets that may be dead on arrival in terms of economics.
yes as soon as I read Andrews comments I knew I had interpreted that wrong. I’ve been pushing to get some work stuff out and well didnt analyze his comments all that well. my error
the other answer could just be that the GEO constellations are pretty full right now. I will be curious to see what affect the LEO constellations including Starlink have on hte GEO business. I know that the DoD is experimenting with Starlink. I have no idea what so far they are experiencing. its clear they are by looking at some platforms which have DoD Starlink installations…plus well they are using a ground station at my 300 foot tower that they rent serious space on for Starlink “stuff”.
the prime advantage for STarlink is low antenna and power acre age. latency is an issue but I just got off a telecon with two of the participants being a person who is using Starlink and one who is using a Geo sat internet link. the latter was much better. see how it works out (my experience is hardly definitive)
GEO satellite-based telecom is a mature business in many parts of the world. What growth there is seems to be coming from the less-developed areas. There will continue to be defensible niches for GEO telecom, but Internet provision is not going to be one of them.
I’ll be interested in how much internet business there is. Musk sees something there I dont…but he has more money then I do so that might be normal 🙂
If Starlink works they are going to have to redo their business model. Also the value of the orbital slots they own will decline.
Oh, I totally agree. I was not saying they were wrong that Musk disrupted their industry.
For next year SpaceX currently has 41 non-Starlink launches scheduled. This may be evidence that the market is finally now catching up to the lower prices. For example, 5 are Falcon Heavy launches, a vehicle with ground-breaking prices for its capabilities but which so far has been notably underused. Of course the launch market is somewhat cyclical, too. Regardless, 40+ launches is a very full manifest indeed.
The big question for next year, assuming there are no accidents/incidents to slow down operations, will be how to shoehorn in their own Starlink launches into their busy manifest.
I agree that the NASA commercial resupply and crew services contracts have been lifesavers to get them to this point
I will take your word for it. I only saw 23 non starlink launches on the schedule I was looking at…and a chunk of those were USA government launches…but I am certainly not the latest word on this
Oops – looks like one of them is a Starlink, so 41. I’ll edit my above post
6 of these launches are for USAF/USSF, one is for SDA, and 6 or 7 are for NASA (2 of these are partial NASA, one being an international collaboration mission and the other a flight co-manifested with a commercial payload). So, looks like about 14 government flights at this point (not sure how to apportion the NASA flight co-manifested with an Intelsat flight to GTO)