SpaceX aiming for consecutive record-setting years with new launch goals

SpaceX’s reflight of Falcon 9 boosters has allowed the company to become the unchallenged victor in terms of launch cadence. The company had 31 launches in 2021 and is aiming to nearly double that this year.

SpaceX had been aiming for an already impressive 52 launches in 2022. According to a tweet from CEO Elon Musk, SpaceX is now aiming to launch Falcon 9 60 times this year. While at least one of these launches could be the OneWeb mission that SpaceX just added to its schedule, the other launches joining the schedule aren’t clear.

It is quite possible that SpaceX has added several Starlink missions with V1.5 satellites to the schedule since Starship has not yet been able to take over the internal missions launching V2 satellites.

So far this year, SpaceX has had an impressive pace, having launched 11 times, but we are 12 weeks into 2022, so SpaceX will need to pick up the pace in order to hit this even more impressive figure.

When asked about 69 launches from the creator of Dogecoin, Musk replied, “Haha that’s next year.” Musk followed it up with “Maybe this year isn’t out of the question …”

While clearly a joke, if SpaceX truly can reach almost 70 launches next year, that will be a massive accomplishment. SpaceX is also benefiting from reuse in its Dragon Capsule, as it will stop producing Crew Dragon capsule, refurbishing its current fleet of capsules unless a new need arises.