SpaceX plans rapid increase in West Coast launch cadence

SpaceX plans to launch about 50 rockets from Vandenberg Space Force Base in 2024 with a chance of 100 launches in the year 2025. This comes to a spaceport that has historically seem launches in the single digits. Now, it could soon see a launch for SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket in the next few years.

50 launches in 2024, 100 in 2025

This year SpaceX pushed to attempt 100 launches in a single year. Thanks to the need to deploy as many Starlink satellites as possible, the company is getting extremely close to that goal as we close out the year.

That push has seen increases in launches from both coasts with SLC-40 in Florida seeing the bulk of launches in 2023. But that doesn’t mean SLC-4E over in California is launching as much as previous years.

In 2022, SLC-4E launched 13 times. So far this year, the same launch pad has seen 27 so far, with the possibility of hitting 30 by New Years. All thanks to SpaceX’s need to deploy Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit.

Nate Janzen, SpaceX’s manager for launches at Vandenberg said, “next year, we’ll be launching about once a week, but the plan, in about two years, is about every three to four days,” at an event for the county’s business development organization.

This echos a similar ramp up seen at the Space Coast with regular weekly launches before a large boost to launch every three to four days. Next year SpaceX hopes to launch every two days, across all of its launch pads. This would get the company close to that 200 launch number.

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SpaceX moving into SLC-6 for Falcon Heavy missions

All of these launches are expected to take place from a single launch pad, SLC-4E, which SpaceX took over in 2011. SpaceX operates two launch pads on the Space Coast, SLC-40 on the Space Force side of the spaceport and LC-39A on the NASA side. However, LC-39A has turned into a pad primarily used for Falcon Heavy and Dragon missions, except for two Starlink launches this year.

It’s important to note we don’t know yet how two crew towers at both Florida sites could change this dynamic. SLC-40 being the primary pad could change to feature a more even distribution of launches like years prior. However, LC-39A is still the only East Coast pad capable of launching a Falcon Heavy rocket.

We could see a mirror of that set up over on the West Coast as the company took ownership of SLC-6 earlier this year. The former Space Shuttle and Delta IV pad is set to become a Falcon Heavy launch pad in the coming years.

“Work to ready the site should begin soon, with a goal of the first Falcon launch from SLC-6 taking place in mid-2025,” a paraphrase of Janzen’s statements by a local reporter.

SLC-4E took about two years to get ready for Falcon 9 launches, back when the company was much smaller and had access to less capital. However, launch pad construction, even when taking over a previously active pad, is usually a time consuming task.

Let’s just hope SpaceX doesn’t tear down the old Shuttle processing buildings that ULA used for assembling Delta IVs. But I guess all is fair in love, war, and rocket launches.