SpaceX progress towards a 144 launch year in 2024

[Brigantine]

10 launches, January 2024
9 launches, February 2024
13* launches March 2024 ---- 12 x F9, SS-3 X, 12 recovered
12 launches April 2024 -------- 12 x F9*, 11 recovered, * - incl 1 expendable F9 (1060.20 Galileo-L12)
13 launches May 2024
12* launches June 2024 ------ 10 x F9, FH-10 LXL, SS-4 X, 12 recovered
6 launches July 2024 ----------- 6 x F9, 6 recovered incl 1 failed launch (1063.19 Starlink 9-3)
12 launches August 2024 ------ 12 x F9*, 11 recovered, * - incl 1 failed recovery (1062.23 Starlink 8-6)
9 launches September 2024
12* launches in October 2024 - 10 x F9*, FH-11 XXX, SS-5 L, 10 recovered,  * - incl 1 expendable F9 (1061.23 Hera)

108 Year to Date 2024 ------- 103 x F9, 2 x FH, 3 x SS, 103 recovered (100 x F9 {81S, 19L}, 2 x FH side L, 1 x SS L)

The only record for a calendar year they haven't got yet is most launches of orbital class rockets regardless of success
(108 USSR 1982)

_{[EDIT: expendable launch in April 1060.20, also 22 RTLS includes FH & SS]}

[steveleach]

October was very much a month of two halves, with just 2 Falcon launches in the first 2 weeks, then another 9 in the rest of the month. The month as a whole took them further behind target (-8 on Oct 1st, -11 on Oct 31st), but the recent trend is promising if they can sustain it. The 144 target is hopelessly out of reach now, as they would need almost 20 a month to hit that, but the signs are good that they can hit 14 in a month before the year is out.

[meekGee]

October was very much a month of two halves, with just 2 Falcon launches in the first 2 weeks, then another 9 in the rest of the month. The month as a whole took them further behind target (-8 on Oct 1st, -11 on Oct 31st), but the recent trend is promising if they can sustain it. The 144 target is hopelessly out of reach now, as they would need almost 20 a month to hit that, but the signs are good that they can hit 14 in a month before the year is out.

Yup!  10 in 20 days, counting from the 12th. (With padding)

We'll see 15 soon enough

[Brigantine]

A quick look at the Booster fleet - and how much increasing cadence is taken up by busier boosters vs more boosters. How much time does refurbishing typically take, vs waiting for a payload.

10/18 Boosters have flown since 15 Oct, 4/18 last flew before the pause, 4/18 are new to the F9 configuration.
(with B1061 recently removed from the fleet. B1085 & B1083 essentially replaced B1062 & B1060 in August & Mar-Apr)

_{Yellow indicated Boosters based on the West Coast
Data straight from Wikipedia}

[AmigaClone]

A quick look at the Booster fleet - and how much increasing cadence is taken up by busier boosters vs more boosters. How much time does refurbishing typically take, vs waiting for a payload.

10/18 Boosters have flown since 15 Oct, 4/18 last flew before the pause, 4/18 are new to the F9 configuration.
(with B1061 recently removed from the fleet. B1085 & B1083 essentially replaced B1062 & B1060 in August & Mar-Apr)

_{Yellow indicated Boosters based on the West Coast
Data straight from Wikipedia}

I wonder how many boosters can be refurbished at the same time at each coast.

[Comga]

With the same caveats as in previous posts, here are the stats after October.
After a two month pause in the usually increasing pace, SpaceX is back on the acceleration track.
The ten month average rate graph had to be expanded by another 30 per year, after a set of 10 at a 210 launches per year rate that briefly brought the projection for 2024 back over 144.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/turkeybeaver/status/1853983823555350856

Congrats to the @SpaceX team on our 400th Falcon launch!!!

While we will not make our original goal of 144 launches, we are still targeting 30 more launches in 2024 (~one every two days). It will not be easy and our work is cut out for us, but the team is all in. The only way we will achieve this goal is if we focus on safety and reliability. Above all else, we must keep the team safe and deliver 100% mission success!

[steveleach]

Congrats to the @SpaceX team on our 400th Falcon launch!!!

While we will not make our original goal of 144 launches, we are still targeting 30 more launches in 2024 (~one every two days). It will not be easy and our work is cut out for us, but the team is all in. The only way we will achieve this goal is if we focus on safety and reliability. Above all else, we must keep the team safe and deliver 100% mission success!

Wow, 30 more? That's ambitious.  My tracker has 26 projected between 6th Nov and 31st Dec, based on 14/month. They'll hit 16 in a month if they manage it, 23% more than their current record of 13.

[steveleach]

Congrats to the @SpaceX team on our 400th Falcon launch!!!

While we will not make our original goal of 144 launches, we are still targeting 30 more launches in 2024 (~one every two days). It will not be easy and our work is cut out for us, but the team is all in. The only way we will achieve this goal is if we focus on safety and reliability. Above all else, we must keep the team safe and deliver 100% mission success!

Wow, 30 more? That's ambitious.  My tracker has 26 projected between 6th Nov and 31st Dec, based on 14/month. They'll hit 16 in a month if they manage it, 23% more than their current record of 13.

Just for fun, I've started tracking the launch rate they'll need to sustain for the rest of the year to get 30 launches between the 7th Nov and 31st Dec.

Right now it is at one launch every 1.83 days.

[Rik ISS-fan]

I can write down a hole lot of words, but prefer to share a graph from Wikipedia to share some perspective.
How sustainable is this launch rate from SpaceX and how will in evolve when more competition comes to market.
... Uncertainties ...
 

[abaddon]

My latest EELV launch rates graph (yes, it excludes China, Russia, Rocket Lab, etc, so keep that in mind) through 11-5-24.  Also, these are 1st launch aligned for each launcher, so not a year-by-year view.  Still, it is interesting to eyeball year-by-year trends with this one.

[AmigaClone]

I can write down a hole lot of words, but prefer to share a graph from Wikipedia to share some perspective.
How sustainable is this launch rate from SpaceX and how will in evolve when more competition comes to market.
... Uncertainties ...

So far in 2024 SpaceX has launched 72 Starlink missions - 71 successful using Falcon 9. Those numbers equal over a third of all orbital launches this year so far. I can see the number of Starlink missions increasing in 2025 and 2026 before the the F9 Starlink launches start to diminish with Starship speeding up it's launch cadence and deploying V3 Starlink satellites.

[mpusch]

My latest EELV launch rates graph (yes, it excludes China, Russia, Rocket Lab, etc, so keep that in mind) through 11-5-24.  Also, these are 1st launch aligned for each launcher, so not a year-by-year view.  Still, it is interesting to eyeball year-by-year trends with this one.

My statistics professor back in school would be very disappointed in me if I used that x-axis.

[meekGee]

Congrats to the @SpaceX team on our 400th Falcon launch!!!

While we will not make our original goal of 144 launches, we are still targeting 30 more launches in 2024 (~one every two days). It will not be easy and our work is cut out for us, but the team is all in. The only way we will achieve this goal is if we focus on safety and reliability. Above all else, we must keep the team safe and deliver 100% mission success!

Wow, 30 more? That's ambitious.  My tracker has 26 projected between 6th Nov and 31st Dec, based on 14/month. They'll hit 16 in a month if they manage it, 23% more than their current record of 13.

Just for fun, I've started tracking the launch rate they'll need to sustain for the rest of the year to get 30 launches between the 7th Nov and 31st Dec.

Right now it is at one launch every 1.83 days.

A worthy endeavor!
The 144 tracking is so last quarter....

[AmigaClone]

Congrats to the @SpaceX team on our 400th Falcon launch!!!

While we will not make our original goal of 144 launches, we are still targeting 30 more launches in 2024 (~one every two days). It will not be easy and our work is cut out for us, but the team is all in. The only way we will achieve this goal is if we focus on safety and reliability. Above all else, we must keep the team safe and deliver 100% mission success!

Wow, 30 more? That's ambitious.  My tracker has 26 projected between 6th Nov and 31st Dec, based on 14/month. They'll hit 16 in a month if they manage it, 23% more than their current record of 13.

Just for fun, I've started tracking the launch rate they'll need to sustain for the rest of the year to get 30 launches between the 7th Nov and 31st Dec.

Right now it is at one launch every 1.83 days.

A worthy endeavor!
The 144 tracking is so last quarter....

On the other hand, I can see SpaceX possibly reaching 144 F9 launches in 2025 before the end of November 2025 especially if SLC-6 is reconfigured by the end of June next year,

[meekGee]

...
The 144 tracking is so last quarter....

On the other hand, I can see SpaceX possibly reaching 144 F9 launches in 2025 before the end of November 2025 especially if SLC-6 is reconfigured by the end of June next year,

144 is only 12/month. They'll easily blow past that in 2025 even without a third pad.

They've been adding 30-40/yr^2 for 4 years now, with fixed resources.  So 180 for 2025 is along the same trendline.  Current cadence supports that.

With another pad and another barge, 200 is in play IMO.

[Twark_Main]

30-40/yr^2

Upliked for proper use of dimensional analysis and units...   

[Comga]

(snip)
On the other hand, I can see SpaceX possibly reaching 144 F9 launches in 2025 before the end of November 2025 especially if SLC-6 is reconfigured by the end of June next year,
144 is only 12/month. They'll easily blow past that in 2025 even without a third pad.

They've been adding 30-40/yr^2 for 4 years now, with fixed resources.  So 180 for 2025 is along the same trendline.  Current cadence supports that.

With another pad and another barge, 200 is in play IMO.

Given that the precise answer depends on when the growth is assumed to start, the current value is 38.2/yr^2.
It was 39.0/yr^2 before the Q3 "hiatus" where SpaceX "stagnated" at ~123 launches per year.  (Pretty good for "stagnation".)
The fit to a straight line is remarkably good.  Their progress is quite steady

[meekGee]

October was very much a month of two halves, with just 2 Falcon launches in the first 2 weeks, then another 9 in the rest of the month. The month as a whole took them further behind target (-8 on Oct 1st, -11 on Oct 31st), but the recent trend is promising if they can sustain it. The 144 target is hopelessly out of reach now, as they would need almost 20 a month to hit that, but the signs are good that they can hit 14 in a month before the year is out.

Yup!  10 in 20 days, counting from the 12th. (With padding)

We'll see 15 soon enough

I think we just saw 15 in 30 days, right?  (180+ per year if they can hold that)

[Brigantine]

I think we just saw 15 in 30 days, right?  (180+ per year if they can hold that)

Including a heavy and a dragon, which are usually reasons for hold-ups. With an extra Starship test as a bonus.

This might remain the record for a long time, but it happened