SpaceX launches 99th operational mission of the year

SpaceX knocked out its 99th operational flight of the year with a Starlink mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Friday night.

A Falcon 9 with 20 Starlink satellites lifted off from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:31 p.m. Eastern time.

This was the 17th flight of the first-stage booster that made a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the Just Read the Instructions droneship.

The flight was the 71st from the Space Coast for 2024, one shy of 2023’s record 72 launches. SpaceX has flown all but five of those with United Launch Alliance having sent up the rest.

The majority have been Falcon 9 launches with only two Falcon Heavy missions this year.

This was the 53rd launch from Cape Canaveral with the other 18 from KSC.

SpaceX has also flown 33 missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California for a total of 97 Falcon 9 launches for the year including this one, along with the two Falcon Heavy missions for a total of 99.

It has also flown three test missions of its in-development Starship and Super Heavy rocket out of its Starbase test site in Boca Chica, Texas, all reaching orbit.

That includes a launch last Sunday that featured the first land capture of the Super Heavy booster back at the launch tower as well as the first on-target controlled landing of the second stage in the Indian Ocean, building off March and June missions with increasing success.

SpaceX flew 91 Falcon 9 and five Falcon Heavy missions in 2023, totaling 98 operational missions for that year as well as two Starship test flight attempts, both of which ended explosively without reaching orbit, although one made it to space at least for a short time before its flight termination system destroyed the vehicle.

At the offset of 2024, company officials said it could hit 144 for the year, or 12 launches per month, but that pace has faced a few hurdles because of weather and the grounding of its Falcon 9 rocket on three separate occasions because of various issues.

This launch marks only the sixth of October so far. It flew nine in September, 11 in August, six in July, 10 in June, 13 in May, 12 in April, 11 in March, nine in February and 10 in January.

The majority have been for Starlink, which now numbers more than 7,100 launched since the first operational versions were sent up in 2019.

This was the 67th Starlink launch for SpaceX of 2024.

2024 Orlando Sentinel. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.