SpaceX Dominates Space Launch and Satellites

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SpaceX is targeting over 100 orbital launches in 2023 after launching 61 times in 2022. They just had their fifth successful launch which is more than every other country or region in the world in 2022, except China and Russia. SpaceX is the main launch company for the USA and the primary commercial launch company for the world. This mission launched more Starlink satellites. SpaceX puts about 90% of the commercial payload mass into orbit. China and Russia have about 80 total launches for their military and national missions.

There were 4825 active satellites in orbit at the end of 2022 and SpaceX has put up over 3600 Starlink satellites. SpaceX has over 67% of all active satellites in orbit. SpaceX could more than double the number of Starlink satellites in orbit by the end of 2023. SpaceX will have ovr 80% of all active satellites in orbit by the end of 2023 (about 7200 out of 9000.)

The SpaceX domination of space launch and satellites will get more complete when they have the more powerful fully reusable Starship Super Heavy. The Starship Super Heavy should have a first orbital launch attempt late in February or in March. SpaceX plans to build five complete Starship Super Heavies in 2023. If four of those sets had nearly weekly launches of 100 tons per mission in the second half of 2023, this would add another 100 launches but with over five times the payload. Those would be equal to about 600 Falcon 9 missions.

I have some videos that explain what SpaceX will be doing this decade.

The currently active version, Falcon 9 Block 5, has flown 142 missions, all full successes.

Rockets from the Falcon 9 family have been launched 203 times over 13 years, resulting in 201 full mission successes (99%), one partial success (SpaceX CRS-1 delivered its cargo to the International Space Station (ISS), but a secondary payload was stranded in a lower-than-planned orbit), and one full failure (the SpaceX CRS-7 spacecraft was lost in flight in an explosion). Additionally, one rocket and its payload AMOS-6 were destroyed before launch in preparation for an on-pad static fire test.

Four more launches are planned in January and ten in February. If they have 19 launches in 59 days, then they would be on pace for 117 launches in 2023.

There are 3614 Starlink satellites in orbit and 3120 have moved to the correct final position are serving customers There is a live map of the Starlink satellites in orbit.

3 thoughts on “SpaceX Dominates Space Launch and Satellites”

  1. More competition for SpaceX:

    “Its Terran 1 rocket, the company says, has about a tenth as many parts as comparable launch vehicles do, because it is made through 3D printing. Instead of bending metal and milling and welding, engineers program a robot to deposit layers of metal alloy in place.

    Relativity’s first rocket, the company says, is ready to go from launch complex 16 at Cape Canaveral, Fla. When it happens, possibly later this month, the company says it will stream the liftoff on YouTube.”

    See:

    https://spectrum.ieee.org/3d-printed-rocket-relativity-spacex

  2. Not Except China and Russia, just except China. They far exceeded Russia’s launch totals, almost by a factor of three.

    And I am hearing they exceeded China’s tonnage to orbit equivalent by a factor of three as well.

    • I know is 2022 they exceeded Russia by three. I was referring to five launches in 19 days in 2023 already passing the four launches of the europeans and four launches or less of other groups in 2022. 19 days of 2023 past 2022 full year totals.

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