Photo: SpaceX
The Falcon 9 booster is a crucial piece of SpaceX’s launch operations, and the rocket recently surpassed a new milestone for cumulative launches.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster has officially completed its 200th successful mission, launching 53 new Starlink satellites into orbit on early Thursday morning from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
This particular Falcon 9 booster saw its fifth launch and landing, having previously launched CRS-24, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13F, OneWeb 1 and now two Starlink missions. SpaceX and Falcon 9 are making launch and landings look easy every single time.
Falcon 9 launched its 200th successful mission, and delivered another 53 SpaceX Starlink satellites to orbit this morning pic.twitter.com/HlXSzVRPip
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) February 2, 2023
The company also pointed out in the thread that almost 70 percent of all Falcon 9 missions have been performed using flight-proven boosters, meaning that they’re fully reusable.
SpaceX notes that “rocket reusability is key to enabling SpaceX’s rapid launch cadence.” The company has now had 207 total launches, 169 total landings and 142 total reflights.
Galaxy Broadband Attempts to Rival SpaceX Starlink in Northern Canada https://t.co/Ykjdbnso5D
— TeslaNorth.com (@RealTeslaNorth) February 2, 2023
A filing that surfaced in October showed that SpaceX planned to launch Starlink second-generation satellites every week in 2023.
SpaceX launched another 49 Starlink satellites earlier this week, after launching the largest Falcon 9 payload ever just last week with 56 satellites launched into orbit, weighing over 17.4 metric tons.
The Falcon 9 booster also earned a world record for launching 61 missions in 2022. In December, SpaceX earned a reused record for launching three flights in under 36 hours using the Falcon 9 booster.
Earlier this week, SpaceX was approved to begin testing as many as 200 models for the next generation of Starlink dishes, which the filing also shows will be larger than its current terminals.
SpaceX also completed a wet dress rehearsal for its Starship reusable spacecraft, which is set to see its first launch in the coming months.
