Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing up to four of its Falcon 9 rockets for launch next month. Already in the manifest is the launch of a condominium satellite (Japan’s JSAT-18/Kacific) joint mission which is slated for around December 15th.

Earlier than that will see SpaceX on December 4th launch a Dragon re-supply mission to the International Space Station (ISS), no doubt carrying a few Christmas goodies for the astronauts on board. This will be the nineteenth such launch to the ISS since October 2012.

SpaceX is also planning a test flight for a high-altitude “abort test” of the company’s Dragon proposed crew spacecraft.

Then, before year-end, SpaceX will launch its latest batch of its Starlink low-Earth orbiting broadband satellites. It’s likely that the Falcon rocket will carry around 60 of these smallish 600-lbs craft and to join the 120 already in orbit.

SpaceX is on record as saying that its launch rate will increase in 2020 with up to 24 Starlink missions as well as its other commercial and NASA obligations.

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