SpaceX was just short of its own unofficial 100 rocket launch target in 2023, achieving 98 launches overall. The 2024 target is (again unofficial) of about 130-150 launches, or launch activity about every 2.6 days.

SpaceX managed:
• 2 Starship launches
• 5 Falcon Heavy launches
• 91 Falcon 9 launches
• 98 launches in total

The current manifest includes 5,650 Starlinks launched of which 5,232 are working according to astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell.

The 2024 launch cycle starts again today [January 2nd] with a launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California (at 6.13pm Pacific time/02.13am UTC on January 3rd) of a batch of Starlink satellites. The cargo will include six Starlinks with direct-to-cell connectivity. It will be the 301st SpaceX mission, and the 287th for the Falcon 9 fleet.

On January 3rd there is a scheduled Florida launch of the important Ovzon 3 communications satellite for the Swedish telecommunications business. Ovzon 3 is designed to meet the demand for increased mobile broadband connectivity in under-served regions.

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Virgin Galactic in stock split
2. Thuraya-3 suffers major problem
3. AST SpaceMobile hit by Class Action
4. Optimism under threat at SES
5. Rivada visits Terran Orbital’s manufacturing HQ
6. Avanti wins spectrum debt obligation case
7. SpaceX breaks records for re-use launchers
8. IRIS2 already in trouble?
9. Intelsat contemplates next steps

Categories: Blogs, Inside Satellite, Satellite

Tags: Ovzon, spacex