Elon Musk’s SpaceX To Likely Fall Short Of 100 Launches This Year — Will 2024 Be The Charm?

Elon Musk‘s aerospace company, SpaceX, has completed 94 missions this year, excluding Starship’s two flight attempts.

What Happened: SpaceX’s latest achievement was the SARah-2 mission, launching to low-Earth orbit from California on Dec. 24, marking the 94th successful launch in 2023. 

Earlier this year, Musk set an ambitious target of 70-plus more launches following the company’s 20th launch in March.

Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX’s VP of Launch, mentioned earlier this month that achieving 100 launches was plausible but would depend on flawless execution and favorable weather conditions.

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Why It Matters: While SpaceX has two remaining launches scheduled for the year, namely the USSF-52 mission and a Starlink mission, it appears the company may fall short of Dontchev’s ambitious goal. The USSF-52 mission, involving a Falcon Heavy rocket launching the U.S. military’s X-37B robot spaceplane, is now set for Dec. 28, with the Starlink mission expected on Dec. 30.

If SpaceX successfully conducts these two missions as planned, the company will conclude the year with 96 launches, representing a remarkable 57% year-on-year increase. In 2020, SpaceX completed 26 launches, followed by 31 in 2021, and an impressive 61 launches last year. Looking ahead, the company aims for an even more ambitious target of 144 launches in 2024.

SpaceX, unlike Musk’s Tesla, is privately held, making its financials harder to access. Based on a recent tender offer, the company is valued at $180 billion.

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