Another hot month

After a break of just five days, SpaceX resumed its orbital launches on October 5 after an absolutely crazy September, which marked a new record for the Californian operator in a calendar month : 10 missions of the Falcon 9 completed between September 1 and 30 including 9 for the deployment of the Starlink constellation dedicated to the global Internet !

Launches that took place from the nearby Cape Canaveral military base (6 lift-offs), from Nasa's Kennedy Space Center, Florida (1), and from Vandenberg Military Base, California (3), and which used second-hand stages (two of which made their seventeenth flight) ; which were systematically recovered at the end of their flight....

Implacable, decidedly.

The most-used family in history

On October 5, the stationing of batch 6-21 of the Starlink constellation (with 22 passengers) marked SpaceX's seventieth success since January 3 2023.

With only round numbers for the launch pads used : 40 for the SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral, 20 for the SLC-4E at Vandenberg, and 10 for the LC-39A at Kennedy.

On September 4, SpaceX had surpassed its 2022 record, with more than 61 launches achieved  now, the Falcon family holds the annual world record for successful launches by any rocket family, ahead of Russia's Soyuz.

If SpaceX were to maintain the pace posted last month, the target of 100 launches posted at the start of the year could be reached...