SpaceX: How Did Falcon 9 Rocket Dominate Space After 8 Missions?

During the mission conveyor -2, the Falcon 9B1060 rocket conducted its eighth flight on Wednesday (30th). The B1060 represents one flight per month and a half, demonstrating SpaceX's progress toward a reusable first-stage rocket.

The Falcon 9's shipment rate is increasing, with five flights since January 2021. Compared to the Falcon 9, which only does one or two tasks every year because of the large number of repairs required between releases, the number is even more astonishing.

The US Space Forces used this vehicle for the first time in June 2020 to install GPS III satellites.

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(Photo: Red Huber/Getty Images)
CAPE CANAVERAL, FL - NOVEMBER 13: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule are seen on launch pad 39A on November 13, 2020, in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

This year, the Falcon 9 rocket line performed 20 missions. Trevor Mahlman, a Portal photographer and journalist for Ars Technica captured photographs of the Transporter-2 mission's launch and landing, which launched many commercial and government satellites into space. We can see how the B1060's rough appearance has changed over time.

Now, how did SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket dominate orbital missions around the world in 2021?

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SpaceX Launched More Than 500,000 Tons of Spacecraft To Space

As of July 3, the rest of the globe has launched around 175 tons (385,000 lb) into orbit in 2021, including China, Russia, India, and three more US providers. SpaceX essentially doubled the rest of the world's payload mass to orbit in 2020, Elon Musk said on his Twitter account. Teslarati noted that the launch made other providers — primarily headed by China — much more competitive in 2021, even if they have launched a quarter of the mass of SpaceX.

Falcon 9 is almost always at max capacity. When it has “spare” performance, it flies back to land, which costs much less than using a droneship.

Our fundamental constraint is mass to orbit per unit time. Last year, SpaceX launched roughly double payload mass of rest of world.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 11, 2021

SpaceX has a nearly unassailable lead in terms of specialized launch vehicles with Falcon 9. With 11 successful Soyuz 2.1 launches to date, only Russia comes close, followed by China's Long March 4 with seven missions this year.

Total tonnage sent to orbit is an even more valuable measure of success, as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly stated over the last several months. SpaceX leads the rest of the world combined in this regard. SpaceX has successfully launched more than 230 metric tons (500,000 lb) of spacecraft, Dragons, space station cargo, and humans into orbit in the first half of 2021. It has nearly 800 satellites in its Starlink broadband constellation.

Nonetheless, on July 1, a Russian Soyuz 2.1 rocket launched OneWeb's eighth set of LEO broadband satellites, bringing the total number of successful non-China/SpaceX launches in 2021 to 21. China's July 3 launch was the country's 20th successful orbital mission, but the government is planning another launch as early as July 4, this time carrying a weather satellite. It is possible that SpaceX would not catch up to China until the end of 2021, but the lone firm and its reusable Falcon 9 workhorse rocket are still on track to launch 40 times (or more) this year alone.