Overhead: It Ain't Drones & It Ain't Santa

In the wee hours of Monday, SpaceX sent its Starlink 12-2 mission into space with 21 satellites aboard, 13 of them for Starlink mobile service. The first stage booster saw its 14th flight and landed on the Just Read the Instructions droneship eight and a half minutes after launch. The booster had previously flown Axiom-2, Axiom-3, CRS-30, SES 24, Cygnus NG-21, and Euclid, according to reporting by Florida Today.

The launch is just the latest chapter in the new space industry reality of ever-increasing launch capacity and volume. According to SpaceFlight Now the stats for this latest SpaceX flight are:

414th Falcon 9 launch to date

129th Falcon 9 launch of 2024

358th Falcon booster reflight

131st SpaceX orbital launch of 2024

134th SpaceX orbital launch in the past 365 days

97th SpaceX orbital launch from launch pad 39A

191st Overall orbital launch from launch pad 39A

103rd landing on JRTI (Just Read the Instructions)

307th SpaceX droneship landing

387th overall SpaceX booster landing

91st orbital launch from Florida

137th orbital launch from U.S. soil

150th orbital launch from a U.S. rocket company (includes RocketLab)

253rd orbital launch attempt globally

7 orbital launch failures

SpaceFlight Now 12-2 launch video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j54fN4jCldQ

The successful 12-2 launch overshadowed Saturday's scrubbed launch of a different Falcon 9 which was carrying four MicroGEO satellites from Astranis. According to Space.com, two of the four satellites "were to be used by Colorado-based Anuvu for in-flight connectivity for travelers. Another one will beam service to customers in the Philippines, and the fourth, called UtilitySat, is expected to serve a variety of customers."

A separate so-called "rideshare" flight occurred at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California Saturday morning, according to Fox Business. That successful flight included a '425 Project' reconnaissance satellite from the South Korean military, HawkEye 360 (three satellites called Cluster 11 for radio-frequency intelligence), Finnish company Iceye (two synthetic aperture radar satellites for radar imagery to 25 cm), and orbital devices from Sidus Space, Tomorrow.io, True Anomaly, and Think Orbital.

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While the SpaceX launch data is impressive, it's worth noting that Amazon's Project Kuiper is expected to get into the game early in 2025 and China's launch pace is intensifying even as they work to perfect their own system of booster recovery and re-use. In fact, rocket launch payloads are increasingly booked years in advance with demand rising from startups, established service providers, and sovereign nations looking to take their place in space. Move over, Santa!