SpaceX on pace to shatter US launch records. Again

New York
CNN Business
 — 

SpaceX has been on a tear in 2022, notching 18 rocket launches and two astronaut splashdowns in just the first 130 days of the year — an unprecedented pace for the company and the commercial launch industry.

The latest is scheduled for Friday evening with the launch of 53 of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites out of California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base. It will be the twelfth Starlink launch so far this year, and it could be followed over the weekend with another mission set to take off out of Florida.

It’s been an dizzying year of activity so far, further cementing SpaceX’s dominance over the commercial launch industry. Led by SpaceX, the industry is on pace to blow past the annual launch highs of the mid-20th century space race, when most launches were carried out by governments rather than the private sector. 2021 already set a new record with 145 total launches, compared to 129 carried out in 1984, the previous record-setting year, according to data from research firm Quilty Analytics.

If SpaceX keeps up its current pace, it could launch more than 52 rockets this year alone, far outpacing its record, set last year, of 31.

“Even 10 years ago, launches were rare,” Chris Quilty, the founder of Quilty Analytics, told CNN Business.

In 2001, the total number of launches across the globe was only 51, he noted.

“So, put that in context of SpaceX alone launching 52 times,” he said. “It’s pretty incredible.”

Most of SpaceX’s launches in 2022 have focused on Starlink, its consumer internet business that relies on troves of orbiting satellites, which the company has been growing since it began launching batches of the internet-beaming satellites in mid-2019. The constellation now has more than 2,200 satellites in orbit and, as of March, 250,000 subscribers using the service around the world, a company executive said at a recent conference.

While SpaceX stands out from its rocketry competitors, that doesn’t mean the company is or will be uncontested.

Two new rockets capable of competing with SpaceX’s Falcons — the workhorse rockets that the company uses to haul satellites and, more recently, astronauts to orbit — are slated to debut in the next year or so. They are New Glenn, which is under development by the Jeff Bezos-backed company Blue Origin, and Vulcan Centaur, a line of rockets from legacy launch company United Launch Alliance, a joint venture from Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

The sheer number of satellites that all those vehicles can launch, including the thousands of satellites expected to add to SpaceX’s Starlink constellation and competing satellite internet businesses, have spurred a pressing discussion about congestion in outer space. If satellites collide, they can create dangerous plumes of debris. That’s happened in the past, and close calls are a frequent occurrence.

Academics have long been attempting to raise awareness, and caution,…