SpaceX will hit 83 orbital launches from its KSC pad. That’s one more than the 82 shuttle launches that took place over the 30-year history of that program.
How cool!!
They are also catching up to Shuttle on vehicle reuse too. The flight numbers for the most flown Falcon 9 boosters (e.g. B1062, 20 flights) are approaching that of the least flown (surviving) Space Shuttle (Endeavour, 25 flights). With Falcon booster turnaround times of around a month, we could see Endeavour surpassed later this year.
“Orbital class booster” vs “actual orbital reentry” is still a biiiiitttt different on the loading, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
Good point, a better comparison would be to Dragon, or (eventually) Starship. Still a ways to go on those, as the most flown Dragon (C206 Endeavour) is only on its 5th flight.
It’s an amazing milestone. Makes me wonder how they manage Musk from fucking shit up every few weeks.
Right? That’s kind-of the weird thing, this milestone is very much attributable to Musk (and of course the countless engineers that make it happen) despite his… eccentricity, shall we say.
I feel like Gwynne probably plays a role in reigning in some of Elon’s more rash decisions (such as when he tried to cancel Falcon Heavy).
