At the beginning of this week I chose 10 rockets that either debuted, retired, or continue operating in 2023 for your vote. Here is the list of each rocket and their percentage of the vote:
- Starship – 50%
- Falcon 9 – 38.16%
- Falcon Heavy – 5.26%
- Ariane 5 – 2.63%
- Electron – 2.63%
- Alpha – 1.32%
- Terran 1 – 0%
- Vega C – 0%
- Atlas V – 0%
- Delta IV – 0%
Most voted: SpaceX’s Starship
It didn’t surprise anyone that the public would vote for Starship to be the rocket of the year. Years of anticipation into its first launch lead to the rather explosive display in April. Followed up recently by the rocket’s second launch in November, marking numerous improvements in reliability.
Starship has created a very large and dedicated following. Which if the vehicle is successful at its promises, it makes sense to be excited for. First, the rocket hopes to become the first fully reusable rocket in history. It has already become the most powerful and it will use that immense thrust to hopefully build a Martian colony.
The rocket is also doubling as the lunar lander for NASA‘s Artemis 3 and 4 missions later this decade. As one of the leading items that could cause those missions to be delayed, seeing the rocket start to see success is a great sign. However only two launches wasn’t enough.
2024 could be a big year for Starship, if it matters to get free of regular FAA investigations. There are several parts of the Starship/Human Landing System that still need testing. First up is building even more reliability into the system to ensure it is safe for crew to fly on it.
Second, and most importantly, SpaceX needs to develop and demostrate the technology for in-space refueling. This includes the transfer of cryogenic propellents between spacecraft, as many as 15 times. Something that has never been done before.
SpaceX plans to demonstrate a basic version of this technology by transferring some propellent into Starship’s header tanks as soon as on Flight 3. While small, it is a big step in getting Starship ready to support Artemis.
Hopefully 2024 will be full of ground breaking Starship test flights.
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Space Explored’s pick: SpaceX’s Falcon 9
While Starship’s debut is undoubtedly an extremely important moment for both SpaceX and humanity. What also is important to SpaceX is getting a rapid reusable launch cadence. It made huge strides in that field in 2023 using its Falcon 9 rocket.
The end of year stats came out to 91 Falcon 9 launches in 2023, 68 of those from the East Coast and more specifically, 55 from SLC-40. Including its Falcon Heavy rocket, SpaceX launched once every 3.8 days.
If SpaceX is to launch Starship in a rapid fashion, every hour as Elon Musk has mentioned in the past, then the company needs to learn what it takes to support that now. Fueled by both that and the need to get as many Starlink satellites into orbit as possible, we saw some crazy pad, booster, and spaceport turnarounds in 2023.
The company ended the year breaking its launch turnaround record by launching its Falcon Heavy rocket with the classified USSF-52 mission on top just three hours before launching its final Starlink mission of the year.
In 2024 SpaceX aims to launch 144 rockets, most likely that goal is just the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. That would mean a rocket launching from one of SpaceX’s three launch pads every two and a half days.
If it wasn’t for a poor week this December with Florida weather, than SpaceX would have most likely met its 100 launch goal. Any doubt of SpaceX pushing it to 144 launches has to be coming from someone that doesn’t understand SpaceX and its history of breaking norms.
