Mass Value Report for February 2024

Tracking how likely or not it is for SpaceX to reach their ambitious launch target this year, and looking into some of the competition that may be coming.

Last month I looked at if the multiple weather delays had impacted the ability of SpaceX to meet its launch target this year. I’m going to extend this method one more month and see if February has allowed a catch up.

Here is the projection:

Based on the historical ratios, the predicted total flights in 2024 is now 132. Despite there being only 9 flights in February compared to 10 in January, this is still a higher estimate as this month is shorter. The central estimate would amount to a 38% increase in total mass thrown over the previous year compared to historical growth over 40% - so perhaps the top of the Falcon S-curve is coming into sight.

A more simple linear extrapolation, assuming the flight rate for the remainder of the year is the same as for the first 60 days, would only see 122 flights. This would be the beginning of a slowdown, but if we look at the mass plot it turns out the slowdown is would be even more severe

The reason for this is that out of 19 flights this year, 6 were RTLS (Return to Launch Site) recovery, which has lower payload. This is about 32% of flights, and in no previous year has the figure been above 15%. This might even out over the year, or it might be that landing barge availability is now a significant constraint on cadence.

The linear projection value is also less accurate because the growth in cadence that can be seen above in the yearly figures happens continuously throughout the each year. Still, SpaceX will have to work hard to reach their aspiration of 144 flights this year.

Something that might shift the mass figures slightly is Musk’s announcement that a new mass record of 17,500kg has been set. I’ll be factoring this in to future reports when I figure out in which cases it applies - some boosters may not have the upgrade.

The Competition

I am not trying to create a SpaceX fan site here, but in the current revolution in space launch they are for the moment a near monopoly leader. The only other rocket company even recovering boosters is Rocket Lab, and Electron is a much smaller vehicle than Falcon 9.