On July 2, another launch of the Falcon 9 rocket took place from the Cape Canaveral launch site. It successfully put into orbit a new batch of Starlink vehicles. Despite the routine nature of the flight, it attracted special attention of many fans of astronautics. The fact is that it became the 500th for Falcon 9.
A brief history of the Falcon 9
The first launch of the Falcon 9 took place on June 4, 2010. It is worth saying that the rocket launched then (Falcon 9 v1.0) was very different from the version that flies now. It was 15 meters shorter in length and 230 tons lighter, had a smaller payload, and a completely different arrangement of engines on the first stage. SpaceX used it to launch Dragon cargo ships to the ISS and early experiments in first-stage re-entry. In those years, the company’s engineers explored using parachutes for this purpose, but quickly abandoned it as unviable.
Falcon 9 v1.0 made 5 flights, one of which was classified as partially unsuccessful. It was replaced in 2013 by Falcon 9 v1.1. The rocket has grown significantly in size and received a lot of upgrades. On it, SpaceX for the first time tried the technology of stage return using controlled re-entry and landing on engines. However, none of the three attempts were successful, but they provided engineers with invaluable information.
14 out of 15 Falcon 9 v1.0 launches were successful. Only the CRS-7 mission, during which the Dragon supply ship was lost, ended in an accident.
A new version of the rocket, the Falcon 9 Full Thrust, debuted in 2015. It further increased in size and payload capacity. It was Full Thrust that allowed SpaceX to solve the problem of reusability. On December 22, 2015, its first stage made a successful landing on land. And on April 8, 2016, SpaceX celebrated the first successful landing on an autonomous barge.
In total, Full Thrust made 24 flights between 2016 and 2018. All of them were successful. However, in September 2016, one rocket crashed on the launch pad during preparations for a static fire test. The incident resulted in the loss of the Israeli AMOS-6 satellite.
In 18 missions using Full Thrust, SpaceX carried out the return of the first stage: 16 attempts were successful, 2 were unsuccessful. It was Full Thrust that became the first rocket in history to orbit using a stage that had already flown into space.
The next modification, called Block 4, made 12 successful space flights between 2017 and 2018. In six missions, SpaceX performed first-stage returns.
On May 11, 2018, Block 5 made its debut: the final version of Falcon 9, which accounts for the vast majority of launches, cargo orbited, and stages returned to Earth. It was destined to change the launch services market forever.
Major records and achievements of Falcon 9
To date, Falcon 9, in all modifications, has made 500 flights into space. Of these, only two missions ended in accidents, and another was classified as a partial failure.
If we consider exclusively Falcon 9 in Block 5 modification, it has 444 flights on its account. Only one of them ended in an accident. Thus, the reliability of Falcon 9 Block 5 is a fantastic 99.8%. Yes, in the history of astronautics, you can find several rockets that have never had an accident. However, none of them can even come close to Falcon 9 in terms of the total number of launches.
In terms of stage returns, 456 (97.6%) of the 467 attempts were successful. SpaceX managed to far surpass its original target of ten stage reuses. At the moment, the booster with the flight number B1067 holds the record, with a record 29 flights into space. These figures seem even more fantastic if we remember that no other private company or space agency has yet managed to solve the problem of returning and reusing the first stage of an orbital rocket.
The incredible reliability of Falcon 9 allowed SpaceX to begin deploying the Starlink satellite internet system. Today, it consists of more than seven thousand active vehicles. To this, we can add thousands of satellites from other customers, dozens of interplanetary missions, as well as 68 astronauts who went into space on the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
The best rocket in history
If we add to all the above statistics the launch cost, which is still lower than the main commercial competitors, then, without any exaggeration, Falcon 9 can be called the best orbital launch vehicle in the history of astronautics. You can always find a rocket that may be better in some single aspect or metric. But if we look at it holistically, from the point of view of mass use and easier access to space, we cannot but recognize that Falcon 9 has become for the global launch market what the Ford Model T once was.
It is important to note that every year, the demand for Falcon 9 services continues to grow. So in 2022 the rocket flew into space 60 times, in 2023 – 91 times, in 2024 –132 times. As for this year, the account of the rocket is already 83 flights. And SpaceX expects to launch up to 160 Falcon 9 in 2025. At this rate, in a few years we will celebrate the 1000th launch of the rocket, which recently seemed an absolute fantasy.
