- SpaceX aims to step up its launch schedule in 2024.
- The rockets will allow the rollout of Starlink’s Direct to Cell service next year.
- SpaceX’s satellite constellation is ahead of its competitors, but Amazon recently joined the race.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to launch an unprecedented 144 rockets next year, a company official told Ars Technica.
SpaceX has already smashed annual records for launches by a private company in 2023, and hopes to bring the tally to 100 rockets by December.
The number of launches has steadily risen as SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has expanded. In 2021, there were only 31 missions launched, but the figure almost doubled to 61 the following year.
But next year SpaceX aims to beat its own record once again as the company rolls out Starlink Direct to Cell in partnership with T-Mobile.
Described as “a cellphone tower in space” on its website, Direct to Cell will offer mobile services through Starlink satellites. Text messaging via the service is expected in 2024, followed by calls and web browsing in 2025.
The service will be particularly useful in areas with no cell coverage, particularly when there’s an emergency, SpaceX founder Musk said when it was launched.
“With our 2 million users, we need that constellation refreshed,” the SpaceX official told Ars.
The target for 2024 will require one launch every 2.5 days, compared to this year’s launch every 3.5 days.
“You can’t increase that kind of number by just adding more bodies or extra shifts of work,” the SpaceX official told Ars. Automation has been incorporated across the entire process and the priority is on reliability so as to prevent faults that would cause delays.
“It’s forcing a ton of innovation into SpaceX that we would not do in any other way if we weren’t driven by that flight rate,” he added.
In total, more than 4,000 Starlink satellites have been put in orbit since May 2019, and last month SpaceX announced that more than 2 million customers were using its internet services.
Though far ahead of its competitors, more are following Elon Musk into space.
In early October, Jeff Bezos’ Amazon launched the first two prototype satellites in what will become its Project Kuiper internet service. Much like Starlink, Project Kuiper encompasses a network of satellites delivering high-speed internet connectivity to remote areas.
SpaceX did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Insider, made outside normal working hours.
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