SpaceX eyes 10,000 launches a year
SpaceX plans to conduct up to 10,000 rocket launches annually within the next five years, a target that would far exceed the current global launch rate and potentially reshape the commercial space industry, reports a Qazinform News Agency correspondent.
According to Cryptopolitan, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell recently discussed the ambitious goal with Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Brian Bedford.
Bedford reportedly said that the current bottleneck “is not within SpaceX itself.”
The plan aligns with comments made earlier this year by Elon Musk, who predicted launches could take place “once an hour” within four to five years. Such a pace would amount to roughly 8,760 launches annually.
SpaceX currently carries out about 160 orbital missions a year. Worldwide launches last year totaled around 250, highlighting the scale of the company’s ambitions.
Industry experts say the challenge extends beyond rocket manufacturing capacity. Current FAA approvals allow about 195 SpaceX launches annually across four operating sites in the United States.
The industry has increasingly called for a regulatory shift away from approving each launch individually toward a permanent operating licensing system similar to commercial airlines.
A major factor will be the development of a fully reusable Starship system. However, recent Starship test flights ended with the spacecraft breaking apart mid-flight, while the next-generation V3 model has also faced delays.
Analysts say SpaceX’s 10,000-launch vision would require advances not only in rocket technology, but also in reusable systems, airspace management, supply chains and regulatory reform.
Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that a U.S. federal court had dismissed a lawsuit filed by tech billionaire Elon Musk against Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and OpenAI over claims that the company had abandoned its original nonprofit mission.