SpaceX Breaks NASA Shuttle’s Launch Record

Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center has a long history. It was originally built to launch the massive Saturn V moon rockets, but it is also the starting point for every space shuttle launch. Recently, NASA leased 39A to SpaceX for commercial launches, and SpaceX has gotten a lot of value out of the lease. After the company’s most recent Falcon 9 launch, it broke the launch record for Space Shuttle 39A.

According to SpaceFlight Now, this was SpaceX’s 83rd launch from Launch Complex 39A. The total includes launches of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. That’s one more launch than the 82 launches for the Space Shuttle. However, it speaks to the incredible pace of Falcon 9 launches.SpaceX signed a 20-year lease for the facility in 2014 and didn’t launch for the first time until February 2017, when it completed its CRS-10 resupply mission to the International Space Station. As a result, SpaceX surpassed 30 years of space shuttle launches in just seven years.

Following the record-breaking launch, SpaceX landed first stage booster B1083 on its unmanned spacecraft A Shortfall of Gravitas. This has become a common way to end a Falcon 9 launch, but the company was still trying to perfect the landing when it signed the KSC lease. Perhaps more than breaking the shuttle launch record, this shows just how fast the aerospace industry is moving.

The Kennedy Space Center isn’t the only source for SpaceX Falcon 9 launches. It also uses the nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Base and the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.SpaceX plans to conduct interplanetary spacecraft launches from Kennedy Space Center, but so far all test flights have come from the company’s test facility in Texas.

The result of all these launches is a thriving commercial payload business, regular NASA manned flights, International Space Station resupply runs, and nearly 6,000 Starlink Internet satellites. This makes SpaceX the world’s largest satellite operator, with more orbital assets than all other operators combined. All eyes are now on the Starship, which the company sees as its primary launch vehicle for the foreseeable future – as soon as it stops blowing up.