It’s too early to mention the retirement, but astute space industry observers have noted that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is not launching as frequently as it once did.
The decline is modest so far and does not indicate any problems at SpaceX or with the Falcon 9. Rather, it is a manifestation of SpaceX’s eagerness to shift its focus toward the much larger Starship rocket, an enabler of what the company wants to do in space: missions to land on the moon and Mars, orbital data centersand next-generation Starlink.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX conducted 165 launches with the Falcon 9 rocket (without Falcon Heavy missions) last year, up from 134 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches in 2024 and 96 Falcon flights in 2023. The company plans “maybe 140, 145 or more” Falcon launches in 2026, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said. he told time earlier this year. “This year we will still throw a lot, but not as much,” he said. “And then we will reduce our launches as Starship comes online.”
Releasing the gas
We are starting to see what the long, slow drawdown will look like. The changes are most evident at Cape Canaveral, Florida, where SpaceX launched most of its rockets. Until last December, SpaceX was launching Falcon 9 regularly from two pads on Florida’s Space Coast.—one at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and another a few miles south on military property at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
SpaceX is transitioning the site at Kennedy, known as Launch Complex-39A, to launch Starships. The LC-39A is out of the rotation for Falcon 9 launches, although it remains available for occasional flights of the more powerful triple-core Falcon Heavy. SpaceX launched the first Falcon Heavy in a year and a half last week from LC-39A, and a few more Falcon Heavy flights are available later this year.
Activity at SpaceX’s oldest launch site, Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral, is also slowing. Last month, SpaceX decommissioned one of its two Florida-based sea landing platforms for future use as a transporter to transport Starships and Super Heavy boosters from SpaceX’s factory in South Texas to Florida. SpaceX is building a second Starship factory at Kennedy Space Center, but officials want to begin Starship flights from Florida before the factory is operational.
