May 21st 2024.
Elon Musk, the billionaire behind SpaceX and Tesla, recently shared some exciting news on social media. He announced that SpaceX is expected to surpass 90% of all Earth's payload to low-Earth orbit by the end of this year. This is based on a report that showed SpaceX successfully completed more than half of the 63 orbital launch attempts worldwide in the first quarter of 2024.
Musk also mentioned that this percentage could potentially increase to over 99% once their massive Starship vehicle is launched. This 400-foot-tall rocket, along with the Heavy Booster, has a goal of landing astronauts on the Moon during the crewed Artemis 3 mission in 2026.
In a post on X, Musk wrote, "SpaceX might exceed 90% of all Earth payload to orbit later this year. Once Starship is launching at a high rate, probably >99%. This has to be achieved if we want to build a city on Mars or establish a base on the Moon. We don't file many patents, so there's nothing stopping competition from copying us."
He also shared a tweet from May 20, 2024, where he had previously mentioned this goal.
Moving on to the Q1 Launch Report by Payload, it was revealed that the combined launches by five Chinese companies were 13.6 times less than SpaceX. And compared to the first quarter of 2023, SpaceX's launch attempts have grown by 11 flights in the first quarter of 2024.
Musk also gave an update on the fourth test flight of the Starship vehicle, which is set to take place in about 2 weeks. He stated that the main objective is to successfully handle the maximum re-entry heating. He also pointed out that no one has ever achieved a fully reusable heat shield before, and the Space Shuttle required over 6 months of rework.
In other news, Musk's satellite-based Internet service, Starlink, has reached a milestone of 3 million customers in 99 countries. He congratulated his SpaceX team for this accomplishment and thanked the customers for choosing Starlink. He also mentioned that high-speed Internet service with Starlink can be easily ordered online in just 2 minutes, and no long-term contract is required.
It's clear that Musk and his team at SpaceX are continuously pushing the boundaries and achieving remarkable success in the space industry. With their ambitious plans for Mars and the Moon, we can expect even more groundbreaking accomplishments from them in the future.
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