Trevor Mahlmann
After our inaugural rating final yr, Ars Technica is once more publishing an inventory of essentially the most achieved US industrial launch firms. We hope the record sparks debate, dialogue, and appreciation for the problem of working a profitable rocket firm.
Please be aware that it is a subjective record, though exhausting metrics similar to whole launches, tonnage to orbit, success fee, and extra had been all necessary components within the determination. And our focus stays on what every firm achieved in 2023, not on what they may do sooner or later. Definitely there will likely be extra reshuffling subsequent yr.
1. SpaceX (no change)
Just one rocket firm approached a mind-boggling 100 launches this yr. Just one firm reused greater than 90 % of the rockets it launched in 2023. Just one firm launched a million kilograms of cargo into orbit. And just one firm debuted the (privately developed) largest and strongest rocket ever seen—Starship. After which launched it once more simply months afterward a principally profitable flight.
Which feat is most spectacular? Is it the unprecedented cadence? Launching almost two rockets per week is unbelievable, a testomony to the extraordinarily exhausting work accomplished by the SpaceX groups in California, Texas, and Florida. However getting Starship to fly twice in simply seven months, after sand-blasting the launch pad on the primary try, is equally exceptional. SpaceX is essentially the most elite launch firm on the earth, and it isn’t shut.
This is yet another statistic for you, courtesy of a reader. SpaceX, for all of its 90-plus launches this yr, expended a complete of six Falcon cores (4 Heavy facilities and two facet boosters). United Launch Alliance, its one-time important competitor, expended 5—in three whole launches.
2. Rocket Lab (+1)
Rocket Lab has ascended to the quantity two place due to its execution this yr. The corporate set a brand new report (10) for launches in a calendar yr. Rocket Lab additionally had another notable firsts, together with opening its first US-based launch web site at Wallops Island in Virginia, launching its first hypersonic mission, HASTE, and re-flying a Rutherford rocket engine for the primary time as a part of its efforts to reuse Electron first phases.
Rocket Lab additionally continued to work on its Neutron car, though the medium-lift launcher seemingly will not debut till no less than 2025.
It wasn’t an ideal yr, in fact. Notably, the corporate’s ninth launch try of the yr—a devoted mission for Capella Area—was misplaced because of an anomaly after the second stage separated. This was the corporate’s fourth failure in 40 orbital launches. Whereas not a horrible report, it isn’t a terrific one, both.