List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches (2020–2022)
From January 2020, to the end of 2022, Falcon 9 was launched 117 times, all successful, and landed boosters successfully on 111 of those flights. Falcon Heavy was launched once and was successful, including landing of the mission's two side boosters.
Launches
2020
In late 2019, Gwynne Shotwell stated that SpaceX hoped for as many as 24 launches for Starlink satellites in 2020, in addition to 14 or 15 non-Starlink launches. At 26 launches, 14 of which were for Starlink satellites, Falcon 9 had its most prolific year, and Falcon rockets were second most prolific rocket family of 2020, only behind China's Long March rocket family.2021
In October 2020, Elon Musk indicated he wanted to be able to increase launches to 48 in 2021. Regulatory documents filed in February 2020, specified a maximum of 60 launches per year from Florida for Falcon 9 and another ten for Falcon Heavy, according to its 2020, environmental assessment. 31 launches actually occurred in 2021; all were successful.2022
There were 61 Falcon launches in 2022: one Falcon Heavy and 60 Falcon 9. Older environmental regulatory documents show that, in addition to launches from Vandenberg, SpaceX mentioned planning for up to 70 launches each year from its two Florida launch sites when it filed an environmental assessment in February 2020. In January 2022, information became public that SpaceX had intended to increase the pace of launches to 52 during 2022, after launching a record 31 times in 2021. In March 2022, Elon Musk stated that SpaceX was aiming for 60 Falcon launches in 2022. In the event, SpaceX did increase their launch cadence, exceeding the previous yearly record of 31 launches in just the first 29 weeks of 2022. 13 of the Falcon 9 launches were from Vandenberg. SpaceX launched over 633 tonnes this year.Notable launches
First crewed flights
SpaceX held a successful launch of the first commercial orbital human space flight on 30 May 2020, crewed with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken. Both astronauts focused on conducting tests on the Crew Dragon capsule. Crew Dragon successfully returned to Earth, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico on 2 August 2020.Reuse of the first stage
SpaceX has developed a program to reuse the first-stage booster, setting multiple booster reflight records:- B1048 was the first booster to be recovered four times on 11 November 2019, and the first to perform a fifth flight on 18 March 2020, but the booster was lost during re-entry.
- B1049 was the first booster to be recovered five times on 4 June 2020, six times on 18 August 2020, and seven times on 25 November 2020.
- B1051 became the first booster to be recovered eight times on 20 January 2021, nine times on 14 March 2021, and ten times on 9 May 2021, achieving one of SpaceX's milestone goals for reuse. It then became the first booster to be recovered eleven times on 18 December 2021, and twelve times on 19 March 2022.
- B1060 became the first booster to be recovered 13 times on 17 June 2022.
- B1058 became the first booster to be recovered 14 times on 11 September 2022, 15 times on 17 December 2022.
- B1069 launched and returned a hosted box containing two FIFA 2022 World Cup Adidas Al Rihla on 15 October 2022 for a sub-orbital flight, the first payload on a Falcon 9 booster.
- B1061 became the only booster on 30 December 2022 to launch from all SpaceX's different launch sites and on all of SpaceX's different landing zones and drone ships.