No slowdown in Falcon 9 Starlink launches in 2025
It remains an open question when SpaceX will introduce Starship and the Super Heavy booster for satellite launches, but the company’s production rate for the Falcon 9 suggests the 14-year-old rocket will stay as SpaceX’s workhorse vehicle throughout at least 2025.
Elon Musk, in a conversation with Tim Dodd (aka The Everyday Astronaut), estimated the company will produce “almost 200” Falcon 9 upper stages this year and “probably over 200” next year. Furthermore, while Starship/Super Heavy will keep doing test flights in 2024, it won’t carry satellites or crews. Per Musk: “The payload for all the flights this year is data."
Musk’s statements align with our Quilty Space financial model on Starlink, which projects Falcon 9 will continue to perform the majority of launches for the megaconstellation in the first half of 2025. However, the higher number of upper stages slated for production suggests the Falcon 9 will stay in focus for longer – perhaps all of 2025 – while SpaceX continues to iterate on Starship.
Quilty Space continues to expect the first Starship launch carrying Starlink satellites to occur in 2025, concomitant with the introduction of the V3 satellites. Musk said the goal of Starship lofting 100 metric tons to LEO (vs 40-50 tons today) will now come from the Gen-2 version of the rocket.
No timeline has been given for the Gen-2, which will be about 20 meters longer than the current iteration and feature hundreds, if not thousands, of improvements. How long it takes to stabilize that vehicle for production will influence how rapidly (or not) SpaceX can scale up the V3 Starlink constellation. With a width of 7 meters, the V3 is too big to fit under the Falcon 9’s 5.2-meter-diameter fairing and may still continue to grow in size as engineers tweak the design while awaiting their ride to orbit. Starship, with a 9-meter fairing has plenty of room for growth. For now, SpaceX’s biggest challenge with Starship is ensuring the vehicle can reliably survive the heat from reentry.
SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFqjoCbZ4ik