SpaceX is having a very, very good year... so far

SpaceX is having a pretty great year. 

It's only June and the Elon Musk-founded company has already launched nine missions to orbit, exceeding their previous annual launch total of eight. (Not to mention the fact that two of those launches occurred within 48 hours of one another last weekend.)

SpaceX is also consistently landing Falcon 9 rocket stages back on Earth after lofting those missions, an extraordinary feat considering that the company hadn't successfully landed a booster back on Earth at all until December 2015. 

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"Two years ago, they hadn't landed any rockets, and in one weekend, they landed two rockets, and one was already reused," Phil Larson, a former SpaceX employee, said in an interview. Larson is currently an assistant dean at the University of Colorado at Boulder. 

"So what's exciting about SpaceX and really the potential of the commercial space industry writ large is the acceleration of innovation in rockets and spacecraft which we hadn't had in decades, so now we're starting to see that come to fruition," he said.

Musk and others working for SpaceX have long said that their ultimate goal is to make private spaceflight — including rocket landings, launches, reused spacecraft, etc. — feel routine to the general population. 

This year is starting to prove out that idea more and more.

We're beginning to lose track of how many rocket landings SpaceX has successfully performed (it's 13, by the way, but we had to count). 

The company's launch cadence is something to behold as well, considering the fact that SpaceX is known for delaying launches for weeks at a time with little-to-no notice. 

All in all, this paints a picture of a private spaceflight company on the upswing after a rocky 2016. 

On September 1, 2016, a Falcon 9 rocket blew up on a pad just before what should have been a routine engine test, setting SpaceX back months as it investigated the root cause of the explosion and attempted to recover. 

The company came back in force at the start of 2017, however. 

A great year so far

SpaceX returned to flight with a Falcon 9 launch in January, and since then, it has kept up its pace without much sign of slowing down. By the end of the year, the company could rack up more than a dozen Falcon 9 launches, assuming all goes well for the next six months.

"So nine itself is not blowing out their previous record. However, the significance comes from the fact that it's only June, so they have time to pass their previous record by a wide margin," space industry analyst Bill Ostrove said via email. 

Image: spacex

"Another factor in SpaceX's favor is the fact that they successfully conducted three launches in June. If they can continue launching two to three satellites per month they could pass their old record by a wide margin."

This cadence would put them on par (or beyond) United Launch Alliance — a Boeing and Lockheed Martin venture — which launches about 12 to 15 times per year.

That said, all of SpaceX's eight launches last year took off before August, meaning that a significant failure this year could hamper the company's progress and put their seemingly bright future in question, Ostrove said. 

So far this year, SpaceX has been incredibly lucky in being able to launch rockets at a high clip without any major issues or major delays. 

In the long term, it's important that SpaceX continue its high launch rate in order to keep up with an ever-growing manifest. 

"If SpaceX is unable to keep up a rapid launch rate, they will not be able to reduce the size of their manifest and companies will turn to other launch providers," Ostrove added. 

A launch failure would be especially bad for the company because that could force customers to start questioning whether SpaceX can actually execute on their ambitious goals. 

Rocket launches are really an all-or-nothing game

SpaceX's next big test will come when it attempts its first launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket, the company's largest and most powerful launcher to date. 

The Falcon Heavy should see its first flight in the next couple months, if current plans hold, and SpaceX has already released some promising videos of the huge rocket's engine tests.

That said, the Falcon Heavy is one of the reasons SpaceX gained its reputation as a launch provider that always delays its launches. The company has been pushing off its first Falcon Heavy launch for years in development, but it actually looks like we're closer than ever to seeing one of those huge launchers fly for the first time.

Eventually, SpaceX wants to use the Falcon Heavy to send robotic payloads and even people deeper into space than they ever have before. 

Musk's company has plans to send two people on a trip around the moon and back home in 2018, with a robotic Mars mission planned for 2020. 

Of course, SpaceX hasn't yet proved that it can actually launch people to space, but that could change in the near future. 

The company is under contract with NASA to fly astronauts to the International Space Station starting in the next couple years, however those flights could be delayed depending on funding levels and technical issues.

For now, SpaceX will likely keep doing what it does best: launching rockets and bringing them back home.

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