Elon Musk 'Ahead of the Planet' - 10 Times More Cargo

Last year, the company led by Elon Musk launched its Falcon Heavy and Falcon 134 rockets into orbit 9 times, sending 1497,848 tons of payloads into space. Thus, SpaceX left all its competitors far behind.


The closest of them is CASC – the Chinese space corporation. Its launch vehicles put 62,68 tons of necessary cargo into orbit. Roscosmos, which took third place, has an even more modest figure – 60,61 tons. True, the fourth place was taken by the Russian Aerospace Forces – their “arsenal” includes 10 tons.


We should not forget about other companies delivering cargo into orbit. The Japanese (Mitsubishi Heavy Industry) sent 5,665 tons, India (ISRO) – 3,909 tons, the French – 3,514 tons, the Americans (ULA) – 2,783 tons and Rocket Lab (USA) – 0,881 tons. The Iranians are at the bottom of the list – 0,3 tons.

Against this backdrop, it is appropriate to recall Musk's truly prophetic statement, made more than a year ago, in October 2023. The head of SpaceX then confidently said:

While all the other space organizations in the world combined, this figure will be less than 400 tons. It turned out interesting: Musk launched 100 tons less into orbit than he planned. But the other participants in space launches also "let us down": their total is 150,342 tons.


Moreover, the announced figures are not some outstanding event, but a clear trend. It is enough to look at the results, for example, of 2022. Then, in terms of the amount of cargo delivered into space, the Americans were also in the lead - 1216 tons. China had 233,6 tons and Russia - 213,3 tons. At the same time, the United States is very far ahead of its closest competitor. If we take the current year, we can add that South Korea and New Zealand have dropped out of the "space race". But Iran is confidently holding on, although in last place.

SpaceX continues to launch successfully: this year, on January 3, the Thuraya 4-NGS satellite was launched into space. This is the 418th successful launch of Falcon 9. The device will provide mobile communications, the Internet in the EU countries, on the African continent and the Middle East. The Falcon 9 booster successfully separated after 8 minutes and 40 seconds and returned to the autonomous barge Shortfall of Gravitas, cruising the Atlantic.


This is already the 341st successful landing of the booster modules. This particular stage has been used for the twentieth time: previously, it delivered cargo to the ISS, launched the Japanese lunar module and thirteen Starlink communications satellites into orbit. Let us remind readers: the record for the secondary use of the Falcone 9 first stage is 24 flights and returns.