It’s a ton up for Elon Musk’s SpaceX company as it completes the 100th successful flight of a Falcon rocket. This is since Falcon 1 first flew to orbit in 2008.

Falcon 9 - SpaceXOn Saturday October 24, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched another 60 Starlink satellites to orbit to complete the milestone. The location was Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, in Florida.

A key factor has been the reuse of first stage rocket booster – the Falcon 9’s first stage previously supported the GPS III Space Vehicle 03 mission in June 2020 and a Starlink mission in September 2020.

SpaceX landed Falcon 9’s first stage on the “Just Read the Instructions” droneship, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. The Starlink satellites deployed 1 hour and 3 minutes after liftoff.

The company flagged the 100th flight:

Of its now 100 successful flights of Falcon rockets, SpaceX has landed a Falcon first stage rocket booster 63 times and re-flown boosters 45 times. This year, SpaceX twice accomplished the sixth flight of an orbital rocket booster. And, in the ten years since its demonstration mission, Falcon 9 has become the most-flown operational rocket in the United States, overtaking expendable rockets that have been launching for decades.

The difficulty of precision landing an orbital rocket after it reenters Earth’s atmosphere at hypersonic velocity is not to be overlooked — SpaceX remains the only launch provider in the world capable of accomplishing this task. At 14 stories tall and traveling upwards of 1300 m/s (nearly 1 mi/s), stabilizing Falcon 9’s first stage booster for landing is like trying to balance a rubber broomstick on your hand in the middle of a hurricane. While recovery and re-flight of an orbital rocket booster may now seem routine, developing Falcon such that it would withstand reentry and return for landing was generally accepted as impossible — and SpaceX learned many lessons on the road to reusability.

The company says its flight-proven experience with rockets and spacecraft have informed the development of Starship, its “rapidly reusable super heavy lift transportation system”.

Starship’s capability of full and rapid reuse will lower the cost of spaceflight to help humanity return to the Moon and travel to Mars, says SpaceX.