Enlarge / One of the most historic rockets in SpaceX's fleet toppled over Christmas Day on the return tip to Cape Canaveral, Florida, following its previous mission. (credit: LabPadre )

The Falcon 9 rocket that launched NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on SpaceX's first crew mission in 2020 launched and landed for the 19th and final time just before Christmas, then tipped over on its recovery ship during the trip back to Cape Canaveral, Florida.

This particular booster, known by the tail number B1058, was special among SpaceX's fleet of reusable rockets. It was the fleet leader, having tallied 19 missions over the course of more than three-and-a-half years. More importantly, it was the rocket that thundered into space on May 30, 2020 , on a flight that made history on several counts.

It was the first time a commercial rocket and spacecraft launched people into orbit, and ended a nine-year gap in America's ability to send astronauts into orbit from US soil, following the retirement of the space shuttle. This mission, known as Demo-2 and launched by SpaceX under contract with NASA, ended US reliance on Russian rockets to send crews to the International Space Station.

Enlarge / SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off Thursday night from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (credit: SpaceX )

It seems like SpaceX did everything this year but launch 100 times.

On Thursday night, the launch company sent two more rockets into orbit from Florida. One was a Falcon Heavy, the world's most powerful rocket in commercial service, carrying the US military's X-37B spaceplane from a launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 8:07 pm EST (01:07 UTC). Less than three hours later, at 11:01 pm EST (04:01 UTC), SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 launcher took off a few miles to the south with a payload of 23 Starlink Internet satellites.

The Falcon Heavy's two side boosters and the Falcon 9's first stage landed back on Earth for reuse.

Enlarge / A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a reused booster stage and payload fairing is seen rolling out to its launch pad in Florida before a mission last month. (credit: SpaceX )

Amazon announced Friday that it has purchased three Falcon 9 rocket launches from SpaceX beginning in mid-2025 to help deploy the retail giant's network of Kuiper Internet satellites.

In a statement, Amazon said the SpaceX launches will provide "additional capacity" to "supplement existing launch contracts to support Project Kuiper’s satellite deployment schedule." SpaceX has its own broadband satellite fleet, with more than 5,100 Starlink spacecraft currently in orbit, making it a competitor with Amazon.

Last year, Amazon bought up most of the Western world's excess launch capacity from everyone but SpaceX, securing 68 rocket flights from United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, and Blue Origin to deploy thousands of satellites for the Kuiper broadband network. Amazon previously contracted with ULA for nine Atlas V launches to support the initial series of Kuiper launches, the first of which lifted off in October with Amazon's first two Kuiper prototype satellites. More Atlas Vs will start launching operational Kuiper satellites next year.

Welcome to Edition 6.19 of the Rocket Report! While we wait for SpaceX to launch the second full-scale test flight of Starship, a lot of the news this week involved companies with much smaller rockets. Astra is struggling to find enough funding to remain in business, and Virgin Galactic says it will fly its suborbital Unity spaceplane for the last time next year to focus on construction of new Delta-class ships that should be easier to turn around between flights. It's a tough time to raise money, and more space companies will face difficult decisions to stay alive in the months ahead.

As always, we welcome reader submissions , and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Virgin Galactic plans "pause" in flight operations. Virgin Galactic will reduce the frequency of flights of its current suborbital vehicle and stop them entirely by mid-2024 as it concentrates resources on the next generation of vehicles, Space News reports . This was unexpected news for anyone outside of the company. As Ars has previously reported , Virgin Galactic has ramped up the flight rate for its VSS Unity suborbital spaceplane to about one mission per month, a rather impressive cadence, especially when Blue Origin, the other player in the suborbital human spaceflight market, has not flown any people to space in more than a year.

Enlarge / A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Friday night. (credit: SpaceX)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida—In three-and-a-half years of service, one of SpaceX's reusable Falcon 9 boosters stands apart from the rest of the company's rocket inventory. This booster, designated with the serial number B1058, has now flown 18 times. For its maiden launch on May 30, 2020, the rocket propelled NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken into the history books on SpaceX's first mission to send people into orbit.

This ended a nine-year gap in America's capability to launch astronauts into low-Earth orbit and was the first time a commercial spacecraft achieved this feat. At that time, the rocket was fresh from SpaceX's factory in Southern California, glistening white in color, with a bright red NASA "worm" logo emblazoned on the side.

Over the course of its flights to space and back, that white paint has darkened to a charcoal color. Soot from the rocket's exhaust has accumulated, bit by bit, on the 15-story-tall cylinder-shaped booster. The red NASA worm logo is now barely visible.

Enlarge / A Long March 2F rocket climbed into space Thursday with a three-man crew heading for China's Tiangong space station. (credit: Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images )

Welcome to Edition 6.17 of the Rocket Report! Two Asian powers notched achievements in their human spaceflight programs this week. In China, three astronauts launched to begin a six-month expedition on the Tiangong space station. With this mission, China is settling into a routine of operations on the Tiangong complex. Elsewhere in Asia, India took strides toward launching its own astronauts with a successful test of a launch abort system for the country's Gaganyaan spacecraft, which could fly people into low-Earth orbit in 2025. This is welcome news for US officials because India could help offer a counterweight to China's dominance (among Asian countries) in spaceflight.

As always, we welcome reader submissions , and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

India tests escape system for human-rated crew capsule. India aced the first in-flight test of the crew escape system for the country's Gaganyaan spacecraft Saturday, Ars reports . With this flight, India tested the set of rocket motors and parachutes that would propel the spacecraft away from a failing launch vehicle, a dramatic maneuver that would save the lives of everyone on board. An unpressurized version of the Gaganyaan capsule launched, without anyone aboard, on top of a single-stage liquid-fueled rocket. About a minute later, soon after the rocket surpassed the speed of sound, the vehicle triggered the abort maneuver, and the capsule separated from the booster to parachute into the sea. By all accounts, Indian officials were thrilled with the outcome of the test flight.

Enlarge / A Falcon 9 rocket climbs into orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with 22 Starlink satellites Tuesday night in this long-exposure photo. (credit: SpaceX )

Earlier this week, SpaceX launched for the 75th time this year, continuing a flight cadence that should see the company come close to 100 missions by the end of December.

SpaceX plans to kick its launch rate into a higher gear in 2024. This will be largely driven by launches of upgraded Starlink satellites with the ability to connect directly with consumer cell phones , a service SpaceX calls "Starlink Direct to Cell," a company official told Ars this week.

The goal next year is 12 launches per month, for a total of 144 Falcon rocket flights. Like this year, most of those missions will be primarily devoted to launching Starlink broadband satellites. So far in 2023, more than 60 percent of SpaceX's launches have delivered the company's own Starlink satellites into orbit.

Enlarge / SpaceX said this week that Starship is stacked and ready to fly its second test flight. (credit: SpaceX)

In a remarkably frank discussion this week, several senior SpaceX officials spoke with Ars Technica on background about how working with the Federal Aviation Administration has slowed down the company's progress not just on development of the Starship program, but on innovations with the Falcon 9 and Dragon programs as well.

The SpaceX officials said they want to be clear that the FAA is doing a reasonably good job with the resources it has, and that everyone supports the mission of safe spaceflight. However, they said, the FAA needs significantly more people working in its licensing department and should be encouraged to prioritize missions of national importance.

In recent months, according to SpaceX, its programs have had to compete with one another for reviews at the FAA. This has significantly slowed down the Starship program and put development of a Human Landing System for NASA's Artemis program at risk. Inefficient regulation, the officials said, is decreasing American competitiveness as space programs in China and elsewhere around the world rise.

Enlarge / Starlink 6-17 launches from Florida on Tuesday night. (credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX launched its 67th rocket of the year on Tuesday night, a staggering total for the company and its workhorse booster, the Falcon 9. At this pace, a clip of one launch every four days, the company is likely to launch 90 or more rockets during this calendar year.

This Starlink satellite launch was notable for a couple of other reasons. It marked the first time SpaceX has reused a Falcon 9 first stage 17 times. This booster, serial number 1058, had previously flown 11 previous Starlink missions along with GPS III-3, Turksat 5A, Transporter-2, Intelsat G-33/G-34, and Transporter-6.

SpaceX performed a fairly significant assessment of booster wear and tear after its first Falcon 9 stages reached 15 flights, and the company's engineers now believe the rockets can achieve at least 20 flights. Remarkably, SpaceX has been able to push the limits of booster reuse while maintaining a 100 percent record of success across the Falcon 9 rocket's last 228 launches, dating to a pad explosion in September 2016.