SpaceX’s record-breaking streak of successful launches and landings ended during the third quarter of 2024, having suffered a failure during launch with Falcon 9’s second stage and a Falcon 9 first stage landing failure. More recently, a third issue arose during the disposal of a Falcon 9 second stage after it had successfully completed its mission.
Despite this, the company was able to carry out missions like Polaris Dawn, its riskiest human spaceflight mission to date, which broke several records and achieved some firsts for SpaceX and worldwide as well. During this period of time, SpaceX’s Starlink also saw the 7,000th satellite launched into orbit and passed four million users worldwide.
The third quarter was also marked by SpaceX’s preparations for Starship’s fifth flight which has been delayed multiple times due to regulatory approval. The company has also built up a second Starship launch tower at the company’s launch site in Starbase, Texas.