Elon Musk Adjusts Forecast On SpaceX's Share Of All Mass To Orbit: 'If The Rest Of The Year Goes Well...'

Elon Musk on Tuesday said that his rocket manufacturing company SpaceX will launch close to 90% of all mass to orbit by the end of the year, trumping the competition by a huge margin.

What Happened: “If the rest of the year goes well, SpaceX will launch close to 90% of all mass to orbit. China will be ~6% and rest of world ~4%,” Musk wrote on social media platform X.

The new outlook provided by the billionaire is slightly lower than his previous forecast. In May, Musk said that SpaceX “might exceed 90% of all Earth payload to orbit” this year.

The downgrade is possibly due to the two-week pause in SpaceX’s launch operations in July following a mishap that occurred during a Starlink mission launched on July 11.

In August, a Falcon 9 booster that supported a Starlink mission failed to land upright on a droneship at sea upon returning to Earth and exploded.

Why It Matters: According to a report from analytics firm Bryce Tech, SpaceX launched about 429,125 kgs of spacecraft upmass in Q1, seconded by China's China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) which launched just 29,426 kgs. SpaceX accounted for roughly 87% of all mass to orbit in the quarter.

SpaceX completed 67 missions using its Falcon launch vehicles as of the end of the second quarter, with its Falcon 9 workhorse alone accounting for 66 launches and Starlink missions accounting for a major chunk of it.  

SpaceX is looking to launch 144 times through the end of the year. For the entirety of last year, SpaceX only completed 96 launches, not including two test flights of the company's Starship launch vehicle.

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Photo courtesy: SpaceX