Good morning, friends. It’s your Space Coast correspondent James Sparvero excited to report that another record for rocket launches has been broken in spectacular fashion.
Saturday’s historic Falcon 9 liftoff set another unprecedented milestone for the Space Coast — 73 launches in 2024 and counting.
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With the annual record falling days before Halloween, there’s still a full two months before the final tally will be recorded.
At the end of last year, we heard that 100 launches would be the goal in 2024 (that will probably prove to be a little too ambitious thanks to a few brief pauses due to mishaps and the hurricane), but I will still be very impressed if we’re in the 80s or even 90 by New Year’s Day.
For comparison, my first year at Channel 6 was just eight years ago in 2016 and there were only 18 launches, not even two a month! The following year was the first time SpaceX flew a rocket booster for the second time and the rest, as they say, was history.
Rocket reusability has revolutionized the launch pace with 30 launches in 2020, 31 in 2021, 57 in 2022, and 72 in 2023.
I’ll also repeat what I wrote to you last week to make my point - only five launches this year have not been from SpaceX.
And maybe 100 isn’t meant to be in 2024, but don’t be surprised if we’re counting to triple digits next year.
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👋 Here’s a little bit more about me.
Little did I know when watching Apollo 13 in the third grade that 20 years later, I was destined for a thrilling career as your Space Coast multimedia journalist.
Chemistry and biology weren’t so interesting to me in high school science, but I loved my Earth and Space class (Thanks, Mr. Lang).
Then in 2016, I traded Capitol correspondent in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for space correspondent. I’m proud that my first live report at News 6 happened to be the first time SpaceX landed a Falcon 9 booster on a barge. What seems so routine now was a really big deal that day in our newsroom!
From there, I’ve covered the Commercial Crew program and the return of human spaceflight to Kennedy Space Center (Demo-2 launched on my 33rd birthday!)
Now, as our coverage looks forward to missions to the moon and Mars, I often tell others I have the best job in local news. Because after all I’ve seen so far, I think I would be bored working somewhere else. I even bought a house near the Cape with a great view to the north so I never miss a launch even when I’m not working.
After eight years on the beat, though, I still consider myself a young space reporter and I always look forward to learning something new with every assignment.
Have a great launch into the rest of your week!