Musk's SpaceX targeting to launch 52 missions this year, says report

Elon Musk-owned private rocket company SpaceX plans to launch 52 missions in 2022, a NASA safety panel revealed.

According to CNBC, during a meeting of a key NASA agency oversight committee panel member Sandra Magnus said that the private company is targeting "an ambitious 52 launch manifest" for 2022.

"NASA and SpaceX will have to be watchful during 2022 that they're not victims of their success," Magnus said during the meeting.

"There's an ambitious 52-launch manifest for SpaceX over the course of the year. And that's an incredible pace."

SpaceX successfully completed 31 launches in 2021, which beat its previous record of 26 in 2020.

Musk said the company was striving to hit 48 launches in 2021 but only made it to 31.

In addition, there are now 1,469 Starlink satellites active, with 272 moving to operational orbits currently.

In July 2021, Musk said that laser links in orbit can reduce long-distance latency by as much as 50 per cent, due to the higher speed of light in vacuum and shorter path than undersea fiber.

A recent report said that the satellite internet division of SpaceX now has more than 1,45,000 users across 25 countries globally.

Until November 2021, SpaceX had added roughly 11,000 users per month since beginning service in October 2020.

--IANS

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