They should have been able to make more launches than anyone on the planet.

They even make the Mission statement
“ULA is the nation’s most experienced space launch company with more than 150 consecutive launches and a 100% mission success rate. ULA brings the utmost precision, passion and purpose to one of the most technically complex, critical American needs: affordable, reliable access to space.”

Apparently, I don’t impress easily.

I am impressed that the Falcons are routinely launching more flights than they were designed for, and they are still going strong. It demonstrates that not only is reusability economical but it is easier to do than even SpaceX expected.

This is not as impressive as it may at first seem. ULA is only a couple of decades old.

Can I underline once again that this is a SINGLE ROCKET STAGE we’re talking about?

This is not as impressive as it may at first seem. ULA is only a couple of decades old.
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Richard M wrote: “Shotwell has said that Starlink has now reached an operating profit. Obviously that does not amortize development costs; but if she is right, then Starlink is at least covering the cost of fabrication, launch, and operation of the satellites.”

According to the video’s announcer, Starlink now has more than 1-1/2 million subscribers. This means that Starlink has an annual revenue of around $2 billion.

Yep, Falcon Heavy!

But even setting that aside, hard to see how the remaining six “outside” missions haven’t covered the cost of building B1058 a few times over, and frankly, even the cost of inspection and refurbishment of the stage, even if that runs to a couple million per launch. (I suspect that B1058 probably has had a Merlin engine swapped out once or twice.) SpaceX has maintained a healthy profit margin (probably at least $30 million a launch, by my guess) over cost of even a new Falcon 9 so far, simply because it has no real price point competition. Yet.

[This massive total is mostly built on the back of a bunch of Starlink missions and two Transporter rideshare launches.]

Eric Berger tweets in response: “So I think this single rocket has launched more satellites and astronauts than ULA has in its entire history.”

Of course, not all satellites (or orbits!) are created equal. But even if we throw in all the necessary qualifications, it’s clear that we’ve seen a real achievement with the Falcon 9. And given that SpaceX now cranks out two second stages every week, it is clear that it has reached a point where booster availability is no longer the limiting factor for SpaceX. Instead, it’s pad turnaround time, which we can expect to keep improving (to say nothing of the new lease of a second launch pad at Vandenberg).

P.S. A Twitter account called Reductionist notes another amazing comparison:

“I just realized that in the time in which B1058 has flown 16 times, ULA has flown 17 times (13 Atlas V flights, 4 Delta IV Heavy)

“Just that one booster, basically equaling the flight rate of two major US rocket families. Quite impressive.”

Reuse is real! Woo Hoo! Onwards!

Now imagine what 20+ launches from a Superheavy can achieve!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_first-stage_boosters

Can someone do the math and give me a rough marginal-cost estimate on these 16 launches?

(On thing Musk knows how to do– go to scale, asap.)

Falcon has become the new Delta II…boring

—that’s good.

Besides…all the kids are in bed.