SpaceX is starting to move on from the world’s most successful rocket

SpaceX 开始逐步告别其全球最成功的火箭

It is far too soon to mention retirement, but astute observers of the space industry have noticed SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket is not launching as often as it used to. The decline is modest so far, and it does not signal any problem at SpaceX or with the Falcon 9. Rather, it is a manifestation of SpaceX’s eagerness to shift focus to the much larger Starship rocket, an enabler of what the company wants to do in space: missions to land on the Moon and Mars, orbital data centers, and next-gen Starlink.

现在谈论退役还为时过早，但敏锐的航天业观察家们已经注意到，SpaceX 的主力火箭“猎鹰 9 号”（Falcon 9）的发射频率已不如从前。目前的下降幅度尚属温和，这并不意味着 SpaceX 或猎鹰 9 号本身存在任何问题。相反，这体现了 SpaceX 急于将重心转向规模更大的“星舰”（Starship）火箭，因为它是实现公司太空愿景的关键——包括登月和火星任务、轨道数据中心以及下一代星链（Starlink）部署。

Elon Musk’s SpaceX conducted 165 launches with the Falcon 9 rocket (no Falcon Heavy missions) last year, up from 134 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches in 2024 and 96 Falcon flights in 2023. The company plans “maybe 140, 145-ish” Falcon launches in 2026, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told Time earlier this year. “This year we’ll still launch a lot, but not as much,” she said. “And then we’ll tail off our launches as Starship is coming online.”

埃隆·马斯克旗下的 SpaceX 去年利用猎鹰 9 号火箭进行了 165 次发射（不含猎鹰重型火箭任务），高于 2024 年的 134 次（含猎鹰 9 号和猎鹰重型）以及 2023 年的 96 次。SpaceX 总裁格温·肖特韦尔（Gwynne Shotwell）今年早些时候告诉《时代》周刊，公司计划在 2026 年进行“大约 140 到 145 次”猎鹰火箭发射。她说：“今年我们仍会有很多发射，但不会像以前那么多。随着星舰投入使用，我们的发射频率将会逐渐减少。”

Letting off the gas

放慢脚步

We’re beginning to see what the long, slow tail-off will look like. The changes are most apparent at Cape Canaveral, Florida, where SpaceX has launched the lion’s share of its rockets. Until last December, SpaceX launched Falcon 9s with regularity from two pads on Florida’s Space Coast—one at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and another a few miles to the south on military property at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

我们开始看到这种漫长而缓慢的减速过程。这种变化在佛罗里达州的卡纳维拉尔角最为明显，那里承担了 SpaceX 大部分的火箭发射任务。直到去年 12 月，SpaceX 一直在佛罗里达太空海岸的两个发射台定期发射猎鹰 9 号——一个位于 NASA 肯尼迪航天中心，另一个位于向南几英里处的卡纳维拉尔角太空军基地军事区域。

SpaceX is transitioning the site at Kennedy, known as Launch Complex-39A, to launch Starships. LC-39A is out of the rotation for Falcon 9 launches, although it remains available for occasional flights of the more powerful triple-core Falcon Heavy. SpaceX launched the first Falcon Heavy in a year and a half last week from LC-39A, and a handful more Falcon Heavy flights are on tap for later this year.

SpaceX 正在将肯尼迪航天中心的 39A 发射复合体（LC-39A）改造为星舰发射场。LC-39A 已不再用于猎鹰 9 号的常规发射，但仍可用于偶尔执行动力更强的三芯“猎鹰重型”火箭任务。上周，SpaceX 在 LC-39A 完成了一年半以来的首次猎鹰重型火箭发射，今年晚些时候还计划进行几次此类发射。

Activity at SpaceX’s oldest launch site, Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral, is also waning. Last month, SpaceX retired one of its two Florida-based seagoing landing platforms from service for future use as a transporter to ferry Starships and Super Heavy boosters from SpaceX’s factory in South Texas to Florida. SpaceX is constructing a second Starship factory at Kennedy Space Center, but officials want to begin Starship flights from Florida before the factory is operational.

SpaceX 最古老的发射场——卡纳维拉尔角的 40 号发射复合体（SLC-40）的活动也在减少。上个月，SpaceX 将其在佛罗里达的两艘海上着陆平台中的一艘退役，未来将用作运输船，将星舰和超重型助推器从德克萨斯州南部的工厂运往佛罗里达。SpaceX 正在肯尼迪航天中心建设第二个星舰工厂，但官方希望在工厂投入运营前就开始从佛罗里达进行星舰飞行。

“With 39A becoming a primarily Falcon Heavy and Starship pad, we don’t actually need two operational droneships on the East Coast to maintain our Falcon manifest,” wrote Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX’s vice president of launch, in a post on X last month. The other landing vessel in Florida can support a launch and recovery every four days, according to Dontchev, and some Falcon missions can return their boosters to land onshore. But those four-day turnarounds are becoming rare at Cape Canaveral.

SpaceX 发射副总裁基科·东切夫（Kiko Dontchev）上个月在 X 上写道：“随着 39A 成为主要的猎鹰重型和星舰发射台，我们实际上不再需要两艘在役的无人着陆船来维持猎鹰火箭的发射计划。”据东切夫称，佛罗里达剩下的那艘着陆船每四天就能支持一次发射和回收，且部分猎鹰任务可以将助推器返回陆地。但在卡纳维拉尔角，这种四天一次的周转频率正变得越来越少见。

Most SpaceX missions launch satellites for the company’s Starlink broadband constellation. The bulk of SpaceX’s Starlink missions will now depart from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, where Falcon 9s can launch from the same pad as often as every three or four days. For now, the new norm at Cape Canaveral will average about one Falcon 9 launch per week, approximately the same as SpaceX’s launch cadence at the Florida spaceport in 2023.

SpaceX 的大多数任务都是为其星链宽带星座发射卫星。现在，SpaceX 的大部分星链任务将从加利福尼亚州的范登堡太空军基地出发，那里的猎鹰 9 号可以在同一个发射台上每三到四天发射一次。目前，卡纳维拉尔角的新常态将是平均每周一次猎鹰 9 号发射，这与 SpaceX 2023 年在佛罗里达航天港的发射节奏大致相同。

The Falcon 9 is not going away any time soon. The rocket that made SpaceX the world’s most successful space company will remain operational at least as long as the International Space Station. The retirement of the ISS, previously targeted for 2030, is now unlikely to occur before 2032. The Falcon 9 and Dragon capsule are the only US vehicles available to transport crews to and from the station. The Space Force will also rely on the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy into the 2030s.

猎鹰 9 号不会很快消失。这枚让 SpaceX 成为全球最成功航天公司的火箭，至少在国际空间站（ISS）退役前仍将保持运营。国际空间站的退役时间原定于 2030 年，但现在看来不太可能在 2032 年之前发生。猎鹰 9 号和龙飞船是目前美国唯一可用于往返空间站运送宇航员的载具。太空军在 2030 年代也将继续依赖猎鹰 9 号和猎鹰重型火箭。

However, SpaceX will put Starship to work as soon as possible by launching upgraded Starlink Internet satellites. Eventually, SpaceX aims to tap Starship to launch nodes for an orbital data center constellation, a project forged by SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI, another Elon Musk company. NASA and SpaceX will also require an untold number of refueling launches each time Starship lands astronauts on the Moon.

然而，SpaceX 将尽快让星舰投入工作，用于发射升级版的星链互联网卫星。最终，SpaceX 的目标是利用星舰为轨道数据中心星座发射节点，该项目源于 SpaceX 对埃隆·马斯克旗下另一家公司 xAI 的收购。此外，每当星舰将宇航员送上月球时，NASA 和 SpaceX 都需要进行多次加油发射。

All in at Vandenberg

全力投入范登堡

SpaceX is launching more often than ever at Vandenberg, some 140 miles northwest of Los Angeles. More than half of all of SpaceX’s launches so far this year have lifted off from the California spaceport. Last year, it was less than 40 percent, and in 2024, it was one-third. Sources tell Ars this trend is expected to continue this year, putting Vandenberg on pace to become SpaceX’s busiest launch site.

SpaceX 在距离洛杉矶西北约 140 英里的范登堡基地的发射频率比以往任何时候都要高。今年迄今为止，SpaceX 超过一半的发射任务都是从这个加州航天港升空的。去年这一比例不到 40%，而在 2024 年仅为三分之一。消息人士告诉 Ars，这种趋势预计今年将持续下去，使范登堡有望成为 SpaceX 最繁忙的发射场。

It’s a remarkable turnaround for the spaceport on the hillsides of California’s Central Coast. In 2020, Vandenberg hosted just a single space launch. Vandenberg may overtake Florida’s Space Coast—combining NASA- and military-owned launch pads—in launch activity this year, depending on how often other companies like Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance fly their rockets.

对于这个位于加州中部海岸山坡上的航天港来说，这是一个显著的转变。2020 年，范登堡仅进行了一次航天发射。今年，范登堡在发射活动上可能会超过佛罗里达太空海岸（综合计算 NASA 和军方拥有的发射台），具体取决于蓝色起源（Blue Origin）和联合发射联盟（ULA）等其他公司的火箭发射频率。

The last time Vandenberg launched more rockets than Cape Canaveral was in 1987 and 1988, during the grounding of NASA’s Space Shuttle fleet after the Challenger accident. Nearly 180 rockets took off from the Florida and California spaceports last year, including satellite launches and long-range missile tests. While those numbers may plateau or slightly decline this year, the overall trend points upward. How quickly the launch rates rise will largely hinge on when SpaceX’s Starship becomes operational. “We see those rates potentially tripling in the near term, the next five years,” said Col. James Horne, commander of Space Launch Delta 30 at Vandenberg, in a roundtable with reporters.

范登堡上一次发射火箭数量超过卡纳维拉尔角是在 1987 年和 1988 年，当时正值“挑战者号”事故后 NASA 航天飞机机队停飞期间。去年，佛罗里达和加州的航天港共发射了近 180 枚火箭，包括卫星发射和远程导弹测试。虽然这些数字今年可能会趋于平稳或略有下降，但总体趋势是向上的。发射率上升的速度将在很大程度上取决于 SpaceX 的星舰何时投入运营。范登堡第 30 太空发射三角洲部队指挥官詹姆斯·霍恩（James Horne）上校在与记者的圆桌会议上表示：“我们预计在短期内，即未来五年内，这些发射频率可能会增加两倍。”