Table of Contents
Elon Musk believes SpaceX could be launching its massive Starship rocket far more often than anyone is used to seeing.
In a brief exchange on X this week, the SpaceX founder said the company’s next-generation spacecraft could take off as frequently as once every hour within the next three years. The remark came as users discussed SpaceX’s increasingly busy launch calendar for 2026.
So far this year, SpaceX has kept up a steady rhythm with its reliable Falcon 9 rocket. Seven Falcon 9 missions are scheduled from California and Florida before the end of February alone, with launches taking place from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg. The pace already outstrips many competitors in the commercial space industry.
Musk, however, suggested that what looks busy today may soon seem tame.
“Things will get really nutty,” he wrote, pointing to a future where Starship lifts off every hour.
The comment was short, but it underscored a bigger ambition. For Musk, frequency is the goal. Starship is not just another rocket in SpaceX’s lineup. It is designed to fundamentally change how often payloads can be sent into orbit and how much can be carried at a time.
Starship is built as a fully reusable heavy-lift vehicle capable of transporting up to 200 tonnes per flight. If it were to fly hourly, as Musk predicts, the system could move millions of tonnes of cargo into orbit each year. That kind of capacity would open the door to sprawling satellite networks, deep space missions and even the possibility of space-based data infrastructure.
The push for higher launch frequency also ties into recent corporate moves. Following the merger of SpaceX and Musk’s artificial intelligence venture xAI, he pointed to satellite deployment as a key driver of Starship’s rapid development. Placing large numbers of satellites into orbit would require rockets that can fly often, turn around quickly and operate with airline-like regularity.
For now, Starship remains in testing. The spacecraft has completed several high-profile test flights, each bringing incremental improvements while also highlighting technical challenges that come with building the largest rocket ever developed.
Meanwhile, Falcon 9 continues to shoulder most of SpaceX’s commercial and government missions. Its reusable first stage has already reshaped the economics of spaceflight, landing and flying again with routine precision.
Starship, if Musk’s timeline holds, is meant to push that model even further. Hourly launches would mark a dramatic shift in the tempo of space operations, turning what is still a headline-grabbing event into something closer to a daily occurrence.
Whether SpaceX can reach that level within three years remains to be seen. But Musk’s message was clear. The company is thinking beyond dozens of launches a year. It is aiming for hundreds, even thousands, in a future where access to orbit is no longer rare but routine.
