Elon Musk says SpaceX is aiming to launch its most-used rocket once a week on average this year

• Elon Musk said SpaceX will fly one Falcon 9 rocket every week in 2022 if things go to plan.
• He said the rocket will put two thirds of all of Earth's payload into orbit this year.

Elon Musk says SpaceX aims to launch its most-used rocket once every week on average this year.

"If things go well, Falcon will launch about once a week on average in 2022, delivering ~2/3 of all Earth payload to orbit," the billionaire tweeted on Thursday.

The company's 70-meter high Falcon 9 rocket is a reusable launch vehicle which has flown into orbit nearly 140 times in total since it was first built, per SpaceX's website.

His tweet was in response to an Ars Technica reporter who tweeted that SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has flown 111 successful missions in a row, which the reporter said is more than any orbital rocket has done.

Musk's tweet confirms recent reports that his aerospace company was planning to fly 52 rockets into orbit this year, beating its previous record of 31 launches last year.

SpaceX sent 49 of its Starlink satellites into orbit Thursday with the help of a Falcon 9 rocket. It was the company's sixth launch this year and its second launch in February.

SpaceX launched four Falcon 9 rockets in January, between January 6 and 31, meaning it's on track to send one rocket into space every week, on average.

The company's fourth launch of 2022 was delayed four consecutive times because of bad weather and after a Royal Caribbean cruise ship sailed into the hazard area of the launch zone, forcing the mission to abort seconds before takeoff.