Elon Musk says SpaceX's Falcon rocket is aiming for 60 launches in 2022, doubling the number of flights made last year

• SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says the Falcon team is eyeing 60 launches in 2022.
• Last year, the company completed 31 flights, which was a record high.

This year marks SpaceX's 20th anniversary, and CEO Elon Musk has some ambitious targets for its Falcon program.

"Aiming for 60 launches this year!" he said in a tweet on Monday.

The SpaceX Falcon is a reusable rocket system that is capable of launching crews and equipment into space, such as shuttles to the International Space Station or deploying satellites into orbit.

The new goal roughly doubles the number of successful launches for the California company, which made a record high 31 flights in 2021. One Falcon 9 rocket was even reused 11 times.

Even so, Musk is known for making overly ambitious predictions, and the number of flights in 2021 came up well short of Musk's stated goal of 48 flights for the year, suggesting that the actual number this year could be less than 60.

Musk also said that SpaceX aims to have 4,200 Starlink satellites in operation in the next 18 months, a number that would represent two thirds of all active satellites orbiting Earth. Currently there are about 2,000 Starlink satellites in service.

Notably, SpaceX designs and manufactures its own rocket engines, unlike firms like Boeing or Lockheed that rely on the Russian RD-180 engine. "Which I should say, to be fair, is a great engine," Musk told Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner.

When one user joked, "What about 69 launches?" Musk replied "Haha that's next year."

"Maybe this year isn't out of the question," he quickly added.