Landing 300 rockets means SpaceX has preserved 2,700 Merlin rocket engines. In round numbers, the dry mass of a Falcon 9 first stage is about 50 metric tons, so the landing of all these rockets has prevented 15,000 metric tons of metal and other materials from being dumped into the oceans—the equivalent, in mass, of about 100 residential homes.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
On Tuesday evening, SpaceX launched its 42nd rocket of the year, carrying yet another passel of Starlink satellites into orbit.
This happened with the ORBCOMM-2 mission on December 22, 2015, when the first-stage booster returned to a pad near the launch site.
In round numbers, the dry mass of a Falcon 9 first stage is about 50 metric tons, so the landing of all these rockets has prevented 15,000 metric tons of metal and other materials from being dumped into the oceans—the equivalent, in mass, of about 100 residential homes.
Although the Russian space program repeatedly talks about replacing the Soyuz with a newer line of rockets, such boosters remain firmly on the drawing board.
At some point in the next year or two, SpaceX’s significantly larger Starship rocket will begin launching Starlink satellites.
That will remove some of the demand from the Falcon 9, although the smaller booster is likely to continue flying for the foreseeable future, likely through the 2030s at least.
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