'How Time Flies:' Elon Musk Trolls ULA Over Old Doubts On SpaceX's Reusable Rockets As Falcon 9 Racks Up Wins

Elon Musk threw shade at a SpaceX rival as the reusable Falcon 9 rocket hit new milestones earlier this week.

The billionaire CEO was reacting to a post from a decade ago by SpaceX’s rival, United Launch Alliance, which had questioned the viability of reusable rockets.

ULA, a joint venture between aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin, shared a graphic on Sept. 29, 2015, that demonstrated how its SMART plan, which intended to separate only the engine section of the Vulcan rocket, offered more economic benefits than reusable boosters.

“How time flies,” Musk quipped after having a laugh over the post on X.

This week has been an eventful one for the space industry giant. While its largely successful launch of the 10th Starship mission drew attention, its key Falcon 9 rocket achieved several enviable milestones this week.

On Wednesday morning, a SpaceX rocket took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, for a routine deployment of Starlink satellites. Booster 1096, which sent the satellites towards Earth’s lower orbit, performed its second launch and successfully landed on the Just Read the Instructions drone ship. This launch marked the astonishing 400th drone ship landing, executed by SpaceX.

On the very next day, another Falcon 9 rocket launched from the Kennedy Space Center with 28 Starlink satellites. This first stage, Booster 1067, also performed a drone ship landing.

The booster had first taken off in June 2021, and on Thursday, it made its 30th flight, marking the first time a Falcon 9 rocket had reached this impressive milestone. Its missions include two flights to the International Space Station with the Crew Dragon vehicle for NASA.

In comparison, ULA’s Vulcan Rocket had lagged. By the time it flew its second Vulcan mission this year in June, SpaceX had already launched 73 times. The SMART initiative has not yet been implemented.

Retail sentiment on Stocktwits about Rocket Lab, which has its own partially reusable launch vehicles, was in the ‘bullish’ territory at the time of writing.

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