(NEW YORK) — Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, has called “rapidly reusable, reliable rockets” the key to humans becoming a multiplanetary society. And when it comes to his company’s Falcon 9, SpaceX has shown that a rocket can do all those things.

The Falcon 9 has now completed 542 missions, 497 landings and 464 reflights, according to the SpaceX website.

But to reach the Moon and Mars and establish settlements on both, SpaceX will need its larger, more complex and significantly more powerful Starship and its Super Heavy booster to reach Falcon 9’s level of reliability and reusability.

Soon, SpaceX will have the chance to show that Starship’s successful August flight, the first to complete all its primary mission goals, was no fluke.

Barring a delay due to bad weather or mecha

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