SpaceX's successful Friday launch opens weekend doubleheader

San Francisco

THE year's not half over, and Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp is about to launch more missions than it completed in all of 2016.

SpaceX successfully fired up a Falcon 9 rocket for the eighth time this year on Friday, matching its flight total for all of last year. Its next launch was scheduled for late Sunday, with the ramped-up cadence putting the company on track to achieve the 20 to 24 total missions it's targeting for the year.

The quickening pace of launches illustrates how SpaceX has bounced back after one of its rockets and a customer's satellite blew up on a Florida launch pad in September. The company was grounded for four months in the midst of an investigation into the incident before returning to flight in January. By racking up more successful launches, the closely held company has positioned itself again as a dri…