Final answer:
CuJoe had 3 successful rocket launches before the two successful launches on Saturday, making a total of 5 successful launches to reach his goal.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student's question pertains to calculating the number of successful launches CuJoe had before Saturday when he reached a total of 5 successful launches. To determine this, we need to subtract the number of successful launches he had on Saturday from his total goal. CuJoe launched his model rocket successfully twice on Saturday.
If his goal was 5 successful launches and he achieved this after Saturday's two successful launches, we calculate as follows:
5 (total successful launches) - 2 (successful launches on Saturday) = 3 (successful launches before Saturday).
Therefore, CuJoe had launched his rocket successfully 3 times before Saturday.