SpaceX launches 23 more Starlink satellites with 1st stage on record-setting 20th flight
The bunny flies again! SpaceX tonight successfully launched 23 more Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its 20th flight, a new record for a Falcon 9 first stage, landing successfully on a droneship in the Atlantic. At this moment SpaceX is beginning to collect a fleet of Falcon 9 first stage boosters that have flown almost as much as NASA’s space shuttle fleet, which flew as follows:
Discovery 39 flights
Atlantis 33 flights
Columbia: 28 flights
Endeavour 25 flights
Challenger: 10 flights
At present SpaceX has one booster with 20 flights, and two with 19, and I think one with 18. It will take a lot more launches to catch up, but it certainly appears possible for at least a few of these Falcon 9 stages to exceed the shuttle numbers.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
39 SpaceX
14 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined 45 to 26, while SpaceX by itself now leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 39 to 32.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The bunny flies again! SpaceX tonight successfully launched 23 more Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its 20th flight, a new record for a Falcon 9 first stage, landing successfully on a droneship in the Atlantic. At this moment SpaceX is beginning to collect a fleet of Falcon 9 first stage boosters that have flown almost as much as NASA’s space shuttle fleet, which flew as follows:
Discovery 39 flights
Atlantis 33 flights
Columbia: 28 flights
Endeavour 25 flights
Challenger: 10 flights
At present SpaceX has one booster with 20 flights, and two with 19, and I think one with 18. It will take a lot more launches to catch up, but it certainly appears possible for at least a few of these Falcon 9 stages to exceed the shuttle numbers.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
39 SpaceX
14 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined 45 to 26, while SpaceX by itself now leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 39 to 32.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Minor spell check typo. It is Discovery. I can’t wait for a F9 to exceed Discovery’s flight record. I wonder how many engine swaps are needed and which ones since the inner 3 have the most flight time and relights.
Does SpaceX routinely use up older cores in expendable launches? That was never done with the shuttle.
cloudy: In the past two-plus years, SpaceX has used up very very few boosters as expendables. Very few, maybe two (?) at most.
Ones with earlier Merlins they kinda wanted to get rid of.
For years I heard that coking issues would limit kerolox reusability.
That myth died.