SpaceX launches another 23 Starlink satellites
SpaceX today successfully launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its third flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
48 SpaceX
19 China
6 Russia
5 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 55 to 31. SpaceX by itself now leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 48 to 38.
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Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
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SpaceX today successfully launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its third flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
48 SpaceX
19 China
6 Russia
5 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 55 to 31. SpaceX by itself now leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 48 to 38.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
120 is within reach at this pace
Bob When you do your annual totals it would be interesting to know Starlink vs Non-Starlink lunches
I think 15 Falcon 9s so far have been non-Starlink. So something like 34 Starlinks so far this year?
Col Beausabre0,
By my calculation, SpaceX is launching an average of 2.6 times per week, so far this year. At that rate, without an increase in cadence, that could be 136 launches this year. My calculation is that the Company would have to launch at a cadence of 3 per week for the rest of the year in order to reach 150 orbital launches this year.
Col Beausabre0
May 8, 2024 at 2:58 pm
120 is within reach at this pace
This pace gets to 135 actually. 120 would be 10 per month average.
All: Remember, the 150 target goal included 6 Starship/Superheavy launches.