SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites
SpaceX this morning successfully placed another 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The first stage completed its 21st flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
136 SpaceX
63 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 136 to 104.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
SpaceX this morning successfully placed another 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The first stage completed its 21st flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
136 SpaceX
63 China
13 Russia
13 Rocket Lab
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 136 to 104.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
Funny if they’ve put all the Starlink sats into space before Starship becomes operational!
AO1,
Falcon 9 can’t launch the V3 Starlink sats, though. They are too big to fit in the F9 fairing.
And that matters because the V3s are far more capable than the V2 versions being launched now. As SpaceX’s tweet the other day put it: “The larger V3 @Starlink satellites that will deploy from Starship will bring gigabit connectivity to users and are designed to add 60 Tera-bits-per-second of downlink capacity to the Starlink network. That’s more than 20 times the capacity added with every V2 Mini launch on Falcon 9.”
The sooner Starship can become operational, the better for SpaceX.
Hmm . . .
I’ve been visiting Behind The Black for some time now, and I have yet to see Mr. Duffy’s NASA on the list. On the other hand, I’ve seen SpaceX at the top of the list just about every time I have looked, with possible exceptions to times early in each year when just a few launches have been conducted.
You would think that some grace would be granted to SpaceX regarding Artemis, given its history, and Blue Origin’s own history which is far less remarkable.
Go ahead and rebid. It should be illuminating whether anyone else at all can realistically claim the capability. A rebid with all others much higher and further down the road is either an eye opener or a diagnosis of willing ful blindness. Though if I’m wrong, then a rebid would make sense.
Hopefully some moron doesn’t fall for the cost plus gets it done fallacy.