China completes 2nd launch in 2020
China today successfully launched a earth resource satellite plus two smallsats using its Long March 2D rocket.
Right now in 2020 only SpaceX and China have completed launches, with China leading 2-1. SpaceX however plans on launching another 60 Starlink smallsats on January 20th, which will tie them again.
I expect both to be neck and neck for the rest of the year.
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
China today successfully launched a earth resource satellite plus two smallsats using its Long March 2D rocket.
Right now in 2020 only SpaceX and China have completed launches, with China leading 2-1. SpaceX however plans on launching another 60 Starlink smallsats on January 20th, which will tie them again.
I expect both to be neck and neck for the rest of the year.
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
You won’t count In flight Abort test as a launch? Or only as a successful failure? Or is that a failed success? Hmm… Rightspeak is hard.
geoffc: For this measure, I only count launches that reach orbit. I thus exclude all failures, and suborbital missions like the launch abort test and New Shepard and Virgin Galactic flights. The goal is to see who is getting objects permanently into space.
Bob, I completely agree with your logic as to what constitutes a successful launch. Buuuuttt….it’s still a pity the in-flight abort test doesn’t count as one, since that would make the time between that flight and the next Starlink launch (scheduled for January 20th) by far the closest back-to-back flights that SpaceX has performed.
Scott M: Don’t worry. They will have plenty of opportunities to set and beat that record, with two orbital launches, in the coming years.