SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink satellites
Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched another sixty Starlink satellites, bringing the total in orbit to over 800.
The company also recovered the first stage, completing its third flight. The fairings were to be picked up in the ocean, rather than caught in a ship’s net, as the last launch one fairing broke the net. SpaceX engineers might have determined ocean recovery is now safer and sufficient for reuse.
This was also the company’s 100th successful launch and its 63rd successful first stage recovery.
The leaders in the 2020 launch race:
26 China
18 SpaceX
11 Russia
4 ULA
4 Europe (Arianespace)
The U.S. now leads China 28 to 26 in the national rankings.
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Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched another sixty Starlink satellites, bringing the total in orbit to over 800.
The company also recovered the first stage, completing its third flight. The fairings were to be picked up in the ocean, rather than caught in a ship’s net, as the last launch one fairing broke the net. SpaceX engineers might have determined ocean recovery is now safer and sufficient for reuse.
This was also the company’s 100th successful launch and its 63rd successful first stage recovery.
The leaders in the 2020 launch race:
26 China
18 SpaceX
11 Russia
4 ULA
4 Europe (Arianespace)
The U.S. now leads China 28 to 26 in the national rankings.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows 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. 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. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally 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.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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 or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
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.
regarding the upper stage, is it possible for a rocket launch to consist of the 1st stage and its fuel, payload of the mission, then the fuel for an upper stage? The idea being that an orbiting upper stage from a prior launch deorbits enough to come down and match the speed and rendezvous with the just launched rocket, takes on the upper stage fuel + payload of that launch, then proceeds to take the payload up to its final destination.
The savings being both the cost of the upper stage and the weight of the upper stage, that does not have to be launched from Earth time and again.
This article says Falcon 9 upper stages stay in orbit for 2 – 6 months, at which point they disintegrate on reentry.
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/7814/what-happens-to-the-falcon-9-second-stage-after-payload-separation
100 SpaceX Launches– all at once
Khoa Kiro Kun
September 2020
https://youtu.be/P-sjjFtnGEo?t=343
21:06
– 5 Falcon 1
– 92 Falcon 9
– 3 Falcon Heavy
100 Successful Flights
SpaceX, October 24, 2020
https://youtu.be/Q_s_7iTydYU
1:01
45th launch of a “flight-proven” Falcon 9.
Steve Richter,
Have you been watching the SpaceX Super-Heavy development? Both stages will (I typed “are” at first, correction with “will be”) be re-usable. The disposable upper stage will be a thing of the past.
I see the SpaceX Engineer’s accomplishments are beautiful and dare I say that the Super-Heavy will be a piece of art in my eyes.
“… Both stages will (I typed “are” at first, correction with “will be”) be re-usable. …”
cool. good to know.