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SpaceX launches another 60 Starlink satellites

9:10 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX early this morning successfully launched another 60 Starlink satellites into orbit using its Falcon 9 rocket.

The company also successfully used a first stage for a record ninth time, landing it on its drone ship in the Atlantic. The booster did all nine flights in just over two years.

The 2021 launch race:

8 SpaceX
6 China
3 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Virgin Orbit
1 Northrop Grumman
1 India

The U.S. now leads China 11 to 6 in the national rankings.

Genesis cover

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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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

10 comments

10 comments

  • Patrick Underwood
    March 14, 2021 at 10:41 am

    I read on NSF that this first stage, 1051, has now lifted more mass into orbit than any single booster in history, surpassing Skylab’s S-1C.

  • Patrick Underwood
    March 14, 2021 at 10:44 am

    Thinking further, this means that, on the Artemis launch schedule, a single F9 S1 could put more payload up than SLS in the same time period!

  • Ray Van Dune
    March 14, 2021 at 1:12 pm

    And even more impressive, the SpaceX announcer was again that beautiful blonde lady engineer! Vaarroooom! She certainly ignites my interest!

  • Gary Hartman
    March 14, 2021 at 1:29 pm

    All this is fine to think about Man’s conquest of space. That being said, I am a star watcher, satellites travelling through low Earth space is annoying.

  • Jeff Wright
    March 14, 2021 at 5:05 pm

    That was why I liked the Orbital Antenna Farm concept.

  • Chris
    March 14, 2021 at 6:09 pm

    Hi bob,

    So I wonder if a satellite count is also appropriate? Perhaps by country or just the major communication webs.
    My suggestion centers around how far is SpaceX ahead of the next competitor or how many more satellites – that are active – is the US ahead or behind China or Russia?
    I am not sure where to find this data.

  • Robert Zimmerman
    March 14, 2021 at 6:21 pm

    Chris: My focus is the launch industry, something that for far too long was ignored by space and science reporters and experts. While what gets launched is of course of interest, I think it right now is more important to see who is gaining the ability to launch things, fast, efficiently, and at low cost.

    All else becomes irrelevant otherwise — as we have seen for the past fifty years.

    So, if you want to keep count of satellites, go for it. Another reader, LocalFluff, had started to add a count for payload, but has apparently stopped. All this requires work that I don’t have time for.

  • Chris
    March 14, 2021 at 6:36 pm

    Fully understood Bob

  • Jay
    March 14, 2021 at 6:47 pm

    Chris,
    A couple sites to check are: https://www.n2yo.com/database/ which you can sort by country and https://heavens-above.com/ I use these for tracking.

    If you are talking about competitors to the Starlink system- currently at 1197 operational satellites (6 have failed), Oneweb is the next closest with 110 satellites.

  • Jeff Wright
    March 15, 2021 at 3:30 am

    Thor/Delta iterations still holds a bit of a lead, except for R-7. Falcon is gaining on them.

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