Russia’s Proton rocket launches weather satellite
Russia this morning used its Proton rocket to launch a weather satellite from Kazahkstan, successfully completing its first launch in 2023.
The 2023 launch race:
8 SpaceX
5 China
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan
1 Russia
American private enterprise still leads China 9 to 5 in the national rankings, and the entire globe combined 9 to 7.
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Russia this morning used its Proton rocket to launch a weather satellite from Kazahkstan, successfully completing its first launch in 2023.
The 2023 launch race:
8 SpaceX
5 China
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan
1 Russia
American private enterprise still leads China 9 to 5 in the national rankings, and the entire globe combined 9 to 7.
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
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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.
I wonder if China will attempt to catch SpaceX and the rest of the US this year? They did alright in 2022 but Musk is planning a lot of flights.
I do not think so.
China did everything possible last year just to beat Space X by one, and that included several “secret test vehicle” launches of very short lived low orbit satellites.
And a few were launched with their old solid fuel military rockets. ICBM launchers.
I just do not think they have the payloads to keep up with last years pace.
I was planning to watch a Starlink launch at 2:32 pm Pacific, and when I went to the link at Next Spaceflight, I saw it had been shifted to 5:32 pm, within the last few hours since I last checked! These last-minute several-hour shifts seem to have been happening a lot lately. Is SpaceX perhaps trying to keep someone off-balance?
Ray Van Dune: The launch today was never a Starlink launch. It was a launch putting up satellites for different customers. It was also supposed to launch yesterday but weather forced a scrub to today.
SpaceX needs to have weather right at both the launchpad and in the ocean where the 1st stage will land. It thus also requires it to be able to shift schedules fast and frequently in order to launch as much as it does. Thus, these frequent late changes are simply its normal way of doing business.