China and SpaceX complete launches
Both China and SpaceX successfully completed launches today.
First, China completed the first launch of its Long March 8A rocket, an upgraded and more powerful version of its Long March 8 rocket. The rocket lifted off from China’s coastal Wencheng spaceport, and put the second batch (number unrevealed) of one of China’s new mega internet constellations.
Along with the basic Long March-8 model and the booster-free tandem configuration, it forms the Long March 8 series of rockets, providing a payload capacity range of 3 tons, 5 tons, and 7 tons to SSO. This significantly enhances China’s satellite networking capabilities for low and medium Earth orbits.
These rockets and the coastal spaceport will also allow China to steadily reduce its reliance on its older family of rockets that use toxic hypergolic fuels and launch from within China.
Next SpaceX launched another 21 Starliink satellites, including 13 with direct-to-cell capabilities, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The first stage completed its 18th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The 2025 launch race:
19 SpaceX
7 China
1 Blue Origin
1 India
1 Japan
1 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
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Both China and SpaceX successfully completed launches today.
First, China completed the first launch of its Long March 8A rocket, an upgraded and more powerful version of its Long March 8 rocket. The rocket lifted off from China’s coastal Wencheng spaceport, and put the second batch (number unrevealed) of one of China’s new mega internet constellations.
Along with the basic Long March-8 model and the booster-free tandem configuration, it forms the Long March 8 series of rockets, providing a payload capacity range of 3 tons, 5 tons, and 7 tons to SSO. This significantly enhances China’s satellite networking capabilities for low and medium Earth orbits.
These rockets and the coastal spaceport will also allow China to steadily reduce its reliance on its older family of rockets that use toxic hypergolic fuels and launch from within China.
Next SpaceX launched another 21 Starliink satellites, including 13 with direct-to-cell capabilities, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The first stage completed its 18th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The 2025 launch race:
19 SpaceX
7 China
1 Blue Origin
1 India
1 Japan
1 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
With reusability, Musk is saving and spend money very wisely. The way democrat lawfare against President Trump is going right now, look for a liberal judge to try to force Musk not to reuse rockets so much. It’s right out of Atlas Shrugged. I can just hear the liberal judges “Institutional waste, fraud and abuse must be preserved”
Institutional waste? We have so much of it even other countries are enjoying the benefits of free money baked into the institutional money laundering…
A soundbite from Tucker Carlson who just got back from the Alps and guess what he saw? 30 seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h2CYnOE1OU4