China launches three classified satellites into orbit
China today successfully launched three classified satellites into orbit, its Long March 11 rocket lifting off from a barge off the coast of China in the South China Sea.
No information at all was released about the three satellites, other than they were “experimental.”
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
94 SpaceX
63 China
18 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 108 to 63, and the entire world combined 108 to 99. SpaceX in turn trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 94 to 99.
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China today successfully launched three classified satellites into orbit, its Long March 11 rocket lifting off from a barge off the coast of China in the South China Sea.
No information at all was released about the three satellites, other than they were “experimental.”
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
94 SpaceX
63 China
18 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 108 to 63, and the entire world combined 108 to 99. SpaceX in turn trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 94 to 99.
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.
The achievements of SpaceX continue to amaze. My only question: where is everyone else. Did all the other American companies only get 18 flights in all year? We need more flights from providers. SpaceX is close to having a monopoly on spaceflight and that could be a big problem later. I love what they are doing but they could start charging much more for flights and there really isn’t anything that could be done about it.
Joe: I intend to address your question about the overall lack of U.S. launches from everyone else in my annual global launch report, which I do after the year is complete.
There appear to be several reasons for the drop in U.S. launches by others, some expected, some not, some good, some bad.
One reason for the low launch rate from other U.S. companies is the loss of Virgin Orbit, which had planned half a dozen flights this year. It isn’t only the U.S. regulators who are stifling the growth of the space industry, the British regulators did not want to be left out of the growth-stifling game. Regulators have become a kind of gatekeeper for launch companies, being able to choose winners and losers, perhaps rewarding friends and punishing enemies, letting their greed for power corrupt their original regulatory purpose.
The need for other small satellite launchers is that each SpaceX Transporter launch puts many smallsats into virtually the same orbit, one of the popular sun synchronous orbits, but these orbits may not be optimal for all smallsats. The other small launchers can put their customers’ satellites into more optimal orbits. SpaceX’s Transporter launches are necessary, for without them we wouldn’t have much of a smallsat industry, but the Transporter launches are limited in their usefulness. This is a benefit of avoiding a SpaceX monopoly.
We certainly do not want SpaceX to replace the previous governmental launch monopoly with its own. When government was in charge of space launches, all we got launched was the intersection of what government’s gatekeepers allowed to be launched on the precious few available rockets and the payloads that could afford the high cost of the limited number of launches. If we replace that gatekeeper with SpaceX, then the only smallsats reaching their optimal orbits will be the ones that want the popular orbits, and launches will be limited to those times when SpaceX gets enough smallsat customers to justify a launch, and SpaceX would, by necessity, become a new type of gatekeeper. The Transporter launches are better than piggyback launches, but in some ways they have similar limitations. We definitely want launch services that specialize in small satellites.. We want more launch services specializing in larger payloads than we have now, just to keep SpaceX honest.
SpaceX’s Starlink is currently the most launched payload. Starlink is not a monopsony, as the government had virtually been for launch services, but it is not so far away from being one. It may be closing in on being the customer for almost a third of all orbital launches, this year, and I would be surprised if it wasn’t more than half the mass launched, this year.
Keep in mind that the purpose of the launch industry is to put useful hardware into orbit or beyond. The number of launches, exceeding 200 this year, indicates that we are getting more usefulness from space, and if the reentry gatekeepers will eventually allow it, we will begin getting products manufactured in space. This year, number of Starlink launches is somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 — I haven’t counted the actual number — so in this year there has been well over a hundred other launches of other useful hardware. The commercial space industry is growing, and it is not only the communication satellites that are useful to We the People. We are making tremendous progress, even though it is not as much or as fast as we had expected five years ago.