Comments on: China now predicts more than 40 launches in 2020

By: Michael G. Gallagher

Michael G. Gallagher — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 07:43:26 +0000

Meanwhile, NASA continues its suicidal death hug with the SLS.

By: Mitch S

Mitch S — Sun, 05 Jan 2020 04:32:36 +0000

While any successful launch is an accomplishment, I think it might be interesting to track tonnage lofted (of course where it’s launched to is also a factor – it’s easier to get tonnage to LEO than geosynchronous).
After all is a Rocket Lab launch carrying a few small sats weighing 150kg in total, the same as a Falcon 9 lofting 15,000kg?

By: Dick Eagleson

Dick Eagleson — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 04:01:55 +0000

The Chinese have announced the intention of orbiting their own LEO Internet broadband constellation of 300 – 400 satellites. Initial launches toward this end may be part of the intended 40 or so launches planned for 2020.

By: David Eastman

David Eastman — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 18:29:50 +0000

I see over and over again pronouncements about how China is launching so much stuff and doing so awesome, without any recognition that many of their launches are the BeiDou constellation. The US had a lot of launch activity for GPS, and then the constellation was complete and launches fell off. I would expect the same from China, a bunch of launches this year to finish that constellation, and then those are done and they’ll be down to the occasional probe, satellite, or station mission.
They plan a decent number of those, but nothing like 30+ per year. Unless they have some kind of some other follow-on constellation that I haven’t heard about?