Musk tweets that SpaceX wants to complete 100 launches in 2023
Capitalism in space: Elon Musk yesterday tweeted that SpaceX’ is now planning to attempt about 100 launches next year, which will almost double its expected output this year.
To get some perspective of this goal, 100 launches in a single year would be more launches than the entire world completed each year from 1991 (after the fall of the Soviet Union) through 2017 (before the recent resurgence of American commercial rocketry).
This decision probably relates to getting SpaceX’s Starlink constellation operational. Musk had hoped to begin Starship launches of Starlink soon, and now likely recognizes that such launches are probably more than a year away. Moreover, this year SpaceX engineers have demonstrated that the Falcon 9 can launch a lot of these satellites. So far in 2022 it has launched about 50 Starlink satellites per launch, and done so about 25 times. That’s 1,250 satellites in a little more than half a year. With a 100 launches, Falcon 9 could launch about 5,000 satellites alone next year, a pace that will certainly be sufficient in the short run to get Starlink operational.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
Capitalism in space: Elon Musk yesterday tweeted that SpaceX’ is now planning to attempt about 100 launches next year, which will almost double its expected output this year.
To get some perspective of this goal, 100 launches in a single year would be more launches than the entire world completed each year from 1991 (after the fall of the Soviet Union) through 2017 (before the recent resurgence of American commercial rocketry).
This decision probably relates to getting SpaceX’s Starlink constellation operational. Musk had hoped to begin Starship launches of Starlink soon, and now likely recognizes that such launches are probably more than a year away. Moreover, this year SpaceX engineers have demonstrated that the Falcon 9 can launch a lot of these satellites. So far in 2022 it has launched about 50 Starlink satellites per launch, and done so about 25 times. That’s 1,250 satellites in a little more than half a year. With a 100 launches, Falcon 9 could launch about 5,000 satellites alone next year, a pace that will certainly be sufficient in the short run to get Starlink operational.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
At what point will Musk be morally limited by the Globalists / Green New Deal / Climate Change Enviro nut worshipers from launching?
“Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship SN15 released 358 tonnes of CO2 during its first complete high-altitude flight on 5 May. This emissions total is the same amount that 4.6 million people in the UK released in the same time period, according to data we sourced from Everyday Astronaut and the Office for National Statistics.”
Is Musk in the process of pacifying the enviro religious nuts and hedging his launches with his building of electric vehicles and justifying the one with the other? Hmmmm.
Is the first comment a joke or snarc?
Only a few articles ago it’s noted that CO2 (carbon dioxide) can be made into Oxygen, even on Mars.
who knew?
(yes snarc)
carbon credits.
Nope, dead serious.
At some point all of that carbon being pumped into the earth’s atmosphere has to become a problem for Musk.
How can you “Save” the entire planet earth from “Climate Change” if you are adding hundreds of tons carbon that equals the carbon footprint of 4 plus million people per shot?
Make electric cars as a “Carbon Credit” counterbalance?
Has Musk been that far ahead in strategy where the one, electric cars, will allow him in the eyes of the politically correct enviro activists to counterbalance the other?
The optics of it all.
But But…Butt!
India adding one new coal fired power plant every three months……
In the last several years they have added five new power plants using biomass . .wood dung cattle chicken Duck ??.
China has since 2010, added one new coal plant a week. With 220 more fully approved, on their way at the same rate till at least 2060.
Toyota and FoxCon have closed their Mainland factories…. drought has almost drained the Yangtze river — hydro power plants stopped. iPhones and iPads most affected along with the poor…….
USA Closed 10 coal plants from November 2021 to May 2022. Since 2010 an additional 290 Coal Power Stations.
Europe shuttered 190 more Coal Power Units.
From Google Answers:
At the end of 2021, the United States had 93 operating commercial nuclear reactors at 55 nuclear power plants in 28 states.
Apr 18, 2022
A lot of Starlink launches will be in there. But they’ve also had to take on commercial launches jilted by (or otherwise impeded by) the Russians, too…
Falcon is a mature enough system that Musk can push things a bit.
Starship/SuperHeavy has to be babied.
Robert wrote: “With a 100 launches, Falcon 9 could launch about 5,000 satellites alone next year, a pace that will certainly be sufficient in the short run to get Starlink operational.”
This should do for the current version of Starlink satellites. However, the next version of satellites is heavier than the current version, so when SpaceX starts launching those, each Falcon 9 will not be able to take 50 to orbit but fewer than 20 per launch (probably no more than 18), and this assumes that this many will fit inside the fairing.
100 launches gets fewer than 2,000 next-version satellites, and they need close to eight times as many more than that in the next two or three years. Starship is needed sooner, not later. Government sure knows how to put the squeeze on companies it disfavors. You would think that the people in the government are punishing enemies and that SpaceX became an enemy.