SpaceX completes two launches today
SpaceX continued its relentless launch pace today, launching twice from opposite coasts.
First the company placed a National Reconnaissance Office surveillance satellite into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage completed its 24th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
Next SpaceX launched another 21 Starlink satellites, including 13 configured for direct-to-cell capabilities, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Kennedy in Florida. The first stage completed its 10th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
42 SpaceX
19 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 42 to 33.
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
SpaceX continued its relentless launch pace today, launching twice from opposite coasts.
First the company placed a National Reconnaissance Office surveillance satellite into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage completed its 24th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
Next SpaceX launched another 21 Starlink satellites, including 13 configured for direct-to-cell capabilities, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Kennedy in Florida. The first stage completed its 10th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
42 SpaceX
19 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 42 to 33.
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
Might be interesting to look at which boosters have boosted the most LEO mass-to-orbit (MTO) Falcon 9 has to be in the running.
Falcon 9 is probably the leader. It has flown 459 times. Over 400 of these have been Block 5s. The various derivatives of the Soviet R-7 have flown 1,119 times. The most numerous of these was the Soyuz-U which flew 765 times but is now retired. Maximum LEO throw weight, with booster recovery, for F9 B5 is about 17 metric tons. The corresponding figure for Soyuz-U, without recovery, is 6.9 metric tons. If every F9 had carried a B5 max payload to LEO, the total mass figure would be about 7,800 metric tons. Making the same assumption for Soyuz yields a total mass figure of about 7,700 metric tons.
Both of these numbers are considerable over-estimates. Early versions of F9 couldn’t loft 17 tonnes to LEO and most non-Starlink/Starshield F9 launches don’t carry maximum payloads. Many of the less numerous versions of Soyuz than the Soyuz-U were also incapable of launching 6.9 tonnes to LEO. But more than half of F9 B5 launches have been Starlink missions and they always carry close to maximum payloads. The proportion of all Soyuz models that carried max or near-max payloads is probably less.
Therefore, F9 is most likely the mass leader now, but it would take a detailed audit of launch records I have no intention of doing to get a better idea of the actual relative standings of F9 and the R-7 family.
One can say, confidently, that even if F9 is not quite the total payload mass leader yet, it certainly soon will be and will likely retain that title until Starship gets up to speed. That is because the versions of R-7 currently in service launch only at a small fraction of the cadence of F9 and F9 will remain in service for some years yet.
Saw the end of the boost phase of the NROL launch from Baja California Sur. A whitish whisk-broom speeding along in the early dawn, and I mean speeding! Because it was well out over the Pacific at this point, it appeared low in the western sky, enhancing the impression of its velocity just prior to attaining orbit.
I don’t think we even have payload mass details on all of the milsats that Soyuz-U launched; and if so, an exact calculation may not even be possible.
I’m sure you are correct about that. The Soviets classified nearly everything back in the day and the present-day Russians aren’t a lot better. Come to that, the NRO, in particular, isn’t exactly what you’d call chatty about the specs of its spooksats either. I strongly suspect the F9 is the launch mass leader now by at least 1,000 tonnes – and continuing to build its lead – but I don’t ever expect to be able to nail down the details.
Oh, just to be clear: I think you are probably right that Falcon 9 is the all-time mass leader now. We may not know precise numbers, but we can make a reasonable projection, or range of projections.
Alejandro at NASASpaceFlight yesterday had a nice overview of where SpaceX is now in mid-April, and where the current trendline might put them by the end of 2025. Short version: they are behind where they hoped to be, but definitely on track to do a good deal better than they did in 2024. And, it goes without saying, way, way ahead of anyone else.
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2025/04/spacex-roundup-q12025/
Right now, it looks as though the Falcon launch total will be 48 by the end of April. That’s an annualized rate of 144 so no cadence progress relative to Q1. With both SLC-40 in FL and SLC-4E in CA now turnable in 2.5 – 3 days, the limiting factor on cadence is now probably drone ship cycle time. I’m not sure how much that can be improved.
Overall, I expect SpaceX to improve on last year’s Falcon launch total by maybe two dozen. That would be short of 170 and even short of 160. To achieve 180 or more Falcon launches per year I think SLC-6 at Vandy needs to be brought into service along with a second west coast drone ship. I suspect those additions to capability will not be achieved until next year though I would love to be wrong about that.