SpaceX completes two launches today
SpaceX successfully completed two Starlink launches today.
First, it placed 26 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage completed its fourteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
Next, it launched another 28 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The Falcon 9 first stage completed its eleventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
55 SpaceX
23 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 55 to 40.
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SpaceX successfully completed two Starlink launches today.
First, it placed 26 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage completed its fourteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
Next, it launched another 28 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The Falcon 9 first stage completed its eleventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
55 SpaceX
23 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 55 to 40.
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.
Oh come on someone must be excited about this. Its two launches in one day from one company.
” Its two launches in one day from one company.”
For one who grew up with the Space Age; an astonishing feat, but these days, not so much a feat, ss business as usual. The extraordinary becoming the mundane is Progress; the mundane as extraordinary is Magic, per Arthur C.
I am a bit worried with the recent static test of Starship…it seems to want to throw a nozzle like a horse can throw a shoe:)
Folks talk trash about buggy whip makers—but here is where old knowledge can make a comeback.
As engines have gotten more powerful, engineers and their products are increasingly separated…less physical interaction due to heat and especially hostile acoustics.
This might be where a Teslabot may be most helpful—as a Waldo.
One thing I might like to do via telepresence is simply to use a robot as a proxy where I could “feel” what’s going on.
NASCAR drivers have a good sensor—they’re backsides.
A good driver and/or mechanic can feel when something is amiss—I’d like for robot proxies t bring that back if possible.
pzatchok wrote: “Its two launches in one day from one company.”
I’m not sure that this is a first for SpaceX:
April 12: https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/spacex-completes-two-launches-today/
March 15: https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/four-more-launches-two-by-spacex-following-manned-launch/
January 10: https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/spacex-completes-two-launches-reusing-first-stage-a-record-number-of-times/