SpaceX launches 20 more Starlink satellites using a new first stage
SpaceX early this morning successfully launched another 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The first stage was new, having never flown before. It successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic, and is now part of the company’s fleet of Falcon 9 first stages.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
83 SpaceX
34 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 98 to 52, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 83 to 67.
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SpaceX early this morning successfully launched another 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The first stage was new, having never flown before. It successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic, and is now part of the company’s fleet of Falcon 9 first stages.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
83 SpaceX
34 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 98 to 52, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 83 to 67.
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.
Risky, flying a payload on a brand new, never flown booster. Good thing they have Starlink to fly these missions to reduce the risks before paying customers.
I think the use of the new first stage as a Starlink mission is genius. – it is a good thing. This allows SpaceX to get flight hardware from “new and untested” (no flights) to at least a single flight but on the Starlink ledger. – probably at full cost too.
They should build more–to add to the rotation
geoffc wrote: “Risky, flying a payload on a brand new, never flown booster. Good thing they have Starlink to fly these missions to reduce the risks before paying customers.”
Eight years ago it was thought that flying a used booster was the risky move.
”Risky, flying a payload on a brand new, never flown booster.”
The reason the first flight on this booster is risky is because SpaceX didn’t seal the booster properly during its delivery to Florida, and they suffered a water intrusion issue as a result. The preferred course of action would normally have been to use the next new booster in line, but SpaceX isn’t making new boosters fast enough for that anymore. So the next best thing is to take the damaged booster for a test flight before using it for crew.
Flying a Starlink flight first wasn’t the original plan. It’s just the best SpaceX can do right now. I suspect it will be plenty good enough.