SpaceX launches 20 Starlink satellites
SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its sixth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
76 SpaceX
32 China
9 Rocket Lab
8 Russia
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 90 to 48, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 76 to 62.
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SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its sixth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
76 SpaceX
32 China
9 Rocket Lab
8 Russia
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 90 to 48, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 76 to 62.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Jan……10
Feb…….9
Mar…..13 (1 was IFT-3 of Starship/Super Heavy)
Apr…..12
May….13
June…12 (1 was IFT-4 of Starship/Super Heavy, 1 was Falcon Heavy)
July……5 (FAA stand down of two weeks)
Aug……2
Terry–
thanks for that.
And now another win in the launch column for SpaceX, with the NG-21 CRS mission now on its way to ISS today, beating a pretty dodgy weather situation at the Cape this morning… And a successful return to the launch site for the first stage, of course.
Next up: Starlink Group 8-3 on Wednesday, from SLC-40 at CCSFS.
To keep this pace up, they need more RTLS Missions. The time it takes to tow an ASDS out, then back is limiting launch rate. They have in port time down to a minimum now, but the tow time is hard to beat.
geoffc,
SpaceX seems to keep finding ways to shave time off of ASDS turnarounds. ASOG is partially self-propelled and turns around more quickly than JRTI. I think SpaceX might also be using more muscular tugs than previously (“You’re going to need a bigger boat!”).
In any event, August is shaping up to be a good month for RTLS missions. Four, and perhaps five, of the 14 missions scheduled for August are RTLS landings. The NG-21 mission, which just flew this morning, is the first of these. The Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission, due to launch from Vandy on the 11th might be the next. Other RTLS missions in the pipe for August are WorldView Legion 3 & 4 from SLC-40 on the 14th, Transporter 11 from Vandy on the 15th and Crew-9 from LC-39A on the 18th.
There is at least one RTLS mission scheduled for September. There is also a double Galileo deployment for the Europeans, which, if it follows the pattern of the previous such mission, will be an expended booster mission flown on one of the highest-mileage units in the stable. Not a landing, but at least there will be no ASDS turnaround involved either.