SpaceX launches 21 more Starlink satellitesSpaceX last evening successfully placed another 21 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its eighteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
91 SpaceX
38 China
10 Rocket Lab
10 Russia
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 106 to 58, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 91 to 73.
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 last evening successfully placed another 21 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its eighteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
91 SpaceX
38 China
10 Rocket Lab
10 Russia
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 106 to 58, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 91 to 73.
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
Two launches and a space walk while FAA tries to put its pants on. Pretty much every dime SpaceX spends is spent in America. People who say he should move offshore ought to think about that.
The big news is that United dropped Geos for Starlink.
The Viasat Vampire has been staked.
I have much wondered why some Falcon 9 first stages land back at launch landing pads while others land on drone ships. Is this because of launch trajectory, payload mass or all of the above? Asking because ‘where’ affects costs of refurbishment of first stages for next mission(s).
M. Murcek,
Most of the people who hate Musk and wish him gone do so because they are self-involved lefties with defective mental processes high on baseless anger, envy and resentment. Don’t hold your breath waiting for them to actually think about much of anything – it hurts their widdle noggins.
Jeff Wright,
The replacement of Viasat by Starlink on United’s 1000-plus-plane fleet will be a process rather than an event, but, yes, the process has now started. That was a big win for SpaceX. I suspect more will be coming, and mostly at Viasat’s expense.
Peter Francis,
Your surmise is correct, it’s a matter of payload mass and/or orbital destination. The Starlink missions go to low orbits, but they’re also packing absolutely maximum load-outs so they need the drone ships to catch the boosters and the 2nd stages need the full-sized MVac engine bell. Missions with much lighter loads also need drone ship booster landings if they are going to sufficiently high orbits or are bound for deep space. A few fairly rare such missions even require a completely expendable Falcon 9 launch. Lighter payloads going to relatively low orbits can be launched with enough propellant in reserve to allow a return-to-launch-site (RTLS) landing on one of the LZs. Some such missions can even use the “shorty” Mvac engine bell which gives up a bit of performance in return for requiring only about 1/3 as much expensive alloy to fabricate.