SpaceX launches 21 more Starlink satellites
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.
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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.
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.
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.