SpaceX launches 21 more Starlink satellites
SpaceX this morning successfully launched another 21 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its thirteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
93 SpaceX
39 China
11 Russia
10 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 108 to 61, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 93 to 76.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
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 this morning successfully launched another 21 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its thirteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
93 SpaceX
39 China
11 Russia
10 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 108 to 61, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 93 to 76.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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
Not sure if it is just my imagination, but I watch every F9 launch and landing, and it seems to me that the landings are getting more like near-bullseyes every time.
Ray–
Interesting observation.
In-general, do we know the mean circular error for these landings?
FWIW, Co-Pilot chat says it is 1-5 meters. This does not sound like a CEP value, but a typical range, and I could not find the data behind it, or any other reference.
For catching Superheavy, if we assume say 3 meters, and the diameter of the stage is 9 meters, this seems insufficiently accurate to avoid damaging the hull of the booster.
Could SpaceX have supplemental short-range guidance sensors built into the chopsticks? Looks like it might be needed.
Super Heavies, like F9 1st stages, have cold gas nitrogen thrusters to handle fine adjustments to vehicle position at the very low speeds and altitudes just before landing when the grid fins no longer have enough control authority.
Dick, thanks, didn’t know that they had those thrusters, but having them is one thing and having the precise location of the vehicle (to < 1 meter?) is another. That's what is concerning me.
Ray-
I’d modify my pondering, because these are guided landings, we just don’t know the fine tolerances involved.
As to precise location, do they use GPS or that ground based doppler stuff? (don’t know what it’s called)