SpaceX launches 21 more Starlink satellites
SpaceX today successfully launched another 21 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its seventeenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
101 SpaceX
46 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 118 to 69, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 101 to 86.
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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.
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SpaceX today successfully launched another 21 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its seventeenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
101 SpaceX
46 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 118 to 69, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 101 to 86.
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.
So this week I saw a huge rocket launch a huge upper stage into orbit and then return to be caught by giant mechanical arms, to be eventually relaunched.
Then I saw the largest interplanetary probe ever launched head to Jupiter’s moon Europa, a possible abode of life.
And a fleet of cars with no human controls driving people around at a product demo.
And humanoid robots serving drinks at the same event.
And all this was created by the leadership of one man. One man that everyone else in my family hates.
And I knew every one of these things was coming, and was waiting for them. But virtually everyone I know was unaware of them… and still is!
”SpaceX today successfully launched another 21 Starlink satellites…”
20.
More importantly, this launch filled the 19th of 24 planes with direct-to-cell satellites. Only five more launches to go for the initial constellation, though two of those 19 planes are filled with six prototype direct-to-cell satellites each, so probably seven more launches.
I’m guessing they’ll be filled by the end of the year, so expect initial service to begin early next year.
When Elon makes all this stuff “free”, as there is no ongoing operational costs save manufacturing, setup, and launch, we’ll see what “happens”. Or something like this: “For only a one time setup fee of $1000, you have PERMANENT, forever, cellular/internet services to your device. I would be one of those people that camp out a week before the door opens kinda thing, like we did for playoffs/championships, Zep, and Floyd tix a long time ago….
Due to the fact that nothing lasts forever in LEO and also due to accounting, dont expext any one payment lifetime deals. Free emergency texts etc.