SpaceX launches 21 Starlink satellites
SpaceX tonight successfully launched 21 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Kennedy in Florida. Thirteen of the satellites were configured for direct-to-cell capabilities.
The first stage completed its fourteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
134 SpaceX
64 China
16 Russia
14 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 154 to 96, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 134 to 116.
Tonight’s launch was also the 250th worldwide in 2024, a record that approximately triples the average number of successful launches each year from 1957 to 2017, when SpaceX and China began to ramp up their launch counts.
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 tonight successfully launched 21 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Kennedy in Florida. Thirteen of the satellites were configured for direct-to-cell capabilities.
The first stage completed its fourteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
134 SpaceX
64 China
16 Russia
14 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 154 to 96, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 134 to 116.
Tonight’s launch was also the 250th worldwide in 2024, a record that approximately triples the average number of successful launches each year from 1957 to 2017, when SpaceX and China began to ramp up their launch counts.
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
I was disappointed at the coverage of the launch by the “NASASpaceFlight” crew, who normally do a pretty decent job.
They oohed-and-aahed over the interaction of the MVac exhaust and the booster post-MECO, but unfortunately the SpaceX video feed did not show it. When they had a chance to show their own reruns, they ignored it while indulging in rather tedious inside-baseball chatter. To be precise, I cut the stream after the third or fourth replay failed to include the post-MECO fireworks, and their commentary had devolved into discussion of a member’s birthday.
Lately I have noticed more frequent instances of the crew ignoring on-screen events while engaged in chatter, some of which is charming, but of late is a bit too much.
Time to tighten it up, guys!
Hi Bob, Rocketlab posted on X that they had 16 launches this year ..
https://x.com/RocketLab/status/1870507209521816020
Rocket Lab
@RocketLab
·
Dec 21
🚀 16 launches in 2024, a 60% YoY increase.
🚀 4 launches in the past 4 weeks (including 2 in less than 24 hours of each other).
🚀 100% mission success for the year.
Jeffrey R Roche: The company is counting its HASTE suborbital hypersonic test launches for the military. My count only includes orbital launches.
However, you remind me to mention this in my annual global launch report, summarizing the year, due to come out the first week in January.