SpaceX launches 21 Starlink satellites using Falcon 9
Using a Falcon 9 rocket with a first stage making its 15th flight, SpaceX early this morning launched 21 Starlink satellites, lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage landed successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific. SpaceX now has two first stages that have flown 16 times, and one that has flown 15 times. Those 47 flights like reduced the launch cost of those launches by about 70%. Since no other rocket company can do this, SpaceX can pocket the profits since it isn’t forced to lower prices as much as it would if it had some real competition.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
57 SpaceX
36 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
6 India
In the national rankings, American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 65 to 36. It also leads the entire world combined, 65 to 58. SpaceX by itself remains in a neck-in-neck race with the rest of the world (excluding American companies), trailing 57 to 58 in successful launches.
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 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
Using a Falcon 9 rocket with a first stage making its 15th flight, SpaceX early this morning launched 21 Starlink satellites, lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage landed successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific. SpaceX now has two first stages that have flown 16 times, and one that has flown 15 times. Those 47 flights like reduced the launch cost of those launches by about 70%. Since no other rocket company can do this, SpaceX can pocket the profits since it isn’t forced to lower prices as much as it would if it had some real competition.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
57 SpaceX
36 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
6 India
In the national rankings, American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 65 to 36. It also leads the entire world combined, 65 to 58. SpaceX by itself remains in a neck-in-neck race with the rest of the world (excluding American companies), trailing 57 to 58 in successful launches.
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 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
Strangely, there was no host, just a few Mission Control voices, which was more than adequate for viewers like me, and I’m sure most others here. On the other hand, SpaceX has a few very engaging hosts, like Kate Tice, who could be highly entertaining just reading a phone book. For those who remember what that was…
Ray Van Dune: I noticed the lack of announcer as well, and attributed it to the late hour the launch took place. The original launch time got delayed two hours, and I suspect that they decided there was no reason for that SpaceX employee to stick around.
I also suspect they might be thinking of eliminating the announcer entirely. The people doing it appear to be others at SpaceX who do it for fun (and probably a small pay bonus as well). Unless the launch is unique or important, having an announcer simply repeating what the launch crew is saying is likely unnecessary.
SpaceX could certainly eliminate the webcast emcees for Starlink launches. The script for these is entirely boilerplate with just a few specific stats to separate one such launch from another. Anyone who has watched a few of these can pretty much recite the script along with the presenter. The number of satellites launched, the number of missions for the booster and fairing halves, the name of the drone ship being landed upon, the name of the fairing recovery vessel deployed and the updated figures for successful booster landings and total SpaceX missions could be provided in an on-screen text box.
But SpaceX will retain emcees for the much longer webcasts attending customer missions as these are often unique. The customers get to write part of the script and also include promo videos about the payload and/or the customer organization that is buying the launch. All NASA missions will also continue to have SpaceX co-hosts partnered with NASA Public Affairs people if for no other reason than to somewhat moderate the otherwise excessively chirpy gee-whiz boosterism of the latter.
Kate Tice is now well up in SpaceX’s middle management cadre so her stints as a launch webcast emcee have dwindled to mainly the most high-profile missions. She has always been a natural “on-air” presence, the camera loves her and there are legions of long-time admirers – among which I very much count myself – who would happily watch extended coverage of Ms. Tice simply sitting in a chair and breathing. I suspect her next co-hosting gig is likely to be the upcoming Crew-7 launch webcast. After that, she will likely next be back for the Psyche mission launch in Oct.
I’d love to see more John Insprucker, but I suppose he is the same problem as Kate Tice: An important guy that’s harder to justify using his scarce tome to emcee less important launches that are happening basically twice a week now.
But pretty good odds we will see one or both in action for the Psyche launch in October, and probably also for the next Starship test launch, too.