SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites, flying its second booster for a 17th time
SpaceX tonight successfully launched 22 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral using a first stage booster flying for the seventeenth time.
The booster landed successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The company now has two boosters that have flown that many times, plus at least one that has flown fifteen times.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
67 SpaceX
43 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 78 to 43, and the entire world combined 78 to 69. SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) by only 67 to 69.
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SpaceX tonight successfully launched 22 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral using a first stage booster flying for the seventeenth time.
The booster landed successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The company now has two boosters that have flown that many times, plus at least one that has flown fifteen times.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
67 SpaceX
43 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 78 to 43, and the entire world combined 78 to 69. SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) by only 67 to 69.
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.
In addition to the numbers of flights, it might be interesting to look at payload mass put in orbit. I have a hunch (I don’t have the numbers) that while SpaceX may trail the world a bit on numbers, when it comes to mass they’re way, way ahead.
It’s wild to think that we’re only 11 days from the big (Falcon Heavy) launch of Psyche, and that’s not even the next Falcon launch. There are two Starlink launches scheduled ahead of it.
Richard M: If all goes as planned, based on the launches SpaceX has announced, that Falcon Heavy launch will be the company’s 70th in 2023, which will match the annual record of launches for the entire United States prior to 2022. In 1966 the U.S. completed 70 launches, and then didn’t beat that record until last year (mostly because of SpaceX).
If all goes as planned, based on the launches SpaceX has announced, that Falcon Heavy launch will be the company’s 70th in 2023, which will match the annual record of launches for the entire United States prior to 2022.
These SpaceX guys are getting pretty good at this, aren’t they?
In addition to the numbers of flights, it might be interesting to look at payload mass put in orbit.
BryceTech actually tracks that, globally, every quarter.
You can see their briefings here: https://brycetech.com/briefing
So, you can see that in 2Q 2023, SpaceX launched about 214,095 kg of spacecraft upmass in Q2, followed very distantly by CASC with about 23,069 kg. No one else even hit 10,000 kg.
About SuperHeavy and any flow problems:
https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/1.A35553
Lots of goodness here.
Elon reads Next Big Future, so I hear…
Richard M: thank you, and just as I thought.
Richard M noted: “These SpaceX guys are getting pretty good at this, aren’t they?”
They have to get good at it. SpaceX has to launch a very large number of Starlink-2 satellites in the next few years, and the delay of Starship means that a few hundred Falcons would be required to do it instead. Starship would be less expensive, and much faster, but they don’t have that option, yet.
Showoffs.
That is all they are anymore, just showoffs.